“Heartless killers,” Wilk repeated. “But not professional killers who dishonour science by dragging smut into court, and who get paid for perjury, are they?”
Horn roared for an apology. Wilk muttered something to the judge and stalked away from the witness with a trivial wave of the hand.
He had obtained his effect, annihilating Stauffer with contempt, just as he had beguiled Dr. Ball with chummy flattery.
And on the following day, Wilk produced still a third style of cross-examination, to the discomfiture of Horn’s final expert witness.
For Dr. Tierney, Wilk exhibited a clear, persistent, dry method of questioning and an utter mastery of his material, so that the entire courtroom could not but relish his playing of a highly aware and resistant witness, until the lawyer got the doctor to say everything he wanted him to say.
Tierney was a local man of national stature, whom Horn had used to tally against Dr. McNarry. He had been director of the State Hospital for the Insane, and he was, like Dr. McNarry, the author of an important work on insanity and the law. A most impressive figure, dark-haired, wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses.
For Horn, he confirmed that he had studied the Storrs-Allwin report and that he had studied the behaviour of the defendants during all these weeks in court. Both were in full possession of their faculties, and sane.
Wilk began, “Could you tell by looking at these boys whether or not they were mentally diseased?”
“No,” the doctor responded. “But I could tell whether or not their appearance showed evidence of mental disease.”
There was a suppressed snort from Judd at the fatuous remark.
Wilk then sought to show that Dr. Tierney had never even talked to the defendants. The doctor had seen them a day after the famous Sunday examination. They had been brought to Horn’s office, to pick up suitcases sent by their families.
“And did you examine these boys then? Did you question them?”
“They had already been instructed not to reply to any questions.”
“In your experience with criminal cases, is it customary for the lawyers to instruct their clients not to talk?”
“I have examined quite a number of cases for the State in which the lawyers have not advised their clients to refuse to talk.”
“What ones?”
“Well, one would be Carl Wanderer, for instance,” Tierney said, recalling a notorious murderer.
“He talked, did he?”
“He did talk, yes.”
“And he got hanged?”
“Yes, sir.” The laughter seemed not to reach him.
“You know that nobody had a right to compel them to talk?”
“I believe that is a constitutional right, yes.”
And yet, Wilk pointed out, Horn had been trying to get the boys to answer questions for Dr. Tierney.
Horn leaped into the fray. “I object. You cannot compel a man to talk, but there is no constitutional provision that you can’t ask him to talk!”
Wilk turned on him. “You had no more right to bring them back into your office than to take them to the state penitentiary!”
“The sheriff brought them in, with your permission, to get their suitcases!”
“And you tried to make use of it, tried to get them to talk some more, in violation of their constitutional rights, after you had had a picnic with them all the weekend, keeping them away from counsel!”
“I will confess that I violated a number of constitutional rights!” Horn shouted, the witness forgotten. “And I intend to continue that as long as I am State’s Attorney!”
Wilk turned to the whole world. “I don’t think in a well-organized community a man could be elected State’s Attorney under the statement that when a citizen is charged with a crime, the state’s attorney would violate his constitutional rights.”
“Well now, gentlemen, you will have plenty of time for argument after the evidence is all in,” Judge Matthewson said.
“Excuse me, Your Honour,” said Wilk. He eyed Tierney. His evidence, then, was to be founded entirely on his observations in this court?
That, and the reports of the other psychiatrists, Dr. Tierney said.
“Was there any testimony of fact by any of the psychiatrists that would put a psychiatrist on inquiry, as to further examination?”
“Outside of the crime itself, no.” Moreover, Dr. Tierney pointed out, the boys had never aroused suspicion of mental disease prior to the crime.
“Is a split personality evidence of a mental disorder?” Wilk asked.
“To become a disorder, there would have to be a further development in a delusional state – a schizophrenia leading to a psychosis.”
That was just the word he was looking for, Wilk said. Sizzy – skizzy – what was it? And as he struggled with it, everyone laughed. Ah yes, he had seen that word in the doctor’s own book.
“What other names do you use for split personality?” Wilk asked.
“Oh, they talk of delusions and they talk of hallucinations and they talk of fantasies. And schizophrenia.”
“Yes. We just had it. Now, to digress a little, what is the mind?”
“The mind represents that which we commonly call I. It is really the I-ego, the sum of all one’s experiences in the subjective stage, and not the objective experience.”
“The sum of one’s experience?” The great Jonathan was letting us feel that this expert might be too much for him.
“Yes, one’s thinking, feeling, and actions, in relation to the situations in which one is being placed and that one can recall.”
“And what is emotion?”
“Emotion comes from the need of living matter to maintain itself.”
“Then a person, an ‘I’, a mind, is badly served by an emotional nature that does not seek to maintain itself?”
“In what way?”
“Someone who committed rash acts that could lead to death – would he be emotionally defective?”
If he was referring to suicides, Dr. Tierney said, it would again be a case where the definition of mental illness came with the act itself.
“But there are indirect forms of suicide?”
Not every rash action was evidence of a self-destructive impulse, the doctor said. Some rash actions were merely foolish.
Wilk nodded. Wasn’t a self-destructive or suicidal tendency often found in a split personality? That is, one part for, one part against, oneself?
Yes, Dr. Tierney agreed.
“Now what was the word again? Sizzo – never mind. If you did find a split personality, you would examine further, wouldn’t you?”
Dr. Tierney smiled. “It is all a question of degree. If you forget a word, Mr. Wilk, I shouldn’t think it necessary to examine you for mental disease.”
Wilk awarded him a mock bow. “Now – this schizo – what sort of persons are most liable to it?”
“Why, schizophrenic persons, naturally.”
“Are you trying to evade me or make fun of me?”
“No, I’m trying to understand you,” the doctor said urbanely.
“At what age is it most likely to develop into a psychosis?”
“What do you mean by it?”
“I mean your sizzyphasis or whatever it is.”
The doctor’s face became stonily remote. So he had been put off guard by clowning. “I can’t generalize,” he said.
Ah? Wilk glanced into the doctor’s own book, at the page where his finger had been all the while. “During the period of adolescence?”
“A certain frequency has been noted,” the doctor admitted.
Wilk read from the book, “‘In such cases – schizophrenia in adolescence’” – and this time he had no difficulty whatsoever with the word – “‘one often finds expression in crimes of violence.’”
Horn shouted, “This has no bearing on this case, has it, doctor?”
“Wait till it’s your turn to ask questions!” Wilk snapped before the judge could intervene. And he returned to his attack.
“When is this condition most often seen?” Wilk persisted.
Tierney sat silent. Wilk read, “‘This condition may most often be seen in adolescents at the time when they are emancipated from home control, and when they are leaving school…’”