EVIDENCE PHASE ENDS AT `ONE-ISSUE' MASS MURDER TRIAL
EXPERTS DISCUSS MENTAL STATE OF ACCUSED IN TORONTO VAN ATTACK
An unprecedented mass murder trial has now heard all of the evidence for and against the driver who purposely drove a rented van into pedestrians along a busy Toronto sidewalk.
The judge, Anne Molloy, will listen to final arguments this week before deliberating on a verdict.
Despite the trial starting with the worst charge sheet ever read into the record of a court in Ontario — 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder — Molloy said it really is “a one-issue case.”
That issue: the mental state of Alek Minassian.
It has been a unique trial to match the shocking act.
Minassian, 28, who was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder as a child, admits he carefully planned his attack. The five- week trial heard chilling admissions on how he deliberately drove onto the sidewalk, aiming for groups of people, preferably women, and only stopping when he could no longer see out of the windshield.
The court heard him say he had hoped to kill 100 people to achieve a record tally but remained satisfied with the 10 he did kill. He injured 16 others in his attack, on April 23, 2018.
He said he had no regrets. The court heard his various motivations, as he told them to various medical assessors interviewing him before his trial to test his mental status.
He said he publicly claimed it was done as part of an “Incel rebellion,” in support of a fringe ideology of men dangerously angry over their inability to attract sexual interest from women, its name a portmanteau of “involuntarily celibate.”
In later interviews, he drew back on that.
While he had sympathy for incel ideas, frequented their online forums, and was somewhat obsessed with the godfather of incel violence, mass murderer Elliot Rodger, he was not a hardcore disciple. He said he piggybacked on the incel brand to boost his notoriety and to make the reasons behind his attack seem more interesting than they were, which he variously listed as loneliness, wanting to be noticed, fear of failing at his new job, and a desire to get a high score on the Internet's ranking of mass murderers posted in grim forums he frequented.
With such an incredible trove of evidence against Minassian, that a guilty verdict to something, at least, seemed inevitable.
Minassian, however, pleaded not guilty. On the opening day of the trial, on Nov. 10, he declared: “I'm entering a plea of not criminally responsible for all counts.”
These were the only words he spoke directly at the trial, although court heard, and sometimes saw, his interviews with mental health experts and an interrogation by police.
According to the Criminal Code of Canada, a person is not criminally responsible for a crime committed “while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.”
Trial evidence focused on Minassian's state of mind.
The premise of Minassian's defence is controversial. None of the lawyers could find a previous case in Canada where a not-criminally responsible defence was challenged and tested in court. Outside of court, autism groups decried the defence position, saying people with autism are not violent and are more often victims than perpetrators.
Minassian underwent several psychiatric assessments after his arrest, and court heard direct testimony from four psychiatrists and a psychologist.
What they said will be at the heart of Molloy's verdict.
Dr. Rebecca Chauhan, a forensic psychiatrist, interviewed Minassian three times. She said Minassian described his attack without displaying any emotion.
She said he told her as he was crashing into people, he was “wishing for more female victims.”
Like all assessors, she said Minassian fantasized about mass murder and school shootings since he was in high school. She said he started focusing on Rodgers as a mass killer and for his incel beliefs. A specialist in autism, Chauhan found no signs of psychosis, which is the usual mental condition that leads to a not-criminally responsible verdict.
Dr. John Bradford, a well-known forensic psychiatrist who has examined many of Canada's most notorious killers, such as Paul Bernardo, Robert Pickton, Russell Williams and Luka Magnotta, spent time with Minassian over 60 days.
He said he did not think autism alone could cause the level of mental disorder that could trigger a finding of not criminally responsible.
He said there could be a “hypothetical possibility” of finding a path to a not criminally responsible verdict based on symptoms of autism, but not one he supports. That set the stage for the defence's most important witness, but there was considerable drama before he took the stand.
Dr. Alexander Westphal, a forensic psychiatrist who specializes in autism, did not realize his videos of interviews with Minassian might be shown in open court and released as exhibits. He refused to testify unless the court assured him they would be sealed and restricted in their viewing at trial.
Molloy said the witness's refusal was “offensive” and a “ransom demand,” and said she normally would send police to his door to bring him to court, but because he was in the United States, that was not practical. She reluctantly acquiesced.
Westphal presented a detailed history of Minassian's mental health since birth. He spent 14 hours interviewing and testing Minassian in preparation for trial and spent more than a week on the stand.
“He is stuck at an early developmental stage of the development of moral judgment. He understands the rules, he can articulate the rules, he has a very sophisticated understanding of the rules,” he said. However, he cannot apply them to real life.
His condition left Minassian poorly armed in the dark and macabre corners of the internet, where he obsessed over school shooters and mass murderers, fringe subcultures and black humour.
Minassian's autism distorted reality to such a degree it created a serious mental break, with similar impact to hallucinations or delusions, which are the usual basis for a not-criminally responsible verdict, Westphal said.
In interviews with Westphal, Minassian said if he could go back in time, he would probably do the attack all over again, but this time make sure he died at the end of it, to avoid prison.
Westphal was the only witness to embrace Minassian's not-criminally responsible claim. Westphal was challenged by Crown prosecutor Joseph Callaghan, who accused him of ignoring evidence that didn't support his position, including the words of Minassian himself.
“Am I really going to be able to hit the accelerator or am I just going to chicken out and just drive past the intersection,” Minassian described asking himself just before his attack.
The Crown called two mental health experts to testify.
The first, Percy Wright, is a forensic psychologist. He interviewed Minassian who told him that he wanted to get “the highest number of kills” he could, “ideally 100 people,” to set a world record.
Wright agreed that Minassian likely wouldn't have killed the people if he wasn't autistic, but it wasn't autism that drove him to the killings, it went hand-in-hand with his obsession with mass murder.
The second Crown witness was Dr. Scott Woodside, a forensic psychiatrist, who also interviewed Minassian. He described Minassian as a “mass murderer who happens to have autism” rather than a man whose autism drove him to mass murder.
Supporting that were the words of Minassian himself, who told Woodside: “I don't think I was mentally ill at the time, to be honest,” court heard.
Minnasian's lawyer Boris Bytensky challenged Woodside over his lack of recordings or extensive notes, and a lack of specialization in autism.
The only witness called who was not a mental health specialist was Minassian's father, Vahe (Vic) Minassian.
He said he had never seen his son cry.
He said his son had problems from a young age because of odd behaviours. He was in a special education program throughout his schooling and was incapable of talking to women he did not know. He couldn't order his own food in a restaurant if the server was a woman.
The evidence phase of the trial closed on Tuesday.
On Thursday and Friday, first the defence and then the Crown, will outline their take on the key facts of the case and their legal arguments for why and how the judge should reach the conclusion each is hoping for.
Afterwards, Molloy is expected to reserve her decision for a substantial period of deliberation. A verdict is not expected until the new year.
Killed in the attack were: Renuka Amarasingha, 45; Andrea Bradden, 33; Geraldine Brady, 83; So He Chung, 22; Anne Marie D'Amico, 30; Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Forsyth, 94; Chul Min (Eddie) Kang, 45; Ji Hun Kim, 22; Munir Najjar, 85; and Dorothy Sewell, 80.