Originally Appearing in AAPL Newsletter, January 2016, Vol. 41, No. 1
You have undoubtedly heard about this story: In mid-September 2015, Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old student in Irving Texas, came to school with a clock he had made to impress one of his teachers. The teacher, far from being grateful for the gift, started a chain of events that led to Ahmed being led away from his home in handcuffs. It was thought he might have made a bomb. He was interrogated without a lawyer present.
Social media weighed in, pretty much in favor of Ahmed and castigating the school for overreacting because the boy is a Muslim. What you may not know is the backstory: according to some of the local authorities, as reported by CNN.com, the “clock” was old, from Radio Shack and was enclosed in a case. Ahmed also had a reputation for making pro-jects that, while original, were annoying. For example, one teacher said the teenager made a device that interfered wirelessly with a slide projector. Even celebrities were interested. For example, Bill Maher said on one of his shows, as reported by CNN with an accompanying video:
“He’s a science kid and that’s great. . . . Ok, and the people at the school thought it might be a bomb, perhaps because it looks exactly like a f***ing bomb.” (Audience laughter)
As might be expected, and as is their right, the parents are suing the school district and have retained two prominent Dallas attorneys. Ahmed’s mother and father believe he was unjustly arrested and his rights were ignored. Both the plaintiff and the defendant might call forensic psychiatrists to examine Ahmed. There is the possibility the experts will have different opinions. Time will tell.
There is often more than meets the eye in these cases. The media do not have all the information when they first report such a high profile story. We see what we want to see, depending upon our own biases, something all forensic evaluators must guard against. Of course, this is true in all forensic matters – whether high pro-file or not.
What will be asked of the forensic psychiatrist? Does the boy have a diagnosis? Is he capable of violence? Are his parents dangerous? Did they influence Ahmed? What should not be asked of the expert is whether the child is or is not a terrorist. That is for the trier of fact.
Here’s another story, right out of my home state of Connecticut. Just before Christmas 2012, in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown, CT, 20 elementary school students and 6 staff members were gunned down by a reportedly depressed and paranoid former student from the same school. Our whole state has been put on edge ever since.
According to the New York Times (November 5, 2015), during Hallowe’en celebrations in the town of Litchfield, CT, two high school sophomores came dressed as the Columbine killers. They wore trench coats and sunglasses, and allegedly threatened other students “with bodily harm,” according to the State Police. A girl told her parents about this and her parents called the police. The students were first sent to a juvenile detention facility and their cell-phones and homes were searched. The students attended a hearing the next day, and were released in their parents’ custody.
They were charged with inciting injury to persons or property, a felony, and breach of peace, a misdemeanor. Soon after they were arrested, the school, it was reported in the Times, moved to expel them. Their names were not released because of their ages. (Some thought they were terrorists, this being Connecticut.)
The parents of one of the students immediately hired a prominent criminal defense attorney. He spoke to the media, denying his client meant any harm, although he conceded it was a stupid mistake to dress up the way his client did.
Will the case go to trial? It is doubtful. There will probably be a plea-bargain with neither of the boys serving any prison time. It is likely, though, that the boys will undergo psychiatric evaluations while in their parents’ custody.
(Full-disclosure: I know the prosecutor for that area of Connecticut and he is fair and quite psychologically-minded. I doubt he wants these boys to have a record. However, he will send a message to them and the community at large that this kind of behavior has to be taken seriously and will not be tolerated.)
As I write this in mid-November 2015, an 8-year-old boy in Birmingham, Alabama has been charged with murder for beating to death a toddler because of her constant crying. Their mothers were out of the house at the time. The media are all over this story as of this writing. Hopefully, one of our colleagues will have been involved in assessing the child by the time this newsletter is published.
In early October 2015 The New York Times reported that an 11-year-old boy from a small town in Tennessee took out his father’s shotgun and killed a neighbor – an 8-year-old girl because she would not show him her puppies.
Why does this happen? How does the forensic psychiatrist approach these cases? We can ethically work with either side and provide our knowledge of child or adolescent development, and, from our medical degree, have the big picture. We do everything from administering a comprehensive mental status exam, taking a detailed history of the child and family, noting whether there might be physical and genetic disorders which may present as a primary psychiatric disorder, considering a consultation with a neurologist, ordering an MRI, and if indicated, an EEG, and visiting a child’s home. This detailed evaluation, represents the still-viable concept of the biopsychosocial approach to patients and their families.
Forensic psychiatrists evaluating young children who kill or act like terrorists must have some resident-level training in pediatrics. Only then can the physician fully investigate the underlying medical and behavioral components manifest in the child. The psychiatrist should then be a member of a team of lawyers and other professionals to brainstorm about what the child or adolescent needs.
In a world of dramatic discoveries of the brain, we will probably approach such aberrant behavior in children in a new way. Even now, we grapple with the conundrum of whether an as yet unknown brain abnormality and/or a genetic disorder might be responsible for antisocial behavior in children – and adults. This, as we forensic psychiatrists know, raises a myriad of new legal issues. It has already started, with fMRI and PET scans. Many articles in peer-reviewed journals speak of a new age of determining whether a person is lying, when there is frontal lobe damage, subclinical seizures and so on. However, the data are still controversial. (Merikangas J, Commentary: Functional MRI Lie Detection, J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 36:4:499-501 December 2008). It remains to be seen where courts will go with this.
For now, forensic child psychiatrists evaluating these types of cases need to keep an open mind, learn as much as possible about the factual details and not be swayed by the media. And always ask: why is that clock ticking?
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