by Burl Barer
According to Anderson, Glover understood the charges against her, and the basic facts of the case, but Anderson did not believe that Glover was capable of working with her lawyer and actively participating in her own defense. “I think she has significant impairment. I don’t think she is able to stay focused on the things she needs to tell him. She just can’t keep from going off on all these delusional tangents. She keeps focusing on things that, in her mind, have great importance, but as far as her case goes, they are of no importance at all. In conclusion,” said Anderson, “she is clearly not competent to stand trial. It is possible that with some treatment, she may be competent to stand trial in the future.”
Incompetent to stand trial, incompetent to aid in her own defense, incompetent to communicate effectively with her lawyer, Rhonda Glover was sent off to North Texas State Hospital, originally named North Texas Lunatic Asylum. This is the largest state hospital in the Texas mental-health system, and provides psychiatric services for both the mentally ill and mentally retarded in North Texas, as well as the entire state of Texas.
It was possible that Rhonda Glover could have remained an inmate, or patient, at Texas State Hospital for the rest of her life—had she not been able to, against her most sincere desires, keep her mouth shut. Even with medical treatment, it took quite a while before Rhonda Glover became mentally stabilized to the point where she was deemed competent to stand trial.
“And it must be kept in mind,” commented her attorney, “that Rhonda Glover was certainly not suffering from drug-induced psychosis while receiving mental-health care during her extensive period of treatment following her arrest. Drugs were not part of the equation of her mental-illness symptoms.”
It was significant that the videotape of her confession to Detective Walker played a major role in the jury recognizing that Rhonda Glover was mentally incompetent. “The jury saw what she was like when arrested,” commented Jeff Reynolds. “And it was pretty damn obvious that she was more than EDP. She was OOHFM, as in ‘Out of Her Friggin’ Mind.'”
Texas has one of the most restrictive insanity defenses in the nation. It is rarely used and almost never successful. If Rhonda Glover’s attorney wanted to claim that she was insane, he would have to prove that she suffered from a severe mental illness, and that she was incapable of knowing right from wrong. Texas, however, does not give jurors definitions of “knowing” and “wrong.”
“This lack of definitions,” said Houston attorney Fred Dahr, “contributes to a vague standard, and often jurors are reluctant to find insanity when a defendant has some minimal appreciation of having committed a crime.”
Texas, like many states, restricted the insanity defense after John Hinckley Jr. was acquitted by reason of insanity of shooting President Reagan in 1981. Hinckley claimed that he shot President Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster.
The Mental Health Advocate, a publication of the Mental Health Association in Texas (MHAT), took a strong stance when examining proposed legislative actions pertaining to a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity.”
Accounts of individuals with mental illness committing violent crimes periodically fill the headlines, stated the Advocate. In many cases, these men or women are found “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity “ and are sent to a state mental health facility for treatment rather than to a prison for punishment.
The insanity defense is invoked in less than 1 percent of all criminal trials, and it is rare that there is a repeat violent offense. These cases, despite their rarity, or perhaps because of it, receive widespread publicity.
These rare situations often contribute to public misperception and stereotypes that stigmatize and label people with mental illnesses as dangerous and unpredictable, stated the Advocate, even though the vast majority of people living with mental illnesses are not threats to the community and have never had contact with the criminal justice system.
In 2004, the Senate Jurisprudence Committee of the Texas Legislature was officially charged to study insanity defense laws, specifically evaluating the impact of changing the defense of “not guilty by reason of insanity” to “guilty, but insane.”
This initiative paralleled a movement in other states to change the insanity defense laws to make it possible to send the mentally ill to prisons and jails instead of mental-health facilities. Prison is for criminals, and there is no doubt that an overwhelming number of criminals’ violent behavior is directly related to confirmed brain-based injury or illnesses. Rhonda Glover’s violent behavior is not, however unique to a particular segment of the “mental patient in prison” population.
This group has been the subject of extensive scholarly study. Rage or anger, overwhelmingly directed toward intimate or familial relations by the use of a firearm or sharp object, was the most frequent motive for murder, reported Phyllis L. Solomon, Ph.D., in her published work Characteristics of Persons With Severe Mental Illness Who Have Been Incarcerated for Murder. Most had been raised in households with significant family dysfunction, and/or extensive histories of substance abuse and criminality, and had received little treatment for their mental and substance use disorders.
In the words of deputy prosecutor Gail Van Winkle, Rhonda Glover was a woman who did not fit that category as defined by Solomon. “She has known that she has had an illness since 1999. She has had treatment. She has been prescribed medication, but in her own words, she has admitted to you that she often did not take her medications. She didn’t take her medications on July 21, 2004.”
In framing Rhonda Glover’s defense, the issue of her past history of mental illness, and medical treatment for her condition, could not be referenced. It could only be introduced as a mitigating circumstance when determining punishment if she were found guilty of murder.
The prosecuting attorney viewed Glover’s illness as a nonissue. “Yes, she has a mental disorder,” conceded Van Winkle, “a mental illness, but I submit to you that she is a scary individual, and you would not want her in your community. Her mental health, under these circumstances, and the opportunities that she has had, and her refusal to take her medication, and to mix her medication with illegal drugs, is actually aggravating.”
Prisons are not an appropriate placement for someone suffering from mental illness, asserted the MHAT: The prison system is not designed to provide an array of mental health services, and does not have rehabilitation as a primary goal. Individuals with mental illness need treatment, not punishment, in order to recover from their illness and integrate safely back into their community.
There was another reason why the revision in the law was so strongly opposed by the mental-health professionals. A guilty conviction of any kind would make it more difficult for the individual to find housing or employment after release. The stigma associated with a “Guilty “ conviction could last a lifetime, said the official position paper, long after the individual’s illness may have stabilized.
The Mental Health Association in Texas opposed efforts to eliminate the “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense and replace it with any option that involves forcing an individual to be found guilty in order to get treatment. Instead, MHAT advocated for changes to the insanity defense laws that would more accurately take into account the impact and effect of serious mental illnesses on individuals who commit crimes while impaired by their illnesses.
“Some of the changes they proposed,” remarked Denise Brady, MHAT public policy director, “included changing the current insanity law to allow the jury to consider whether the person’s mental illness made them unable to comply with the law, or to understand and appreciate the moral wrongness of their action. We also wanted to eliminate the provision in state law that prohibits juries from being informed of the consequences to the defendant if a verdict of ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ is returned.”
The Mental Health Association in Texas also advocated for Jail Diversion Programs for persons with mental illnesses who come into contact with the law.
A r
evision of State laws that assures that mental illnesses are treated as any other illnesses, said the Association, will help remove the stigma associated with these disorders.
What exactly constitutes “sane” or “insane” isn’t always immediately obvious, as illustrated by the case of Andre Thomas. In 2004, Thomas cut out the hearts of his wife and her two children and put them in his pocket. Prior to his murder trial, he plucked out his right eye. Found guilty, and placed on death row, Thomas ripped out his other eye and swallowed it. Thomas is clearly “crazy,” a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals wrote in a concurring denial of his appeal, but he is also “sane” under Texas law.
“Here you have another classic example of crazy versus insane,” commented Fred Wolfson. “After Thomas was arrested, they gave him medication and treatment to the point where he could communicate with his lawyer. Because he could do that, he was determined to be mentally competent to stand trial.”
Inmates such as Thomas, sentenced to death, can only be executed if they understand what “execution” means, and the reason why they are being executed. Sometimes they must undergo mental-health treatment simply to get them well enough to be executed.
The whole concept of knowing “right” from “wrong” as the standard by which sanity is determined has at least one incredibly obvious flaw: Some defendants, such as Thomas, know killing is wrong but say God is telling them to do it. They know it is “wrong” by society’s standards, but they are behaving in conformity with, they firmly believe, a higher standard—the Will of God. They honestly believe what they did was morally “right,” because they were acting righteously on behalf of God.
Rhonda Glover claimed that she was never mentally ill, only overstressed and overmedicated, and that her psychosis on previous occasions was due to her ingestion of drugs. The reason she used drugs, claimed Glover, was to deal with the insanity of Jimmy Joste.
The way Glover portrayed the situation, and the way Texas law is written, it would be impossible for her lawyer to use “not guilty by reason of insanity” as a defense for shooting Jimmy Joste. The only possible way to deal with it would be to claim self-defense, that she was protecting herself. She certainly said that she feared for her life when Joste confronted her in the Mission Oaks house.
The United States Supreme Court, many experts agree, will have to make further rulings on the entire issue. So far, the court has ruled only that an inmate must be competent to be executed. The high court also ruled a mentally ill defendant cannot represent himself in court. The court has not ruled on whether an inmate may be forcibly medicated to render him eligible for execution. That issue may be ripe for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. The court may also have to decide if it is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on someone who is sane but mentally ill. So far, only a handful of states are even considering a ban on executing the mentally ill. Texas is not among them.
“There is something just horribly wrong,” said Maurie Levin, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, “with a system that permits somebody severely mentally ill to be found competent to stand trial or sane at the time of that crime.”
“We need to change the law,” agreed Bryan Shannon, a Texas Tech law professor, “because a mentally ill person may know their conduct is wrong but be unable to fully comprehend the situation because the illness affects his emotional state and thinking and reasoning ability.”
“The presence of so many people with mental illness in prison calls into question the ethical and moral basis for society’s assigning criminal responsibility to people with mental illness,” said Jennifer Bard, of Texas Tech Law School. “Thus, the problem of adjudicating mentally ill people who violate society’s criminal laws should be approached as a public-health problem.” To deal with this problem from a public-health crises standpoint requires developing a global plan to address mental-health needs both before and after a crime has been committed.
13
With Rhonda Glover temporarily in a mental institution, those outraged over Jimmy Joste’s death expressed concern that Glover was “getting away” with murder. The more hot emotions run, the less likely the appearance of justice.
Many people have the mistaken idea that if someone is found “not guilty by reason of insanity,” they just walk free. That is simply not true. If the jury believes that, they will be reluctant to render the verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity.” What really happens is that the defendant is sent to a mental hospital. Admittedly, under current law, the length of that hospitalization is not determined by the court because the court cannot make rulings on medical matters.
Prosecutors oppose efforts to broaden the “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense. “The people who are truly mentally ill, to the degree that their functioning is impaired, I think they are protected by the existing system,” said Karla Hackett, a Texas prosecuting attorney.
For two simple reasons, Rhonda Glover, even though mentally ill, could not use insanity as a defense for shooting Jimmy Joste, despite her delusions about Cave X, clones, human sacrifices and demons in her walls. She knew it was against the law to kill him, and she had a history of illicit drug use and drug-induced psychosis. Under Texas law if the illness is caused or worsened by “voluntary intoxication,” such as drug or alcohol abuse, you don’t get to claim insanity. “The majority of people with mental illness self-medicate with alcohol or other mood-altering drugs,” noted Leonard Buschel. “Right there, you eliminate the ability to claim mental impairment by one of the symptoms of it! ”
In 80 percent of the cases in which a defendant is found “not guilty by reason of insanity,” it is because the prosecution and defense have agreed on the plea before trial, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The vast majority of people with a mental illness would be judged “sane” if current legal tests for insanity were applied to them, the APA notes in its insanity defense fact sheet. A mental illness may explain a person’s behavior. It seldom excuses it. Mental health is one of the most complicated areas of criminal law, poorly understood not just by the public but by most defense lawyers as well.
Theodore the “Unabomber” Kaczynski was mentally ill, and part of his mental illness was the inability to recognize or admit that he had mental illness. He was found competent to stand trial, fired his attorney, eventually pleaded guilty with counsel and was sentenced to life in prison. Similar to the Una-bomber, Rhonda Glover also insisted that she was never mentally ill, when it couldn’t be more obvious that she suffered significant mental instability.
Dr. Mary Anderson evaluated Rhonda Glover again in May of 2005. Glover’s new attorney, Joe James Sawyer, was there for the evaluation, and Anderson spoke with him as well. “I also examined all the medical records from Texas State Hospital,” said Anderson. “Glover was there from December 2004 until March of 2005. Her discharge diagnosis was psychosis, alcohol dependency and cocaine abuse. She was discharged with prescription for one hundred fifteen milligrams of Seroquel, an antipsychotic medication, to take at bedtime.”
Medication has become a critical part of an effective treatment regimen for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are serious, biological-based brain disorders. Physicians who treat these disorders need a range of options in order to find an appropriate treatment for their individual patients.
Mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia cannot be overcome through “willpower” and are not related to a person’s character or intelligence. Without adequate treatment the consequences of mental illness for the individual and society are staggering and can include: disability, unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, inappropriate incarceration and suicide. General understanding of these illnesses and their treatments has improved in recent years as science has progressed.
“Glover thought of reducing the dosage,” said Anderson, “because of the sedative effect, but decided to stay with the m
edication, and said that she was committed to a regimen of medication to relieve the symptoms of psychosis and also her bipolar condition, whether she felt she needed them or not.”
On March 1, 2005, Rhonda Glover was again interviewed by Dr. Anderson, and, despite harboring the exact same delusions as the day she arrived at Texas State Hospital, she was determined to be competent to stand trial.
“Her speech patterns were normal,” said Anderson. “She didn’t seem suicidal or homicidal. She was able to acknowledge that some of the thoughts expressed in her letters to her mother and others could be considered crazy by many other people. Although she hadn’t abandoned these thoughts, she had discussed with lawyer Mr. Sawyer that she believed that she could keep these thoughts to herself if her defense attorney advised her to do so.”
By Anderson’s admission, Glover still had the same bizarre delusions that made her incompetent. The only difference between Glover being competent and incompetent was the probability of her being able to hide her incompetence.
During this interview Glover obsessively and repeatedly talked about her previous attorneys and her mother’s view of them. When she was told to put that aside, and focus on other issues, such as the charges against her, she was able to answer questions regarding the legal process.