-Caveat Lector- http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87%257E11268%257E862264,00.html
Article Last Updated: Monday, September 16, 2002 - 2:58:28 AM MST Man given death for County murders may not die Judge who sentenced Dunkle finds he's too deranged to assist in appeals, gives him guardian By Maura Dolan Los Angeles Times A death row inmate who claims there is a computer in his head and a telephone in his shoulder is so mentally ill that the California Supreme Court has appointed a legal guardian for him. The appointment, quietly made by the Supreme Court in a closed conference, is unprecedented in California and may affect whether the inmate can eventually be executed. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute the insane. The court appointed a guardian for Jon Scott Dunkle, 41, on the advice of a Superior Court judge whom it had asked to determine his current mental state. That judge, who found Dunkle mentally incompetent, had presided over Dunkle's 1989 murder trial and sentenced him to death -- despite the defendant's repeated commitments to a mental hospital and defense attorneys' contentions that he frequently lost touch with reality. Dunkle, who was convicted of murdering three boys -- two in San Mateo County, is so deranged that he cannot fully understand the nature of his legal appeals or assist his lawyers, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Judith Whitmer Kozloski reported to the California Supreme Court in March 2000. The Supreme Court gave Dunkle a guardian this summer so his medical and school records could be obtained by his defense lawyers without his consent. The appointment raises questions about whether Dunkle, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was really ever sane enough to stand trial for his crimes and whether he will ever be stable enough to be executed. "We think we have the craziest client on the row," said Michael B. Dashjian, one of Dunkle's lawyers. The court's action in the case is expected to result in more petitions for guardians from other mentally ill death row inmates. A legal finding that a condemned prisoner is mentally incompetent can help defense lawyers build a case against execution. "If a person is really crazy, he shouldn't be tried, let alone be convicted," Dashjian said. "We certainly believe that Jon Dunkle never should have been tried." Court records and transcripts of interviews with psychiatrists depict Dunkle as a man who can express a coherent thought in one breath and burst into gibberish the next. Absorbed by his own hallucinations, Dunkle wants neither a radio nor a television in his cell. He is frequently filthy. When asked by a San Quentin psychiatrist in 1998 why he banged his head against the wall, Dunkle said: "I wasn't getting along with the computer inside me." He told another psychiatrist that he was being medicated because "the computers, they are getting arrested. The technicians, they are making people smaller. Five inches tall. The CIA is doing it." Faced with a client who psychiatrists say hears voices and suffers delusions, defense lawyers told the California Supreme Court in 1996 that Dunkle was too unsound to assist in preparing a constitutional challenge to his death sentence. The court appointed Kozloski, who had sentenced Dunkle to death in 1990, to hear testimony to determine his current mental condition. She presided over his 1989 trial for the murders of the two boys in San Mateo County. Fifteen-year-old John Davies was murdered in 1981, and 12-year-old Lance Turner was murdered October 1984 in the Belmont Hills. Kozloski believed that Dunkle was faking mental illness. A jury found him mentally competent at the time, even though he was often incoherent and insisted at one point that his first trial lawyer had murdered a highway patrolman. Kozloski's change of heart came reluctantly. "I have to say that I would like to find Mr. Dunkle competent, because I think what he did is so horrible that he should suffer whatever consequences have been meted out to him," Kozloski said in court. "But I honestly cannot say I think he is competent." Deputy Attorney General Rene Chacon, who is representing the prosecution in Dunkle's appeals, did not object to Kozloski's finding of current mental incompetence. He called her decision reasonable. Asked whether the inmate will ever be sane enough to be executed, Chacon said: "In California, you can't execute a mentally incompetent person, and the guy cycles back and forth, so I don't know." (Begin optional trim) He acknowledged that the appointment of a guardian has given defense lawyers more ammunition to overturn Dunkle's death sentence on the grounds that he also was mentally incompetent when he was tried for murder. A person is deemed incompetent if he or she cannot understand the nature of the legal proceedings and cannot cooperate with lawyers. But Chacon said the appointment of a guardian also serves the prosecution, because it will expedite the legal proceedings and the production of a habeas corpus petition. The California Department of Corrections has been giving Dunkle antipsychotic medication against his will since 1996. (End optional trim) Kozloski believes that Dunkle's mental state has deteriorated since his murder trial. And in reviewing his mental status for the state high court, she gave no indication that she thought she had erred by sentencing a mentally incompetent man to death. When a prosecutor insisted that Dunkle's condition was essentially the same as when he was found competent to stand trial for murder 10 years earlier, Kozloski objected. "I see a qualitative difference between his 1989 ability," she said during a hearing Nov. 3, 1999. Semel said the legal threshold for competency to stand trial "is so invariably low that it repeatedly allows people who cannot meaningfully assist their lawyers to go forward to trial." In Dunkle's case, the jury that found him competent to stand trial knew that he was charged with murdering two boys in San Mateo County and a third in Sacramento. Dunkle had confessed to his crimes and led police to Davies' body in Edgewood Park near Redwood City. All but one mental health expert who interviewed him before his competency hearing in the summer of 1989 concluded that he had a major mental illness, according to his appeal. While housed in a county jail in San Mateo County before and during his trial, Dunkle had several psychotic breakdowns. In May 1987, officials said he was hallucinating and wanted to kill himself and have his body displayed in front of the jail. He said that would prevent the building from being blown up. By the time Dunkle was sentenced in 1990, he had been sent from the jail to a mental hospital five times, Dashjian said. "He would leave court and go back to the mental health facility," Dashjian said. During one court proceeding, "he was completely off the wall, ranting and waving and saying the most incomprehensible word salad." Dunkle's lawyers are not sure when his mental illness began, even though they have interviewed members of his family. He could not function well in elementary school, and reports indicated that he had learning disabilities. At the age of 22, he was admitted to a hospital because he injected bacon grease into his penis in an attempt to enhance its size. Besides the death sentence for the two murders in San Mateo County, Dunkle is serving life without the possibility of parole for the fatal stabbing of a 12-year-old boy in Sacramento. He was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in Sacramento in March 1993 and was committed to Atascadero State Hospital. A judge later decided he was sane enough to plead guilty while he was under medication. (End optional trim) If Dunkle loses his appeals, he still may escape execution if his lawyers can show that he does not understand that he will be put to death and the reasons for it. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that it is cruel and unusual to execute a prisoner who is insane. Dunkle would then probably spend the rest of his life either in prison or in a state hospital for the criminally insane. ===== http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/the_news_local_news/article/0,1651,TCP_1028_1430798,00.html Mother won't get death if guilty of murder The prosecution has ruled out seeking the death penalty for Jennifer Cisowski, who is accused of killing her infant son. By Melissa E. Holsman staff writer September 21, 2002 STUART The Connecticut woman charged in the 2001 slaying of her infant son at an exclusive Palm City home will not face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder, state prosecutors said Friday. Jennifer Cisowski, 22, a Marlborough, Conn., resident, was arrested Aug. 14, after deputies responded to a pre-dawn 911 call and found her 8-month-old son, Gideon Fusscas, dead. Since then, she's been held in the Martin County jail, charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. Investigators say Cisowski has admitted throwing her infant son down a flight of stairs and to the ground numerous times because an "inner voice" told her to test her faith in God. At the time, she was visiting her mother's home in the Crane Creek subdivision of Martin Downs. According to court papers, two mental health experts hired by defense attorneys have found that she was insane at the time of the killing. On Friday, Assistant State Attorney Robert Belanger, who is prosecuting the case with Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl, said mitigating circumstances in Cisowski's case outweigh statutory "aggravators," which must be present to seek the death penalty. "While we don't believe that the psychiatric evidence presented thus far amounts to a complete legal defense of insanity, it certainly could constitute mitigation which would counsel against the death penalty," Belanger said. Cisowski's attorney, Richard Lubin of West Palm Beach, declined to elaborate on the decision, but said the announcement was expected. "I'm pleased but not surprised that the state is not going to seek the death penalty," Lubin said. "Because under Florida law, this is most certainly not a death penalty case." In March, Lubin filed papers indicating Cisowski plans to rely on a defense of legal insanity at her trial. Normally, a decision to seek the death penalty must be made within 45 days after an indictment. But Belanger said unique factors in the case led prosecutors to take several months to make the decision. "When you've got a case like this, with a mother killing her child and a possible mental health defense, it would be utterly foolish to try to make a decision as serious and weighty as the death penalty because of some artificial deadline," he said. In reviewing Cisowski's case, he said, at least two statutory aggravators were identified both related to the victim's age. But so were a number of mitigators that tipped the scale away from capital punishment. "One aggravator that would apply is that it was a capital felony that was committed while the defendant was engaged in ... aggravated child abuse," said Belanger. "Essentially, any time a child is killed, you almost always get two aggravators: The death is part of aggravated child abuse and .. is the victim is less than 12 years old." Belanger said Cisowski had several "statutory mitigators," weigh in her favor, such as no significant history of prior criminal activity, and that "the capital felony was committed while she was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance." "No one is denying that there is a mental health component to this case. The difference between the defense and the prosecution is going to boil down to: is her mental health condition sufficient to establish the defense of insanity, which is a pretty high threshold," Belanger said. "But even if it's insufficient to establish insanity, there's still evidence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance." Belanger noted that there is evidence to support allegations Cisowski was acting under extreme duress or domination of the baby's father, Christopher Fusscas. Defense psychiatrist Glenn Caddy of Fort Lauderdale, who evaluated Cisowski several times, told prosecutors in June that Cisowski probably suffers from a rare mental condition called folie a deux, a French term that literally means "madness shared by two," or shared psychiatric disorder. Experts say the disorder involves two people in a close relationship coming to share the same psychotic delusion. The dominant individual, who has a psychotic disorder, usually induces the second person to share in the delusional beliefs. In Cisowski's case, she and the baby's father had lived together for years. Fusscas, who was present the night his son was killed, has not been charged in the death. Her trial was scheduled to begin Dec. 2 but Belanger this week announced a scheduling conflict with state psychiatric experts hired to examine Cisowski and requested a delay. Martin County Circuit Judge Robert Makemson agreed to conduct the trial in March. ==== http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/11/MN224088.DTL Mental patient's release stuns victim's family They weren't told of hearing, as law requires Erin Hallissy, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, October 11, 2002 For the past five years, Vivian Boatman thought the man who killed her husband in a frenzied stabbing at a Pinole gas station was locked up in a state mental hospital after being found not guilty by reason of insanity. When the 80-year-old widow called police in June to ask if Verl Boatman's killer, Michael David Peterson, was going to have a release hearing, she was told no. Meanwhile, Boatman's daughter repeatedly called Contra Costa prosecutors, and what she finally found out shocked her. A judge had released Peterson, now 59, to an outpatient program four years ago after a 17-month hospital commitment that officials say was unusually short. And Contra Costa authorities admit the victim's relatives were not told of Peterson's 1998 hearing despite a state law requiring notification. "I think the whole court and penal system is a joke," said the daughter, Dianna Jones, on Thursday. "He's a murderer. He could be living next door to you, and you wouldn't know it." "I felt all this time he was in prison," Vivian Boatman said. "It hurts me to know that he has been out for four years and I didn't know it." Peterson was found guilty of first-degree murder by a judge in the fall of 1996, but the judge also ruled that he was insane at the time of the attack. Under California law, a person found insane is innocent of the crime and is not given a determinate time in state hospitals. Instead, they are placed in state mental facilities until they are deemed to have regained their sanity. 'THERE WAS A GLITCH' Most killers found not guilty by reason of insanity spend years, if not decades, in mental hospitals. Contra Costa Deputy District Attorney Dara Cashman said it was surprising that Peterson got out so quickly, and conceded "there was a glitch" in not informing the family. "I don't know what happened," Cashman said. "I know it's extremely frustrating for this family because how could someone like that be out walking the streets so soon?" Peterson, who qualified for the early release because of his good response to medication and therapy, said Thursday that he expected the family to be told about his hearing. "I had anticipated some media response when I was released," Peterson told The Chronicle. "It was my understanding that my victims' survivors would be notified." Peterson, who lives with a roommate in Concord and hasn't missed a day at work reassembling electronic components for two years, said he poses no danger to society. He said he takes medication and follows the rules of his release program. 'SORROW AND REGRET' "Not a day goes by when I don't have sorrow and regret for their family," he said. "I was completely out of my head when I killed their father and totally deranged. After therapy in the hospital, my mental illness was found to be in total remission." That is little comfort to Boatman, whose husband was 73 when he was slain. "He killed my husband. He stabbed me," Boatman said. "My heart still hurts, and he probably doesn't care." Insanity findings are relatively rare in criminal cases. There are 1,128 patients who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity in four state mental hospitals, compared with 155,588 inmates in California's 33 prisons. In cases such as David Attias, a Santa Barbara college student ruled insane after being convicted in June of murdering four pedestrians with his car, victims' families worry that insane defendants will be released too soon from mental institutions. But insanity experts say Peterson's short stay was unusual. "Many people who are found insane on homicide charges spend the rest of their lives in a hospital because no one is willing to say they are no longer mentally ill or dangerous," said Christopher Slobogin, a criminal and mental illness law professor at the University of Florida. "The typical public perception of people found insane is that they're dangerous monsters." In some states, such as Connecticut, mental patients have petitioned to have insanity findings changed to guilty because they'd be paroled more quickly, said Yale University professor Howard Zonana, medical director for the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. LOW REOFFENSE RATE Other experts say criminals found insane are less of a threat to break the law than prisoners released on parole. Mark Heyrman, a law professor at the University of Chicago who directs the law school's mental health advocacy clinic, said none of his clients in 20 years has reoffended. "These are highly treatable illnesses," Heyrman said, referring to bipolar disease and some other medical conditions. In California, patients can be released if judges find they will not be a danger to themselves or others, based on psychiatric reports from state hospital officials. The Department of Mental Health's conditional release program requires outpatients to take medication, participate in therapy, undergo drug screening and not possess firearms or dangerous weapons. Most live in halfway houses and are closely supervised. According to a 1999 program evaluation, less than 5 percent of criminal defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity were rearrested within a year of their release from mental institutions. Only half of those were rearrested for violent offenses. There's an 80 percent chance of remaining arrest-free after four years, the evaluation showed. Peterson said he has not been arrested since his release, and court records confirm that. He said he is vigilant about taking medication because "the last thing in the world I ever want to do is go back to that state of mind." BIPOLAR DIAGNOSIS He was diagnosed as bipolar in 1978 and hospitalized in the weeks before he stabbed Verl Boatman on April 27, 1996, according to court records. He told police he had stopped taking his medication a couple of weeks earlier. Peterson told psychiatrists he believed that "the bloody body parts of children intended for satanic rituals" were inside the trunk of Boatman's car and voices told him to "go take the car" and kill the occupants. He stabbed Vivian Boatman and then repeatedly stabbed Verl after pulling him away from his wife. Prosecutors did not dispute the insanity finding. "We believe that what he was doing was based on this psychotic delusion," Cashman said. Other states vary on how they handle insanity cases: five states (Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Kansas) do not allow insanity pleas, and about 15 states allow "guilty but insane" verdicts as an alternative to jurors. Most defense attorneys and psychiatrists don't like guilty but insane verdicts because defendants are treated like regular prisoners and sent to prisons where they may not get mental health help. The Boatman family believes Peterson should have remained locked up, but Jones said Thursday she doesn't think her family "can undo what's already been done" "We don't want this to happen again," Jones said. Notification laws "need to be taken seriously." Peterson said he worked hard to regain his sanity "not so much with the thought of premature release but with hoping to get better." "I wish that there was some way (the victim's family) could find comfort from some source -- God or a minister or a family friend," Peterson said. "I can't offer them that. I do offer them my regret and sorrow for bringing this pain into their lives." E-mail Erin Hallissy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==== http://www.pjstar.com/news/regional/g120249a.html Spring Valley child killer serving life term dies in prison Adams had claimed to be Jesus Christ who ‘killed the devil’ October 10, 2002 By BOB MORROW of the Journal Star PRINCETON - Just nine years after he began a life sentence for the murder of his infant son, a 49-year-old Spring Valley man died in a maximum security prison. After being stricken in his cell at 7 p.m. Saturday, Lee Adams was pronounced dead at the Menard Correctional Center medical unit at 7:15, according to Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Sergio Molina. An autopsy revealed congestive heart failure as the cause of death, Molina said. Adams was convicted in Princeton in August 1993 of the Feb. 24, 1992, murder of 9-month-old Justin Adams, who was stabbed in the abdomen at least 17 times with the 4-inch blade of a large Swiss Army knife. Adams was arrested outside his home shortly after the 6 a.m. slaying. He told police he was Jesus Christ and that he had "killed the devil." Adams interrupted his first court appearance before now-retired Circuit Judge James Wimbiscus to tell the judge that he (Adams) could attain "different states of consciousness, from human to divine," and said he could be addressed as "a human or as Jesus Christ." Adams’ bizarre behavior continued through multiple motions and fitness hearings. He insisted he was not Lee Adams but another being who simply inhabited Adams’ body. At a May 31, 1993, fitness hearing, Adams refused to answer questions from his public defenders. He claimed they were representing someone else and asked now-retired Circuit Judge C. Howard Wampler, "Why should my person help Lee Adams?" Wampler snapped, "Because you’re standing trial, and everybody thinks you’re Lee Adams. And if he’s convicted, you’re going to take the rap!" Adams, who had been found unfit for trial shortly after the murder of his son, was ruled fit by Wampler during the same hearing. David Rumley, then public defender, called five medical experts, all of whom said Adams was legally insane at the time of the killing. Rumley said Adams believed his wife, Rachael, to be Ursula the witch, who had "infected the boy with evil." Former Bureau County State’s Attorney Marc Bernabei called the insanity defense a "sham" and told the jury, "He can turn his so-called sanity and insanity off and on like a faucet." Bernabei contended that Adams flew into a murderous rage simply because the baby was crying. "This (the issue of insanity) is all a fraud. This is a cold-blooded killer." Rachael Adams, along with the couple’s five surviving children, returned to her family in her native Israel shortly after her youngest son was killed. During the trial, she testified that she had given Adams the crying baby and that he locked himself in his room. Moments later, she said, she heard screams, and then, "He handed me the baby, all broken." Adams was found guilty but mentally ill of first degree murder, but the jury declined to impose the death penalty sought by Bernabei. Wampler imposed life with no possibility of parole. Public Defender Michael Henneberry, who assisted in Adams’ defense, said Wednesday, "What a sad end to a sad life filled with sad events." ++++++ Martin F. Abernathy -- [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] -- 10/11/02 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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