Tag: Asperger’s

  • Attorneys to use mental defect defense in Katherine Ann Olson’s murder

    Craigslist murder suspect’s attorneys raise possibility of mental illness defense:

    I should have seen this coming yet I was still surprised.

    The attorneys for Michael John Anderson will be filing a motion stating that they might be using a mental illness defense for the murder of Katherine Ann Olson. They’re claiming that Anderson has Asperger’s syndrome. They’re basically claiming that he didn’t know the difference between right or wrong because of his Asperger’s. Last time I checked that’s not one of the effects of Asperger’s and is an insult to people who legitimately have it.

    Asperger’s patients have a hard time interacting socially because they are unable to detect things like sarcasm and some forms of humor. They also can be obsessed over a singular subject. It DOES NOT make you take an ad for a nanny job on craigslist for the sole purpose of shooting someone in the head.

    This is not the first time I’ve read about a lawyer using this defense. For the most part, this defense has been unsuccessful. If lawyers keep using this defense than people will begin to think that Asperger’s does make you criminally violent.

  • Odgren trial delayed

    DA appeals ruling in Odgren murder case:

    The trial for John Odgren has been delayed while prosecutors appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts over the tapes of Odgren’s prison phone conversations.

    Odgren is accused in the 2007 stabbing and slashing death of fellow Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High student James Alenson.

    Odgren’s lawyer is trying to use Odgren’s alleged Aspergers as a diminished capacity defense.

    The prosecution states that the tapes will show that Odgren does not communicate like an Asperger’s patient.

    The prison tapes were previously ruled inadmissible.

    No new date has been set for the trial.

  • Odgren prison tapes still disallowed

    Judge again rules against use of jailhouse conversations in Odgren case:

    On Friday a judge ruled once again that the taped jailhouse conversations of John Odgren. Previously prosecutors asked for all the tapes but this time they narrowed their request to 10 to 15 hours of tape.

    Prosecutors want the tapes to show that Odgren doesn’t really have Aspergers which is the key to his defense.

  • Odgren’s prison tapes disallowed

    Use of taped conversations barred in student’s trial:

    The judge presiding over the proceedings of accused killer John Odgren has ruled that recorded conversations between Odgren and his parents are inadmissible.

    If you’ll remember a then 16-year-old Odgren stabbed 15-year-old James Alenson to death in a random attack at Lincoln-Sudbury High School in Massachusetts.

    Prosecutors wanted to use the tape to prove that Odgren is sane. Odgren’s attorney is using an insanity defense because Odgren has Aspergers.

    Again I say being genetically socially inept does not make you insane and Odgren’s lawyer is doing a great disservice to Asperger’s patients by using an insanity defense.

    Prosecutors will appeal and are confident that the tapes will be allowed in the trial.

  • Odgren’s lawyer wants indictment thrown out

    Odgren attorney: Throw out first-degree murder indictment:

    Criminal defense attorneys never fail to amuse me. Take for instance the attorney to John Odgren, Jonathan Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro wants the first-degree murder indictment against his client because the prosecution did not instruct the grand jury properly as to Odgren’s mental and psychological conditions.

    For those of you just joining us a then 16-year-old Odgren is accused of stabbing 15-year-old James Alenson to death in a bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Alenson was allegedly chosen at random by Odgren. Odgren has been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome which some think that Odgren was not responsible for his own actions. To which I say bullshit.

    Aspergers does not cause someone to become randomly violent and to claim such will only make people with Asperger’s outcast and reviled probably more than they already are. Asperger’s did not make John Odgren plan this murder months in advance. Asperger’s did not put the knife into John Odgren’s hand.

    So in my unprofessional opinion, I think the prosecution absolutely did the right thing by not disclosing his alleged mental deficiencies to the grand jury. To do so would be almost criminal.

  • Alleged autistic ruled competent to stand trial

    Alleged autistic ruled competent to stand trial

    Competency test result withheld:

    I’ve posted about Robert Derderian before. He’s the 19-year-old supposed autistic from New Hampshire who allegedly sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl and videotaping the assault. He’s also accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl several times.

    He’s not speaking to his attorney, which she claims is because of autism, Asperger’s, ADHD, and, as the article puts it, another unspecified learning disorder that limits his speaking abilities. That’s very convenient. The prosecution thinks he has a case of faker-itis and I tend to agree.

    Anyway, since I last posted about this, it seems that he’s had top mental competency tests. The first report found him to be mentally competent. The second one is under review as we speak.

    Like I’ve said previously, if he had the mental capacity to videotape a sexual assault I’m pretty sure he can talk to his lawyer.

  • Odgren’s trial date set

    Odgren’s trial date set

    Trial date set in Sudbury high school slaying:

    You have got to be kidding me.

    A trial date has been set for John Odgren. Odgren is the teen accused of stabbing his classmate James Alenson to death at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts. The thing is, the trial date is almost a year away…

    Middlesex Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein yesterday set a Sept. 15, 2008, trial date for John Odgren, 16. Odgren is charged with the Jan. 19 murder of classmate James Alenson, 15, inside the high school.

    Not that I give a damn about Odgren, but why so long for a trial? Whatever happened to the speedy part? I want to see this kid get put away as soon as possible.

    Odgren is also one of the kids that the Helen Lovejoy’s are rallying around, not only because he was charged as an adult, but he also has Asperger’s.

  • Robert Derderian arraigned and still faking it

    Robert Derderian arraigned and still faking it

    Student arraigned on more sexual assault charges:

    I originally posted about Robert Derderian here. He’s the 18-year-old accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl and videotaping the assault. The wrinkle, in this case, is that Derderian allegedly has autism and isn’t talking to his attorney.

    At a hearing on those charges last week, public defender Tracy Scavarelli asked a judge to allow Derderian’s parents to make phone calls confirming that he is following his bail conditions because her client isn’t speaking. The lawyer has said Derderian may not be competent to stand trial because he has autism.

    So he has the wherewithal to record a sexual assault that he allegedly committed, and now all of a sudden, he’s a window licker? I’m not buying it and neither is the prosecution.

    Prosecutor George Waldron accused Derderian of exaggerating his illness. He says he thinks Derderian can speak and is just faking it.

    Which again does a great disservice to people who actually have autism. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing this kid has is I’m-a-big-faker-itis. Which the only known cure is a lengthy stay in a penitentiary.

  • Asperger’s as a criminal defense

    Asperger’s as a criminal defense

    I first heard of Asperger Syndrome when I was blogging about the case of William Freund. Freund was a 19-year-old from Aliso Viejo, California who donned a paintball mask and a cape, armed himself with a shotgun, and went on a neighborhood shooting spree. He entered the unlocked home of Vernon Smith and shot and killed Smith and his 22-year-old daughter Christina before turning the gun on himself.

    Now before we go any further, I’ll give you just the briefest of rundowns on Asperger’s. There are many who argue about the precise definition of Asperger’s, but it is believed to be a mild form of autism in which the afflicted have an extremely hard time with social interaction. For example, an AS patient may have a difficult time detecting sarcasm or reading a person’s body language and may take everything as fact. AS patients may also have an obsession with one particular subject or pastime. I realize this is just barely scratching the surface of Asperger’s, but it will do for now.

    William Freund’s obsession was more than likely guns. On the Asperger’s forum, WrongPlanet.net, Freund often spoke of wanting a real friend, being suicidal, and threatening to start a terror campaign. On the site SomethingAwful.com, he asked what kind of buckshot was the best for home protection. He stated that on Halloween, he was going to wait out on his porch with his shotgun and shoot anybody who tries to vandalize his pumpkins. That was possibly the worst site that he could have posted that on. The Something Awful community is not known to be kind to any user who posts such outrageous statements, and I’m sure his Asperger’s didn’t help.

    The moderators of WrongPlanet tried to reach his family to tell them of the terror plot he was allegedly planning, but they could not. Since Freund took his own life, no trial was ever held, but at the time I commented that Asperger’s would be eventually used as a murder defense. At the time, not knowing that it already had been tried.

    The next time I heard about Asperger’s was from the case of John Odgren. He is the 15-year-old student from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts who stabbed and killed another student by the name of James Alenson in a school bathroom.

    Alenson was stabbed in the heart and abdomen and slashed across his face and neck with a 13-inch kitchen carving knife. Odgren is alleged to have two obsessions, forensics, and his knife collection. He had a penchant of bragging to classmates that he could pull off the perfect murder. After the murder took place, Odgren ran into the school hallway and admitted what he had done to school officials and police. By all accounts, he didn’t act like someone who had just committed a murder. Some reports say that he was joking with police and when Crime Scene Services arrived he excitedly offered to assist them.

    While the case has not yet gone to trial, his defense attorney was quick to offer up Asperger’s as a defense to the media.

    While blogging about the Lincoln-Sudbury murder, I asked some blogging doctors I know what they thought about using Asperger’s as a medical defense.

    One medical doctor explained to me that Asperger’s patients can sometimes have explosive episodes and that AS patients can have a lack of impulse control. A surgeon told me that since the explosive outbursts are a part of the disease, he doesn’t think the suspect should be sent to prison but should be under constant supervision and a controlled environment. I asked a Ph.D. who has a son with autism what her opinion was, but I’ll get into that a little later.

    Both crimes that I’ve mentioned so far do not seem like explosive episodes. Freund had been threatening to go on a rampage for a while. In my opinion, John Odgren had his crime planned out very far in advance, as he had the day of the murder circled on his calendar.

    Yesterday I read about the story of Robert Derderian. He’s an 18-year-old who is accused of sexually molesting a 12-year-old girl and videotaping what basically amounts to rape.

    He has also been charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl several times over the course of last summer. According to his defense attorney, he may not be competent to stand trial because he has Asperger’s and autism and will not speak to his attorney.

    I find this claim hard to believe. One of the symptoms of autism and Asperger’s for many sufferers is an extreme dislike of physical contact. That’s not to say that is the case for all AS and autism patients, but it is rather prevalent among them. My point is this. Any criminal defense attorney who has an iota of integrity should not use Asperger’s as a criminal defense.

    The Ph.D. whose opinion I asked about this told me the following. Using autism/Asperger’s as a criminal defense is seen as having a very negative effect on the public perception and understanding of autism and Asperger’s as it suggests a direct link between autism/Asperger’s and violence.

    If this becomes standard practice among defense attorneys, it could lead to a sort of witch hunt against Asperger’s patients.

    AS patients are probably having a hard enough time as it is without this kind of social condemnation. A few bad apples, so to speak, should not let society cast a bad light on a group of people who are already misunderstood.

  • Odgren pleads not guilty

    Odgren pleads not guilty

    Lincoln-Sudbury student pleads not guilty in slaying:

    John Odgren pleaded not guilty today in the stabbing death of James Alenson. So let me get this straight. He stabs James Alenson to death, basically confesses to the crime to police at the scene, then pleads not guilty. Just once, I want someone to plead guilty. Why has he pleaded not guilty? I sense someone laying the grounds for an insanity defense…

    Odgren, a 16-year-old sophomore from Princeton, looked puzzled during the proceeding as his attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, asked the judge to transfer his client from jail to Westborough State Hospital so he could receive medication and psychiatric treatment. Odgren’s condition has deteriorated, Shapiro said, and he has been on suicide watch for the last four or five days.

    Judge Isaac Borenstein ordered that Odgren be sent to Westborough State for observation for 20 days.

    Call me a cold-hearted bastard if you want, but I’m not buying it. I think Odgren and his lawyer are trying to use his Asperger’s to their advantage. I would lay odds that during the trial, they’re going to make it seem like that all Asperger’s patients are all just time bombs ready to go off and kill someone at any given moment.

    Let’s not forget what Odgren did either…

    Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Daniel Bennett said that Odgren slashed Alenson’s throat before plunging a 5.5-inch knife through his ribs and then into his though the stomach. A third student was in a bathroom stall and heard Alenson say, “What are you doing, you are hurting me,” Bennett said.

    That doesn’t sound like someone who “just snapped” to me. That sounds more like a stone-cold killer.