How does this witness help Minassian?
Ted Bundy was a psychopath. Ted Kczynski- the Unabomber — manifested overvalued ideas that came close to being delusional yet weren’t. Both were mentally twisted, but neither was insane from a legal standpoint. Neither is Alek Minassian, in the expert opinion of Dr. John Bradford, an internationally renowned forensic psychiatrist who interviewed the alleged mass murderer on more than 10 occasions following his arrest. The oddest part about this assessment, which Bradford offered from the remote, virtual witness box on Thursday, is that the doctor is a witness for the defence. A defence that pivots exclusively on the contention that Minassian is not criminally responsible for the horrendous acts he hasn’t denied committing on April 23, 2018. Although the 28-yearold has entered a plea of not guilty. Minassian’s comprehension of the moral and legal wrongness of those acts — deliberately driving a van into innocent strangers along north Yonge Street, killing 10 and injuring 16, hoping to kill many more, as court has already heard — is the only issue at the judge-only trial: Not criminally responsible (NCR) under Sec. 16 of the Criminal Code. Bradford referenced Bundy and Kaczynski in his daylong testimony under direct examination by lead defence lawyer Boris Bytensky as a comparative illustration between the severe mental maladies of those two notorious monsters — keep in mind that both were declared legally sane at trial — and the autism spectrum disorder with which Minassian was diagnosed as a child. Which didn’t prevent Minassian from, for example, obtaining a college degree and securing a job as software developer, and he never before that awful day exhibited any violent behaviour. There is no precedent for autism spectrum disorder being a mental-illness exculpation in any Canadian court. Only once before has it been mounted — with a young offender — as a defence, and in that case the assertion wasn’t contested, meaning it never actually got tested at trial. It is puzzling what Bytensky plans to gain from Bradford’s testimony that might be beneficial to his client, since so much of the evidence appears to be supporting the prosecution’s position — that Minassian shouldn’t be found NCR. Many in the autism community are appalled by an implied connection between the disorder and criminal behaviour. It’s rare. Bradford cited Mother Jones magazine’s database of mass murders and serial homicides. Those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder account for only eight per cent of the 485 cases; there are another 16 per cent who might have had the condition. “There seems to be some relation between autism spectrum disorder and mass homicide,” said Bradford, while stressing he is not an authority on the disorder. Broadly speaking, Bradford added that about one per cent of the population have some degree of autism, most of whom are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. “When it comes to whatever relations there may be between autism and violence, I hink it’s more complicated in the sense that there seems to be a relationship, but what’s actually causing it is much more difficult to understand.” Bytensky: “You’re not saying that autism causes someone to commit mass murder?” Bradford: “Absolutely not.” The psychiatrist saw the accused over a period of two months in a seclusion suite at the St. Joseph’s mental health unit in Hamilton. “In the case of Mr. Minassian, I think it was very clear early on that he was not psychotic.” No psychosis, no delusions, no hallucinations, according to Bradford’s 203 pages of handwritten notes. And psychosis, the doctor repeatedly stated, is a fundamental component of NCR in up to 90 per cent of cases. Even then, it might not rise to the level of not criminally responsible: “you can be psychotic and still be criminally responsible” — to wit, Bundy. Further, psychosis more frequently develops over an extended period of time, from childhood through adulthood. From Bradford’s conversations with Minassian’s family, there had been no indication of psychotic tendencies before, on one fine spring morning, he rented a van and set about his “mission.” Indeed, the doctor and his team never even saw Minassian depressed, despite a suicide attempt — drinking soap — before the accused arrived at St. Joe’s. There were tics common in autism — constant handwashing, ritualistic organizing of items, smiling and talking to himself, spitting at the wall — but mostly Minassian evinced typical behaviour for someone on the disorder spectrum. “His emotional responses were quite flat.” Minassian’s account of the event motional, was “very with blunt, a lack of unee empathy for the deceased, for the injured and for the impact on his own family. But I don’t think it’s essentially the same as the lack of empathy you see with psychopaths.” Psychosis, Bradford explained and reiterated, is a “state, not a trait,” at the high end of personality disorder, characterized by profound callousness and disregard for others, with a penchant for gratuitous violence; in sexual psychopaths, the desire to “harm and torture people for their own pleasure.” Bytensky bluntly asked: “Is Mr. Minassian a psychopath?” Bradford: “No. For somebody to be diagnosed as having an anti-social personality disorder, it would have to be seen beforehand. You would have to have evidence of this occurring before the age of 18 … It doesn’t apply in this case. Mr. Minassian does have empathy problems, but that I feel comes from his (autism) condition as opposed to anti-social personality or psychopathy. “He’s not been violent at any other time before this incident.” Minassian, the doctor pointed out, lied in his nearly fourhour interview with Det. Rob Thomas on the evening of the rampage, for example spinning fabrications about having had direct contact with celebrated (in some perverse quarters) paragons of the incel — involuntary celibate — movement, such as mass killers Elliot Rodger and Chris HarperMercer. From his conversations with Minassian, Bradford concluded that the incel movement “played some influence” — there may have been some “online indoctrination,” but it wasn’t a hyper-focus. “Does this play a role on people on the (autism) spectrum who are vulnerable to this? I think that is something that’s going to be studied more in the future.” Yearning for fame would explain what Minassian had told the detective, a kind of “mini-manifesto” linking himself with Rodger and HarperMercer. “What we do know is that Mr. Minassian lied in his statement to Det. Thomas in order to increase the notoriety values of what he had done.” What, then, was the point of Minassian’s mission, as relayed to the doctor, Bytensky asked? “He seemed to think he would rise on the internet to infamy, to notoriety, for what he had done.” Maybe Yonge Street would even forever after be associated with his crime. Minassian did, however, indicate some level of moral reasoning, at least to the extent he knew that the crime would be morally repugnant to the public, and words to the effect of “this wasn’t a good thing.” Bradford said he’d pressed on that issue, whether Minassian had expressed any remorse or regret. “When I first brought it up, his response was, well, I didn’t think of that. “I felt I needed to push this issue a little bit more in terms of trying to get more from him … trying to understand what he understood about morality.” Minassian responded that he knew what the unwritten rules to live by were. “Then, asking him, is killing immoral? He said it was, obviously.” At the very least, cognitively aware. Bradford asked Minassian how he felt about his actions on April 23, 2018. “He said that he felt good about it.”