Chapter 26
“He’s not a damn bit crazier than I am.”
A few days after Hayward Bissell left Alabama to begin serving his sentence in a Georgia prison, officers and jailers stood outside the back door of the DeKalb County Jail swapping stories about their dealings with him and speculating on whether or not he was really as mentally ill as he had sometimes appeared to be.
“Why, hell,” one of the deputies said, “he’s not a damn bit crazier than I am.”
The deputy’s colleagues ribbed him unmercifully for that comment, but in all seriousness, there continued to be questions in the minds of all those who had dealt with Bissell during his time in their custody.
If it had been determined that Bissell killed Patricia Booher just over the state line into Alabama, how different might the outcome of his case have been? Could he have been found not guilty by reason of insanity?
The insanity defense has been around since the mid-1800s, when a man who attempted to assassinate the British prime minister was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Currently, less than 1 percent of criminal defendants have used insanity defenses, and very few are found not guilty. Most of those few, however, have ended up spending far less time in mental institutions than they would have spent in prison, had they been convicted without the insanity plea being involved.
At least twenty states, including Georgia, have adopted the plea of guilty but mentally ill as an alternative for defendants who have clearly committed the crimes they are accused of, are obviously mentally ill, but are not ill enough to excuse their crimes.
Those found guilty but mentally ill are required to serve out their sentences whether or not they are pronounced “cured” by their treating psychiatrists. If they had been found not guilty by reason of insanity, however, they would have been released from commitment in a mental institution as soon as they were deemed no longer to be a threat to society.
Some critics of the plea believe there are too many differences in available mental-health treatment from one jail or prison to another, and defendants may not actually receive the treatment they need while serving their time. Others feel the verdict of guilty but insane guarantees the defendant will get the help they need while paying the debt they owe to society for the crimes they have committed.
The trial of John Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, did a great deal to draw public criticism of the insanity defense. People were outraged when Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, despite the overwhelming proof of premeditation of the crime. People feared that those found not guilty of violent crimes by reason of insanity could conceivably be released too soon from the institutions in which they were confined. Then, back on the streets and once again a part of society, they might pose a threat to the safety of the public.
After the Hinckley trial, twelve states adopted the verdict of guilty but mentally ill, nine states limited the substantive test of insanity, and five states abolished the insanity defense completely. In those states that still recognize the insanity defense, the burden of proof is now placed upon the defendant, who must persuade the jury of his insanity at the time the crime was committed.
In insanity cases, the jury must decide whether the defendant was able to differentiate right from wrong, and whether he chose intentionally to break the law or was mentally incapable of making the choice. In the case of Andrea Yates, the Houston, Texas, mother who drowned her five children, psychiatrists said she acted in the belief that her children only could be saved from Satan by taking their lives. She felt she had been a poor mother and the children were destined for hell unless she killed them. Despite a long, well-documented history of mental illness, including treatment for schizophrenia, postpartum depression and psychosis, the jury found Yates guilty. She received a life sentence, and is currently serving that sentence while she receives psychiatric treatment.
Doctors say Yates may have realized killing her children was illegal, but her illness caused her to believe that drowning them was the right thing to do. She is reportedly improving, and with that improvement comes an increased realization of what she has done. At the time of her sentencing, she said in a handwritten note, “I regret that this illness brought me to a place where I was capable of killing my own children.”
If Hayward Bissell was faking his mental illness in an effort to escape punishment, his effort failed. He, too, will spend the rest of his life in prison; for this time, his “get out of jail free” card had reached its limit. His “crazy papers” didn’t keep him out of trouble.
Malingering is defined by the psychological community as faking a psychological or physical problem to avoid a responsibility, pretending to have a symptom or disorder to avoid an unwanted situation, or intentionally producing symptoms to evade consequences.
If Bissell was not malingering and was really insane at the time of his crimes, and has since responded well to treatment, he will still be locked up for the entirety of his life sentence. But he will face a far greater punishment than going to prison; he will have to live with the realization of what he did to the young woman who loved him and was carrying his unborn child. The guilt that Hayward Bissell must bear for his actions will leave him trapped in a private hell from which he can never escape.