Psychiatric Defenses to Homicide Charges

[phersh]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: California



I am neither a lawyer nor a physician so please forgive my misuse of legal or clinical terminology. Please correct my misuse of any legal terms.

This account is based on newspaper reports and conversations with family members.

A 21 year old friend has killed his father.

I knew him because he went to school with my son since the age of 13. We often chatted when he was at my home visiting.

He was a very smart young man but prone to depression.

I didn't know his parents that well. They were divorced and I saw them occasionally over the years.

About a year ago, he started stealing Adderall from his Mother who was taking it. At some point, he started seeing a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist prescribed Wellbutrin.

Over the past 1 year he started intermittently exhibiting signs of extreme violence. On October 31 he took a kitchen knife and stabbed his father to death.

A few months before that he smashed up his room with a machete, or what his mother says was a machete. On another occasion he went and smashed his car up too. About a month ago or so he grabbed his mother and shoved her in the garage and locked her out there. After a while he let her back in. She asked him to move out and go live with his father.

On numerous occasions he would break into her house and steal more Adderall.

Apparently his father asked him to promise to stop going to her house to steal drugs.

On the night of the killing, he went out at 9pm and he returned home at 1:00AM. He killed his father at 1:30am. The newspaper said he stabbed his father 50 times.

His sister saw him attacking his father. She called 911 and the police came.

When the police arrived he offered no resistance and he was calm when they arrested him.

The D.A. has charged him with murder.

According to “Adderall and Wellbutrin Drug Interactions - Drugs.com”
[http://www.drugs.com/drug-interactio...-440-203.html], there are “major” interactions between Wellbutrin and Adderall and they should be monitored closely.

He was abusing or addicted to Adderall and consuming it in unknown quantities. How could the psychiatrist monitor it closely if one of two drugs was being stolen and consumed in unknown quantities?

According to the Adderall XR prescribing information (http://pi.shirecontent.com/PI/PDFs/A...XR_USA_ENG.PDF), “Chronic abuse of amphetamines can result in the manifestation of amphetamine psychosis”.

In addition, 1 week before he killed his father, he was in a car accident and banged his head and had a concussion.

I think this sounds like a drug interaction between the Adderoll and the Wellbutrin which induced psychosis.

His family wants him receive help.

I believe if he is found guilty of murder it would mean life in prison.

Is this manslaughter due to diminished actuality? Or something else?

Also, I don't understand trial procedure. If he is charged with murder, how can he receive the lesser charge of manslaughter due to diminished actuality? Does the jury decide this, or the judge?

Thank you for any thoughtful answers.

[Disagreeable]

The combination increases the chance of seizures, not homicidal tendencies. Adderall XR only lasts about 12 hours. It can be inferred his only source was mom, which means he was only getting limited quantities by theft or she would not have it for her own use. It is highly regulated and not handed out like candy. I don't think you are going to come up with a not guilty by mental defect out of this at all.

[Mr. Knowitall]

He and his lawyer are free to employ psychiatric experts to try to assert some form of diminished capacity defense. Your speculation is nothing more than that - he needs evidence.

If the prosecutor offers a plea bargain, then he'll be able to consider taking the plea bargain. If the homicide charge includes lesser included charges such as manslaughter, the finder of fact (jury, or judge in a bench trial) will have the option of returning a verdict to the lesser charge if they believe that's what the evidence supports.