|
| Former Marine Cpl. Eddie Ray Routh stands during his capital murder trial at the Erath County, Donald R. Jones Justice Center in Stephenville Texas, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. Routh, 27, of Lancaster, is charged with the 2013 deaths of Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range near Glen Rose, Texas. |
STEPHENVILLE,
Texas (AP) -- The former Marine convicted of killing "American
Sniper" author Chris Kyle and another man was hospitalized multiple
times for psychiatric treatment and was prescribed medication to treat
schizophrenia. He spoke of pig-human hybrids and the apocalypse and was
described by Kyle himself as "straight-up nuts."
But
jurors found the insanity defense for Eddie Ray Routh failed to meet
the legal threshold: a mental illness so severe he didn't know right
from wrong. His case illustrates the difficulty of succeeding with such a
defense at a time when a Colorado court is preparing to hear similar
arguments in the trial over a movie theater shooting in which 12 people
were killed.
"The insanity defense is very
rare, and it's even rarer that a defendant wins it," said George Dix, a
law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
He
said when a brutal crime is committed it's difficult to convince a jury
the person accused doesn't "deserve the condemnation that comes from a
finding of guilty." He added, "And here, we've got him causing the death
of an American hero."
Kyle, a former Navy
SEAL sniper, volunteered with veterans facing mental health problems
after he left the military. A blockbuster film based on his memoir about
his four tours in Iraq contributed to intense interest in the case.
Legal
experts say a defense attorney's task to convince a jury that a client
is legally insane is even more difficult in cases like that of Routh,
who confessed to killing the men, apologized to the family and fled from
police.
"If someone is admitting that they
committed the murder, it's a pretty tough burden to get a jury to say,
`Let's excuse him anyway,'" said Dallas defense attorney Michael Snipes.
Kyle
and his friend, Chad Littlefield, were killed after taking Routh to a
shooting range on Feb. 2, 2013. Routh's mother had asked Kyle if he
could help her son, who she said had suffered from post-traumatic stress
disorder after serving in Iraq and Haiti.
But
the focus of the trial was not PTSD. Routh's attorneys said he suffered
from schizophrenia and was having a psychotic episode at the time of
the shootings, and noted that Kyle described Routh as "straight-up nuts"
in a text message to Littlefield as they drove to the range.
Prosecutors painted the 27-year-old as a troubled drug user who nonetheless knew right from wrong.
A
psychologist testifying for prosecutors said Routh was not legally
insane but had a paranoid disorder made worse by his use of alcohol and
marijuana. In contrast, a psychiatrist testifying for the defense said
Routh had schizophrenia and had described seeing neighbors and friends
turning into pig-human hybrids.
Snipes said that ultimately, experts cancel each other out in the minds of jurors, who instead look at the defendant's actions.
Juror
Barrett Hutchinson told ABC's "Good Morning America" they were not
convinced by the claim that Routh was having a psychotic episode. "He
knew the consequences of pulling the trigger," Hutchinson said.
The defense plans an appeal, but Routh's attorney J. Warren St. John said he's not yet ready to discuss specifics.
The
jury had three options: find Routh guilty of capital murder, find him
not guilty or find him not guilty by reason of insanity. With the
conviction, Routh received an automatic sentence of life in prison
without parole.
Under a finding of not guilty
by reason of insanity, Routh would have faced up to life in a state
mental hospital. Experts say he would have had the possibility of
release only if the state could no longer establish that he had a severe
mental illness and was likely to harm another person if he didn't
receive inpatient treatment.
But jurors
couldn't be told the potential consequences of that finding, a
stipulation St. John called a hurdle.
Houston defense attorney George
Parnham, who was not involved in the case, said it lets jurors assume
such a verdict could mean the defendant "will ride down the elevator"
with them.
Parnham represented Andrea Yates,
the Houston-area woman convicted of drowning her five young children
before being retried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. Yates
is now in a minimum security state mental hospital.
He
said that for the retrial, the defense focused less on mental health
records and experts and more on getting jurors to see into the mind of
the woman who Parnham said drowned her children because she thought that
if she didn't they would be taken by Satan.
In
Colorado, jurors are now being selected to hear the case against James
Holmes, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to killing 12
people and injuring 70 in a 2012 attack at a suburban Denver theater.
As
in Texas, Colorado law defines insanity as the inability to tell right
from wrong - specifically because of a mental disease or defect. But
Colorado is one of only a few states that puts the burden of proving
sanity on the prosecution. Once a judge allows someone to plead not
guilty by reason of insanity, prosecutors must convince the jury the
defendant was sane.
