Keywords: DID, Dissociation, Law, Responsibility, NGRI-DID The Orndorff decision seems to create further confusion by stating that “the expert did not substantiate the basis for the view that Orndorff was deprived of the mental strength necessary to control or restrict the actions of his `altered` personalities” (Orndorff, p. 181). This involves a test related to the host`s ability to control the behavior of altered personalities, another variant of the list of available clinical-legal theories that could be applied to these cases. Future researchers are also encouraged to compare court views on DID with other disorders, in the same way that our paper compares DID to epileptic seizures. Such studies are of interest to the field of psychology because they can change law enforcement`s opinions about diagnosis if they see similar disorders treated differently, just like DID and epileptic seizures. In addition, the research paper focused on cases that have taken place in the West and its legal environment. Further research is proposed to examine the broader aspect of countries and nationalities, but the availability of data from secondary sources is really limited at the moment. One possible reason that may explain the tendency of courts to reject the NGRI-DID is the social response to successful defenses based on this reason. The 1978 case, in which the accused, Billy Milligan, who was a serial rapist, was declared innocent of insanity (NGRI-DID), sparked extreme outrage in society. Since then, it is very rare for the courts to have accepted did as justification for the madness. Undeniably, the social response to DID hinders the objective assessment of patients diagnosed with dido for their legal responsibility. Some psychiatrists do not believe in DID at all, and there is a great suspicion about the ease of mutilating DID to advocate for insanity. The reason for thinking is the extreme complexity of the symptoms, which leads to the difficulty of scientific evaluation of the patient`s disease.
The term “multiple personality disorder” has been replaced by “dissociative identity disorder” (DID) in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association 2013), and it is also the term used in ICD-10 (World Health Organization 1992). Between 1970 and 1979, only 39 articles on MEDLINE concerned multiple personalities or DID. Between 1980 and 1989, the number of new articles cited was 212 and increased to 391 between 1990 and 1999. Since then, it has stabilized with 179 articles between 2000 and 2009 and 197 between 2010 and 2018. Did Huskey invent another personality and completely change his tone and vocabulary as part of an acquittal round or lighter sentence, or does he suffer from a multiple personality disorder? When it comes to deciding what is wrong and what is real, there is no place where the stakes are higher than in the courtroom. In 2016 alone, dissociative identity disorder was offered as a defense in a child pornography case, by a mother accused of drowning her 2-year-old child and in the murder of a prostitute. Let`s take a look at the three “faces” of dissociative identity disorder in the courtroom and the role a forensic psychologist plays in its integration. Jurors also never heard that Huskey had already been tried for rape by three other prostitutes: another at the zoo and the other at Cahaba Lane, where the bodies of the four women killed were later discovered. Huskey`s rape trial never mentioned multiple personality disorder, and he was found guilty. There is very little in the literature on DID in forensic environments.
And what has been published does not meet scientific standards. Conclusions depend on whether DID is believed to be a “true” mental disorder (Brand Reference Mark, Schielke and Brams2017a, Reference Mark, Schielke and Brams2017b) or invalid fashion (Merckelbach Reference Merckelbach and Patihis2018). Although rarely successful, a “not guilty of insanity” (NGRI or the so-called insanity defense) defense has sometimes been called, mainly in the United States, for defendants with DID in criminal cases (Farrell Reference Farrell2011). The hypothesis would be that if a crime has been committed, if a person is under the influence of an “age”, a mental disorder has affected guilt. The American experience with this defense goes back several decades, but the cases are now less common. To further support their claim, defense attorneys showed jurors psychiatric reports describing Huskey as “perhaps schitzophrene” and pointed to his divorce from a woman in 1984 who noticed his mood swings and “frightening divided personality.” The case of Thomas Huskey, which took place in Knoxville, raised a broader question of whether DID is a valid defense for crime. The man brutally killed four women after forcing them to have sex. He also filmed himself during the murder in a loud and angry voice. The lawyers claimed that although Huskey was able to speak, the words came from an alter ego taking control of his actions (Haliman, 2015). In addition, defense lawyers claimed that the connection of another personality, the so-called Kyle, was not proof that Thomas – a gentle and calm man – had committed a crime. Prosecutors asked an expert, Dr.
Herbert Spiegel, to assess the presence of multiple identities and how each of them could affect a person`s actions. Interestingly, the vocabulary, tone, and way of speaking were completely different in both identities when professionals agreed that it was the voice of the same person. One of the psychiatrists claimed that Huskey was just a good actor and had an incredible ability to manipulate people (Appalachian Unsolved, 2017). The court had only two options: if he had been convicted of the crime or if he had been found not guilty because of did and signs of insanity. No matter how the lawyers tried to defend Huskey, the majority of jurors concluded that he should be punished for his crimes, and he is currently serving a 64-year prison sentence. Most people who have been abused in childhood suffer from painful memories, as seen in post-traumatic stress disorder (McNally Reference McNally and Belli2012). In contrast, “recovered memories” of childhood sexual abuse are unreliable and can be created at suggestion (Loftus Reference Loftus, Polonsky, & Fullilove, 1994). Unfortunately, our sympathy for suffering allows patients who claim to have done to engage in a role that allows them to blame others for their problems.
It may also be relevant that DID clinics in the U.S. have sometimes raised millions of dollars in fees for expensive treatments. Finally, as few doctors or clinical psychologists have ever seen a case of DID, the publishers of diagnostic manuals have handed over the decision to those who claim to have seen hundreds of cases and claim to be experts. There were no randomised controlled therapeutic trials based on the diagnosis of DID, only case reports. Long and expensive treatments that are not evidence-based also tend to cause a negative reaction. Many critics considered the treatment methods used by DID enthusiasts to be regressive and harmful (Piper Reference Piper and Merskey2004b). A review article from a group supporting the validity of DID (Brand Reference Brand, Classen and McNary2009) summarized a number of studies in which dissociative symptoms were reduced with treatment. However, all samples were small and the research designs were pre-post-post controlled trials, not randomised. To understand the complexity of DID and its relationship to the law, the investigation must begin by starting from its history (Table 1). The first encounter with DID occurred in 1815, when a patient, Mary Reynolds, who, according to Rayna L.
Rogers, “could sleep eighteen hours a day, and then wake up with great divergences in her memory, writing, and temperament” (Rogers, 1991). The first case of DID that attracted a lot of public attention was that of Chris Sizemore, a story about a patient diagnosed with DID, presented by Thigpen and Cleckley in 1954.