CrimLaw

Malvo:

(1) The Mental Testimony:

The Defense witnesses finally testified that Malvo didn't know the difference between right and wrong. Both doctors zeroed in on the constant sketching which Malvo has done throughout the trial:

Dr. Diane Schetky testified that she believes Malvo, 18, suffered a dissociative disorder characterized as "a disruption of the normal integrative functions" of the brain.
. . .
Schetky also said Malvo still does not fully appreciate the gravity of the consequences for the crimes. "He's sitting there doodling like a child in pre-school," she testified.

Malvo, who appeared to be sketching on a yellow legal pad while seated at the defense table, looked up for several seconds, then returned to drawing.

The second psychiatrist testified that:

Unable to distinguish between right and wrong, Lee Boyd Malvo met the standard for being legally insane when he participated in last year's deadly sniper rampage.

"From Day One, I thought he met the legal criteria for being legally insane in Virginia," Dr. Neil Blumberg told the jurors in the capital murder trial.

Blumberg said that Malvo had a mental disease that made him "unable to distinguish right from wrong and was unable to resist the impulse to commit the offense." Those are two of the tests for legal insanity as it is defined in Virginia.

The psychiatrist was the second to take the stand Wednesday to tell jurors that the Jamaican-born teen-ager had lost his sense of what is right. Blumberg diagnosed the youth as suffering from an unspecified "dissociative disorder," depression and a "conduct disorder."

But he believes the dysfunction was because of brainwashing by his alleged accomplice, convicted killer John Allen Muhammad. A Virginia Beach jury recommended a death sentence for Muhammad.

Blumberg, who said he is being paid about $42,500 by the state of Maryland for his evaluation of Malvo, said the disorder and brainwashing allowed the teen-ager to snuff out his feelings and take part in shooting after shooting, all for Muhammad's "righteous cause."

Even as Blumberg spoke, Malvo furiously doodled on a pad, as he has for most of the trial, alternating between looking up at the subject of his sketches and hunching over the defense table to draw.

The manic sketching, Blumberg said, was an example of dissociation, of Malvo blocking out the unpleasantness of a trial that could lead to his execution.

"This is a technique whereby he doesn't even have to think about what is going on here," Blumberg said. "What's going on here is he is being tried for murder, and he faces the death penalty. And the way he deals with that is focusing on his drawings, keeping his mind elsewhere."

Schetky explained that

Malvo "was merged with Mr Muhammad. He was acting as his proxy. He was like a puppet in his hands."
. . .
Asked by defence lawyer Craig Cooley if Malvo was able to distinguish right from wrong - the legal standard for insanity in Virginia - Schetky said, "I believe he was not."

She also testified that "Malvo 'displayed a pathological loyalty to Muhammad' and confessed to being the triggerman in the killings when police suggested that the shooter would be the one who took the rap for the crimes."

On cross it looks like the prosecutor lost some points when he, yet again, hammered away at his assertion that this is not a mental illness:

Mr. Horan's cross-examinations yesterday aimed to undermine the psychiatrists' diagnoses. He showed the jury the entry for disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Society and pointed out the absence of a list of symptoms, such as those found with other mental diseases.
The psychiatrists said that many broad categories in the manual, such as depression, have entries for "not otherwise specified" conditions that don't fit specific maladies but nevertheless represent legitimate mental disorders.

But he probably gained some major points in this exchange about the first person Malvo killed:

Mr. Horan noted many of the shootings, focusing on the eight that Mr. Malvo confessed to during police interrogation, and asked the psychiatrists whether the sniper suspect knew his actions were wrong.

When Dr. Blumberg or Dr. Schetky said they didn't discuss with the defendant a particular shooting, Mr. Horan often asked, "You didn't think it was important if he thought it was wrong?"

That line of questioning led Dr. Schetky to describe how the teenager was emotionally wracked when he fatally shot Keenya Cook, 21, in the face as she opened the door of her home in Tacoma, Wash. The Feb. 16, 2002, shooting served as a training exercise for Mr. Malvo, according to testimony.

Dr. Schetky said the sniper suspect was shaking and soiled his pants after he shot Miss Cook, reactions that he hid from Muhammad.

Mr. Horan asked whether that meant he knew it was wrong to shoot Miss Cook.

"He felt he didn't have a choice," she said.

Mr. Horan asked repeatedly whether the teenager knew it was wrong. Dr. Schetky said he had "misgivings."

"So, he knew it was wrong, but he decided to do it anyway?" said Mr. Horan.

Dr. Schetky said yes.

The second psychiatrist came to a slightly different conclusion:

The killing of the woman, Keenya Cook, was the first murder he explored in detail with Malvo, he testified.

Muhammad told him about the mission only three hours earlier, Malvo told him.

“He said he was a afraid to say he couldn’t do it,” Blumberg testified, “afraid Muhammad wouldn’t want him around.”

Malvo was dropped off, went to the door and talked with Cook. She was the niece of a former bookkeeper who had testified against Muhammad in a child-custody dispute in which he lost custody of his three children.

“The victim was friendly,” Blumberg said, “then he pulled out a .45 and shot her once in the head.”

He ran, in a panic, stripped off his outer layer of clothes and called Muhammad over a walkie-talkie, the psychiatrist said.

“As he was doing this he said he was only focusing on what he was going to do. Trying to control his emotions,” Blumberg said.

Malvo relied on extensive training by Muhammad, Blumberg said, that capitalized on a natural tendency of the formerly abused child to zone out on his emotions.

(2) This article about the role of Islam in these crimes has been making its rounds in papers and on the net.

(3) This page has all the paperwork and exhibits online for your viewing (including the Defense exhibits of Malvo's sketches).