A Seattle jury, deliberating for two and one-half days, found Naveed Haq guilty on all counts of aggravated first-degree murder. In 2006, this Pakistani-American with a delusional personality who’d been treated for 10 years for mental illness, kidnapped his way into the Seattle federation building where he proceeded to kill one employee and wound five others, some very seriously. The Jewish community, including a few, but not all the victims, breathed a sigh of relief at the verdict (since his first trial ended in a mistrial). But I didn’t. Here’s why:
The American justice system has an entirely loopy definition of mental illness and mental competency to stand trial. The defense in this case pleaded insanity. The prosecution conceded he was mentally ill. Yet the jury still found him sane. Go figure:
The prosecution throughout the trial had acknowledged Haq had suffered from mental illness. Symptoms appeared mostly in the form of paranoia and paranoid delusions, Raz said…
“No one ever asserted that paranoia had anything to do with his attack on the Jewish Federation,” Raz said.
Juror John Bennett said the defense was simply unable to convince he and his fellow jurors of Haq’s insanity at the time of the shooting.
“We were waiting with an open mind – waiting for someone to tell us that he was not sane. But there was just never anything to convince us,” he said.
So if you can follow that: he’s mentally ill, paranoid and delusional. In fact, during the shootings he shouts out nasty comments about Jews hurting Muslims and this is the reason for his actions. But somehow the paranoid, delusional beliefs that motivate his crime do not constitute insanity. This is a guy who’s under doctor’s care and taking anti-psychotic medication who goes postal, yet nothing convinced the jury of his being totally loopy.
And what convinced the jury in particular of his sanity? Jailhouse phone conversations with the killer’s mother in which she tells him his illness made him commit the crime. He firmly rejects her view and declares his sanity. That’s it. He says he’s sane in a convincing manner and that clinches it. Anyone out there who has a family member or friend who’s battled mental illness can tell you that there are almost no victims of this sickness who readily acknowledge they have it. In fact, I’ve had almost the same exact conversation with someone close to me that Haq’s mother had with him. That person swore up and down that there was nothing wrong with him. That’s part of the illness–to deny it. It’s the same with addiction. Who in their right, or even wrong mind would publicly concede that there’s something terribly wrong with them? Furthermore, many mentally ill individuals can put on a very convincing show proving they are sane. No doubt Haq was doing precisely this when he spoke to his mother.
Telling a jury to believe a mentally ill man when he says he is not mentally ill is, well, crazy.
And so Naveed Haq will go into the state prison system and vegetate there for the rest of his life (no possibility of parole) because a Seattle jury couldn’t concede that a mentally ill individual who was guilty of a horrible crime should be treated as if he were mentally ill (the defense advocated that Haq be committed to a state mental hospital rather than prison).
Besides the tragedy of the murder and shooting victims whose lives were torn asunder and Naveed Haq, who will never see freedom again, there is the tragedy of Haq’s mother, who inadvertently provided evidence against her son that clinched the guilty verdict. In attempting to get him to see the horror of what he had done, she sealed his fate. Imagine being a parent and having the live with that guilt.
As for the Islam-haters out there who are circulating this verdict with glee because you believe it proves there is a Muslim hate machine, think again. All this verdict proves is that one terribly ill individual fell victim to his personal demons and acted out in a horribly violent fashion. The motivation for his acting out happened to be hatred of Israeli violence against Palestinians. But he was no more capable of understanding the full implications of what he was doing than any seriously-ill paranoid schizophrenic is.
Cheryl Stumbo, one of the victims in the shooting, wrote the following at my blog shortly after the shooting. Anyone who wishes to indict Islam for this act should remember this:
…The man who shot me and five of my colleagues…was raised Muslim, yes, but by peace-loving parents, from all accounts. His problem was long-term, very serious mental illness. Let’s not attribute blame to ethnicity/religion when there are documentable medical explanations. Rationality and reason should prevail…
I don’t think his religion…had anything to do with his decision to break into, assault and kill, but I do think it helped his agitated mind select a target for his frustration.
Although I was not able to find legal resources showing the exact statutes on commitment following acquittal by reason of insanity in the Washington state court system, a search on the Washington state court system website turned up several cases where the law on commitment of acquitted insane defendants is mentioned. The rule is that the court can impose a term of commitment or treatment (due to the strong evidence of violent actions on the part of Naveed Haq, the former is more likely) up to the maximum statutory penal sentence (although there is some confusion as to whether the sentence lengths for multiple offenses can be combined).
Based on that, it seems likely that even if Mr. Haq had been acquitted by reason of insanity, he would have likely spent most of, if not the rest of his life, confined in a mental hospital unless he was later found to be competent enough to stand trial. As is, he will vegetate in a state prison rather than the former for the rest of his life.
“Juror John Bennett said the defense was simply unable to convince he and his fellow jurors.”
Him. HIM. HIIIIMMMMM!!!. HIM and his fellow jurors. Convince HIM and his fellow jurors. Jesus, Moses, and Mohammad, don’t Jewish journalists in Washington state study basic English grammar?! Would you say “unable to convince HE”?! No? Well, then, why do you say “unable to convince HE and his fellow jurors”? Sheeesh!
Sorry, but that particular bit of grammatic idiocy is one of my pet peeves.
Mine, too. And using “I” instead of “me,” and “it’s” for the pronoun “its.”
Shirin, the more I get to know you, the more I like you. Asalam alaykum, sister.
I gritted my teeth rather than make myself seem pedantic. So I’m really glad to see that others did the job. I’m always unsure about correcting others’ grammar, but I do worry about not doing so, especially if the culprit is a writer. Sorry, Richard. I’m sure it was a typo.
It wasn’t a quote fr. me. It was a quote from the reporter who wrote the original story about the trial. My grammar isn’t perfect but it’s better than that.
I rarely hesitate to make myself seem pedantic (perhaps “seem” is not the correct word in my case?). My grammar is not perfect, but there is a level of grammatical stupidity that is too egregious to ignore.
And, as Richard pointed out, that particular bit of stupidity did not come from he (sic).
On a note more relevant to the topic, a couple of my family members are psychiatrists, and as part of their residencies they worked in a public hospital where most of the inpatients are mentally ill people who have been picked up and taken there for a 72-hour hold. Many of them are repeat customers who get brought in again and again and again. One of the greatest frustrations is how often the single lucid moment one of those patients will have is when they are in front of a judge who is tasked with deciding whether or not they are sane enough to release. So, they get released and brought in, released, and brought in ad infinitum, and never have a chance to get any kind of consistent treatment.
I worked in felony criminal and civil court for almost 11 years, and I can tell you that in New York State, as in most others, the legal definition of insanity does not mesh with the medical or clinical definition. A defendant can be nuttier than a fruitcake and still be considered sane under the law. Occasionally the Judge would send a defendant to the county mental health department to determine his or her ability to stand trial (to understand the charges and participate in his or her own defense). The exam given to the defendant was no more than a 15 minute visit consisting of basic questions.
In only one instance was a defendant determined to be unable to stand trial, in all the years I was in the court. Only one. I think the objective of the system is not to diagnose and treat mentally ill defendants, but instead it is geared to simply incarcerate them (and sometimes execute them as well). It’s cheaper, the case is disposed of sooner, and the public is happy that a violent criminal is being punished.
Insanity defined legally is not insanity in the medical sense. What matters is whether he understood what he was doing. He knew he was shooting Jewish people not mowing the lawn. What I find creepy is people worried about grammer in relation to hate crimes. The world is doomed.
In his fevered mind, he thought by killing Jewish women he would strike a blow against the suffering of Muslims. Does it sound like he knew what he was doing?
You should be more worried about spelling.
Which would make you a follower of John Hagee??