A recent murder case offers a striking example of the refusal, by legal and psychiatric authorities, to treat a person as a contracting individual; and of their attempt, instead, to treat him as an inferior, defective object, in need of repair—that is, as a psychiatric patient (Wiseman, 1961). In this case, the person refused to accept the role assigned to him. He thereby exhibited greater autonomy and moral integrity than the experts in charge of him.
On April 20, 1957, Jim Cooper, a twenty-three-year-old airplane mechanic, went to the apartment of his former fiancee, Connie Gilman. Before ringing the doorbell, he released the safety latch on his pistol. When she came to the door, he fired nine shots into her body, killing her instantly.
He then gave himself up to the police. When asked whether he fired with intent to kill, Cooper said: “I fired to blow her fucking head off. How many times do you want me to tell you?” (page 289).
I shall not retell the story of this crime. What interests us is not the crime itself, but rather the way Cooper was handled by lawyers and psychiatrists.
Before deciding to kill the girl, Cooper debated with himself whether it was worth being electrocuted for it. (The crime occurred in Massachusetts, where electrocution is the penalty for premeditated murder.) He decided that it was. In fact, it appears that Cooper murdered Connie Gilman in order to be executed by the state. He described his thoughts just before the murder as follows:
Do you realize if you do this they will electrocute you? And 1 said, “Yes.” And then I thought of my father. I do not know why, it just shot through my head for a minute. And I came to the conclusion that that was exactly what I deserved, that it fitted in with the idea that I have always had, that I would never live to be 30 years old and that I had adopted the attitude while in the service: live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse . . . [page 290].
Why did Cooper want to be killed? Because he felt he had murdered his father. Cooper’s father died when Jim was nine years old. He slipped on the ice when running after his son with a warm cap to wear to Hebrew school. The fall proved fatal. Jim Cooper never forgave himself for it Between the ages of 12 and 23, he committed many self-destructive acts. Perhaps it was an “accident” that he lived long enough to kill Connie Gilman.
In accordance with the Briggs Law of Massachusetts, Cooper was ordered to undergo psychiatric examination “to determine his mental condition and the existence of any mental disease or defect which would affect his criminal responsibility” (page 290). The psychiatrists who examined Cooper for the State found him competent and responsible. Cooper had also admitted the murder and wished to be tried for it. How was the state-appointed defense counsel to defend a man who did not want to be defended?
Cooper’s counsel refused to comply with his client’s wishes and proceeded to construct a psychiatric defense. “He sought assistance from senior members of the Boston psychiatric community but was unable successfully to solicit their interest in the case. After considerable effort defense counsel succeeded in finding a psychologist and two young psychiatrists who were willing to serve as defense experts” (italics added; page 291). One of the psychiatrists submitted a report emphasizing Cooper’s “pathological drives,” and concluded with a diagnosis of “personality disorder.” The other expressed his conviction that “Cooper was an emotionally sick human being badly in need of psychiatric treatment and that the murder was a violent expression of his illness” (page 292).
At this point, Wiseman, the author of the report, added his own opinion: “the defense counsel had to proceed with the trial knowing his client to be a very sick young man but aware that under existing legal standards Cooper’s behavior, the murder, of course, aside, was probably not sufficiently bizarre to qualify him for a M’Naghten acquittal” (italics added; page 292). Thus Wiseman too regarded Cooper as sick, deserving acquittal by reason of insanity—followed, of course, by lifelong incarceration in a mental hospital. But Cooper did not want to be acquitted on the ground that he was insane. He wanted to be electrocuted. Has the defendant not the right to refuse defense? This question was never frankly confronted by the people involved in Cooper’s tragedy, and was evaded by Wiseman who assumed that Cooper was insane.
During the trial much conflicting and meaningless psychiatric and psychological testimony was heard. But Cooper would not be outwitted by his own counsel. The whole psychiatric, psychologic, and legal tour-deforce was in vain. For after concluding his charge to the jury, the judge gave Cooper an opportunity to make a final statement. This he did masterfully. “It is my opinion”—said Cooper—“that any decision other than guilt, guilty of murder in the first degree, with no recommendation for leniency, is a miscarriage of justice” (page 297). The jury complied with Cooper’s wishes, and brought in the verdict he requested. The judge was obligated to sentence him to be electrocuted. After listening to the sentence, Cooper said, “Thank you” (page 297).
This, however, was not the end. Apparently, too many people could not bear the prospect of Cooper’s execution. There now came into play all the motives and strategies that can be used to circumvent the death penalty on psychiatric grounds. Several parties petitioned the Governor to commute the sentence. Did they do this in Cooper’s behalf, or did the people of Massachusetts now object to living according to laws they had never bothered to modify?
Aware of these appeals, Cooper wrote the Governor:
Now I do not ask for death in the form of punishment, but as mercy. Mercy in the guise of release from a life which is no longer honorable nor desirable. My wish is that you can put aside your moral regrets and do your duty, even as I have done mine [page 297].
And in another letter, he wrote:
If I could but feel that I honestly regretted my actions, I would welcome the prospect of imprisonment and rehabilitation. However, while I do not lack the qualities of pity or compassion, I do not feel one iota of remorse for the crime I have committed. It is not the enormity of the crime itself, but the ease with which I justify it to myself that precludes any possibility of my ever returning to society again. Under these conditions, execution is the only logical conclusion [page 297],
Are these the letters of a mentally sick man? Of a person unmindful of what he is doing, and what is best for him, and therefore not responsible for his actions? Or are they the letters of a tortured man, grown honest and wise after facing the ultimate meaning of his own existence?
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the people involved in this case were playing a game of crime and punishment. But this time they were hopelessly outwitted by a sophisticated and superior adversary. Cooper was asking the law-enforcement personnel—jury, judge, Governor, and so forth—to abide by their contracts. Each of these persons had accepted, freely and responsibly, the duty of apprehending and punishing criminals. Now, so Cooper was saying, it was their turn to do the work for which the State was paying them—that is, to kill him! If a state retains the death penalty on its statute books, a person has the opportunity—or, as Cooper argued, the right—to commit suicide indirectly, by committing premeditated murder. In this way, the state will be obligated to kill him.
Despite Cooper’s letters, the Governor sought, once more, to define Cooper’s problems as psychiatric in nature. He requested the Commissioner of Mental Health to initiate a study to determine if Cooper was “too sick to be executed” (page 297). But did not Cooper’s letters to the Governor provide sufficient evidence on this score? How much more coherent or touching could a man be? Cooper’s letters were infinitely more lucid and honest than the psychiatric opinions offered during and after his trial. I believe that no one was really interested in Cooper’s sanity, and perhaps not even in Cooper as a human being. The purpose of all the maneuvering was to undermine Cooper’s position as a responsible, contracting individual, and to demote him to the status of a helpless, defective object, a mental patient.
Five more psychiatrists and a psychologist became involved in the posttrial study of Cooper. One of the psychiatrists observed: I do not think he should be killed, but at the moment at least, I cannot say that he is too ‘mentally ill’ to be killed (whatever that means)” (italics added; page 297). This statement implies that the psychiatrist felt he had a right to make a pronouncement on the question of whether Cooper should or should not be killed. Moreover, the sarcastic “whatever that means” implies that the psychiatrist considered the whole problem a farce. He was hired to make an examination to determine a question he considered absurd. Many psychiatrists face this problem. But if a psychiatrist feels that in his role as court-appointed expert he is placed in an impossible situation, he ought to refuse to play the role. The psychiatrist quoted accepted the assignment, and the fee that went with it, and hoped to clear his conscience by adding that he thought it a stupid farce to be asked to determine if a person is healthy enough mentally to be executed.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was, at last, able to buy enough psychiatrists to effect a redefinition of Cooper’s human condition from dignified defendant to pitied patient. In their final report, the team of psychiatrists and psychologists wrote what the Commissioner of Mental Health presumably wanted to hear:
We find Mr. Cooper an interesting challenge in addition to being genuinely interested in him as a human being. Our impression is that he is quite treatable and might some day be a useful member of society. I hope we have the opportunity to continue working with him [italics added; page 297].
This was 17 months after Cooper killed Connie Gilman. Now both the Commissioner of Mental Health and the Commissioner of Correction recommended that Cooper’s sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. When told that the Governor would approve their recommendation, Cooper hanged himself.
When the State broke its contract, Cooper himself undertook to make it good. When, in effect, the government said, “Although we have promised to kill you, we will not do it,” Cooper replied, “Then I will do it for you.” And he did.
Thomas Szasz – Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry