Wyatt questions psychiatrist about differing opinions (11/6)

Posted November 6, 2009 at 12:41 am
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By VINCENT LUPO
AMERICAN PRESS

The second-degree murder trial of Ricky Langley became tense late Thursday when Judge Robert Wyatt expressed frustration over medical experts’ divergent conclusions.

Acknowledging that psychiatry is an inexact science, Wyatt asked a state witness how he and a defense witness — both eminent forensic psychiatrists — can have such different conclusions in this case.

“I can only speak to mine, not his,” Dr. Dennis Kelly told Wyatt, referring to the opposite findings of defense witness Dr. Rahn Bailey.

“My frustration is how am I supposed to make a decision in this case when there is testimony from experts who are this far apart,” Wyatt told Kelly, stretching his arms out sideways.

“It’s tough,” Kelly responded.

Earlier Wyatt, after listening to hours of conflicting testimony, facetiously asked Kelly, “So you disagree with Dr. Bailey?”

“Yes,” Kelly said.

“Is Dr. Bailey wrong?”

Kelly said he differed with Bailey’s findings, especially as to the severity of the diagnosis of Langley as schizophrenic. Kelly didn’t find Langley to be schizophrenic and said the defendant isn’t one of the worst types of schizophrenics as Bailey concluded.

Wyatt then asked Kelly if he had “an agenda other than diagnosis.”

“An agenda?” Kelly said, taken aback.

“Yes,” Wyatt said. “Are you bound to satisfy what the district attorney wants you to?”

Kelly told the judge his conclusions were based on the records he had reviewed. But he never directly answered Wyatt’s query on whether he would base his reputation on his conclusions.

Later, First Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Killingsworth, irritated by the prior dialogue, asked Kelly if the state had asked him to testify to anything other than the truth.

“My testimony is based on my review of the records,” Kelly said.

The exchanges emphasize the subjectivity of proceedings in which a defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. Both sides usually hire well-qualified experts, who give divergent opinions on the defendant’s mental state at the time the crime was committed.

In Louisiana, the test for insanity is whether the defendant knew right from wrong when he committed the crime. The defendant must prove he was insane.

Langley is accused of strangling 6-year-old Jeremy Guillory on Feb. 7, 1992. He has pleaded insanity in two prior trials, but that defense was rejected by two juries.

One found him guilty of first-degree murder and recommended a death sentence; the other found him guilty of second-degree murder, for which he received a mandatory life sentence.

Both convictions were overturned by higher courts. This time Langley is facing a second-degree murder trial solely before Wyatt, who himself, rather than 12 jurors, holds Langley’s fate in his hands.

If Langley is found not guilty by reason of insanity, state law requires that a hearing be conducted to determine whether he “can be discharged or can be released on probation, without danger to others or to himself.”

If the court determines he can’t be released, the judge must commit him to a state or a court-approved private mental institution. If it determines he can be released, the court will order his discharge or release on probation, subject to conditions for a fixed or an indeterminate period.

During testimony Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday, Bailey and Kelly presented their conclusions as to Langley’s mental condition when he strangled the Iowa, La., boy and how they had reached those conclusions.

Bailey, a forensic psychiatrist from Nashville, Tenn., said Langley “could not tell his behavior was wrongful” when he killed Guillory.

But Kelly, a forensic psychiatrist from the Baton Rouge area, said Langley “did not lose his ability, due to a mental illness or defect, to distinguish right from wrong or to understand the nature and consequences of the quality of his act.”

Both doctors agreed that Langley is a pedophile, but Bailey said he also suffers from schizophrenia, a serious mental illness characterized by hallucinations and delusions. He said Langley was psychotic at the time of the killing.

Kelly diagnosed Langley as suffering from a “schizotypal personality disorder” and said he wasn’t psychotic when he strangled Guillory and stuffed him in a closet in a room he rented next to where the boy lived.

The prosecutors also introduced transcripts of testimony given by psychiatrist Dr. Aretta Rathmell, who testified at Langley’s 1994 and 2003 trials, as well at a hearing on April 7, 2003. Rathmell concluded that Langley wasn’t insane at the time of the killing.

Because Wyatt has several lengthy transcripts to read, he recessed the trial until 1:30 p.m. today, Nov. 6.

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