“We don’t pick the defense,” his attorney Doug Peters later said. “The defense picks us.”
CHAPTER 15
Daniel McNaughtan was a 19th-century Scottish woodturner who had grown to hate the ruling Tories and Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. On what historian Richard Moran described as a “raw January afternoon” in 1843, McNaughtan walked up to a carriage he believed to be carrying Peel along Downing Street in London and, according to the Times of London, “put the muzzle of the pistol into the back of the unsuspecting gentleman. He then fired.”
It turned out the gentleman was not Peel but his private secretary Edmund Drummond. There is some dispute about whether McNaughtan meant to kill Drummond or if it was a case of mistaken identity; the newspapers of the day were not yet able to print photographs, so the appearances of government officials weren’t well known. The gravely wounded Drummond stumbled to his brother’s Charing Cross banking house and, despite receiving the best medical care of the time, died five days later. McNaughtan was quickly apprehended and charged with first-degree murder.
In a sensational trial in the Central Criminal Court of London, McNaughtan’s lawyers called nine medical experts to prove he was driven by a “fierce and fearful delusion” that caused him to believe the government was persecuting him. He suffered from what would be called “such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind” that at the time he pulled the trigger he did not know that what he was doing was wrong.
In a shocking decision, the court agreed. It found McNaughtan not guilty and spared him the gallows. Public outrage followed. The Times of London said the doctors who testified on his behalf had hijacked the trial. “The judge in his treatment of the madmen yields to the decision of the physician, and the physician in his treatment becomes the judge,” the Times wrote. The Standard griped about “mad doctors” who delivered testimony that was “crude” and “absurd.” Even Queen Victoria weighed in, calling for judges to take a firmer control of the courtroom. “The law may not be perfect, but how is it that whenever a case for its application arises, it proves to be of no avail?” she wrote to Peel, complaining that the “ablest lawyers of the day … allow and advise the Jury to pronounce the verdict of Not Guilty on account of Insanity—whilst everybody is morally convinced that both the malefactors were perfectly conscious and aware of what they did!”
One hundred and seventy some years later, on September 10, 2011, Hemy Neuman’s lawyers Doug Peters and Robert Rubin held a news conference. It was held on the porch of their offices in front of a sign reading PETERS, RUBIN AND SHEFFIELD, TRIAL LAWYERS with a picture of a scale. Peters told reporters, “Mr. Neuman had a mental illness, because of that mental illness, at the time of the shooting, he just was unable to understand the difference between right and wrong.”
He was referencing what had become to be known as the McNaughtan Rules on criminal responsibility adopted after the Scotsman’s case and dominating Anglo-Saxon law ever since. Most American states, including Georgia, still use this as an insanity test either by itself or in conjunction with another test, the best known being diminished capacity. Hemy planned to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
“This is our notice to the court that what this trial is about is not what happened, but why it happened. It is our notice that this is about the people who are involved and how this transpired,” Peters said. “This case is not about whether or not he pulled the trigger. He is the one who did the shooting. The question is, and what is provided by Georgia law, is What was his mental capacity at the time?”
Hemy’s lawyers didn’t reveal what they believed Hemy’s mental illness to be. He was currently being “evaluated by the best and they feel very, very confident in their diagnosis in the case which of course will be revealed,” said Peters. “Mr. Neuman, through us, has always maintained that he is innocent, that he is not responsible for this crime. A crime requires criminal intent, there was never criminal intent in this case … We have confidence that there will be a jury that can be seated here in DeKalb County that will give us a fair trial.”
The insanity plea announcement didn’t go over any better in 2011 than it had in the 1840s. Leading the charge was Ariela’s attorney Esther Panitch, who said Ariela was “devastated” to find out her estranged husband admitted to killing Rusty, but couldn’t accept the reasoning.
“She always believed the evidence from the district attorney, but to hear it come from the defense really brought it home,” said Panitch. “I don’t think anyone wants to believe their spouse is capable so there’s always some scintilla of hope that they couldn’t have done this and this wipes out this hope.” She noted Ariela saw “no sign of mental illness” and suggested the tactic was a ruse. “He acted like a man who was cheating on his wife and tried to lie about it,” she said, adding, “The inability to fight the overwhelming desire to be with your lover is not a legal reason for insanity.” She also questioned why it took nearly ten months after his arrest to decide that he was insane. “I suspect there has been so much overwhelming evidence of his guilt that this might be the only thing that they feel they have.”
Andrea’s attorney Seth Kirschenbaum released a statement saying, “We are relieved that Mr. Neuman has admitted that he killed Rusty Sneiderman. This was a cold-blooded, premeditated murder, however. Hopefully, the prosecution is prepared to rebut his insanity defense.”
DA Robert James seemed as surprised as anyone. Nothing in the investigation to this point had turned up a trace of mental illness. On the contrary, the witnesses all used words like calm and methodical and organized to describe Hemy. His restraint under pressure during the interrogation was such that he never raised his voice, never broke down, never grew angry, leaving the detectives frustrated. After the murder he acted as he always had. There were occasional times he broke his reserve—the breakup email with his wife was the most dramatic example. Otherwise friends and co-workers described him, if anything, as boring.
The same held true after his arrest. When Hemy was processed into the DeKalb County Jail, just another of the thousands of inmates who go through each year, he underwent a routine psychiatric evaluation. Dr. William Jerome Brickhouse, the jail’s director of mental health, said Hemy also got a follow-up examination based on some of the findings of the screening the next day, on January 6, 2011. Working off a checklist, Brickhouse asked Hemy about a range of topics, from how many children he had (three) to whether he had suffered any hallucinations (he said none). Hemy had said that two weeks earlier he had “contemplated” suicide by drowning himself in the ocean while he was visiting Florida but that he didn’t go through with it because of his love for his children and his Jewish beliefs that it would be a sin. Brickhouse determined that Hemy was safe for regular incarceration, that he was not suicidal or homicidal—not a risk to himself or others—and found no signs of a serious mental disorder.
By March, Hemy appeared to be adjusting to jail life. He was held in a two-person cell in an area—the jail calls them pods—with thirty-two inmates and reported no problems. “We talked about the living situation, his accommodations,” Brickhouse said. “Had he been threatened? Assaulted? He said he was fine.” With his Spanish skills, Hemy had become something of a mediator between the Hispanic and black inmates in his pod. “He said he was comfortable and had no request to be relocated,” said Brickhouse.
The prosecution went to the judge seeking “information, documents and recordings relevant to defendant’s claim of insanity.” Hemy had been visited by mental health professionals hired by the defense, and the prosecution wanted to know what Hemy told them—and how they came to their conclusions. The prosecution also wanted its own experts to examine Hemy. The defense countered that Hemy didn’t have to do this as it could infringe upon his rights against self-incrimination. The law “does not require a defendant to cooperate with the court’s expert and provides no sanctions against a defendant who refuses to so cooperate,” according to a defense motion. “In this case, th
e defendant retains his Fifth Amendment rights, and does not intend to waive those rights beyond what is required to give the state a fair opportunity to present its own expert testimony. Accordingly, there will be no examination and report generated by a court-appointed psychologist or psychiatrist.”
The judge disagreed, handing the defense yet another defeat. Hemy’s case file would be open to the prosecution. The story of Hemy’s insanity defense unfolded.
* * *
It began in March 2011, three months after Hemy’s arrest. At the time, things were looking bad for the defense. In addition to the media leaks from the search warrant affidavits and the battle with Hemy’s estranged wife, the ballistics examiner had just determined that the “souvenir” shell casing provided by Jan DaSilva’s girlfriend matched the shells at the murder scene, linking the gun scientifically to Hemy. Attorney Robert Rubin called Dr. Julie Rand-Dorney, a forensic psychiatrist. As an instructor at Emory University and the lead physician for the forensic unit at Georgia Regional Hospital in DeKalb County, Rand-Dorney was a highly sought expert in criminal cases, testifying for the prosecution sixty-one times, the defense twenty-eight times. Rubin asked her to conduct a screening to determine if Hemy showed signs of psychological issues that would be relevant to a defense, and, if so, whether he was faking those signs.
She began by taking a personal history from Hemy. It turned out that Hemy’s reserve hid a lifetime of pain. In an account to Rand-Dorney, with details added when he spoke to other mental health experts later—and echoed in court in the testimony by his sister, Monique—Hemy described a life of fear, isolation, and physical pain, the seeds of which were rooted in the Holocaust.
His father, Marc Neuman, was among 130 family members taken to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp. This included Hemy’s great-grandparents, grandparents, six uncles, and various cousins and other relatives. Of them, only twelve survived, including Marc and his brother—Hemy’s uncle. After the war, Marc Neuman made his way to Mexico. He was a small man, barely five feet tall, but apparently had his charms, for he married the stunningly beautiful and very young Rebecca Cohen, seventeen years old to his thirty-six. They had a boy—Hemy’s older brother—followed by Hemy and, eighteen months later, his sister, Monique.
The concentration camp never stopped haunting his father, seared into his psyche like the number tattoo on his forearm, Hemy claims. Hemy and his sister said Marc Neuman was a detached father and husband, the marriage strained by constant arguing. Hemy was born in Mexico but grew up in Puerto Rico after the family moved there when he was young. His father had jewelry shops selling to tourists, but went bankrupt at least twice.
Hemy spent little time with his mother; she was a socialite who would be out on the town or traveling to see relatives in Venezuela and Mexico, Hemy’s sister would later say in court. With their mother largely absent and the father consumed with business troubles or his personal demons, Hemy and his sister fended for themselves. They would say that they felt no attachment to their parents and spent most of their time together. When their father was around, it became even worse. In an account under oath from Hemy’s sister, Marc Neuman would come in around 6 p.m. from work, the children never knowing what his mood would be. When their mother was around, she, too, was tense. The smallest things would set him off. If the children’s hands were dirty, he’d erupt. Their mother would make sure the children washed before he came home. He’d scream if he couldn’t find his nail clippers where he usually left them, according to Hemy’s sister.
The first thing Marc Neuman would do was drink one or two scotches, Hemy’s sister would say in court. Then whoever was home would sit for dinner. If Hemy’s mother was there, the first of the night’s arguments would start at the dinner table. The shouting would lead to violence, according to Hemy and his sister. Hemy’s father would slap the children with an open hand, they claimed. He once shoved a vegetable spoon into the nose of Hemy’s sister, she said. He would scream at his wife, but she wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t control her, and that made him even angrier, Hemy would tell therapists. Hemy’s sister, Monique, recalled coming home one day with shaved ice, and for some reason this set off her father. He yanked a picture off the wall and hit her with it. She could remember being hit so much her buttocks were the color of eggplant. Then the storm would pass and Marc Neuman would become a doting father.
Hemy said he bore the brunt of the abuse. With his older brother away at college, Hemy was the only boy in the house. His father would hit him with his hands and swat him with a belt, Hemy told therapists. The violence was unpredictable and impossible to understand, according to Hemy and his sister. One night, Hemy’s sister said in court, the children were playing a game of Mastermind—Hemy, his sister, and some cousins—when Hemy got up for ice cream. Their father was lounging on a La-Z-Boy. Hemy stumbled and the ice cream went flying, enraging his father. According to Hemy’s sister, their father slapped Hemy repeatedly. His sister burst into tears, fearing it would never stop.
If his mother was there, she would implore Marc Neuman to stop hitting Hemy. This only seemed to make his father want to hit Hemy more, Hemy and his sister claimed.
In time, Monique said, she devised ways to get out of the beatings. Sometimes crying worked. Other times, she’d blame Hemy for something going wrong—and Hemy would take another beating. Once, his sister recalled, she blurted out the word “bitch” while they were driving. Her father asked her where she’d learned the word. It was actually from a cousin, but she told her father it was Hemy. Their father pulled over to the side of the road, leaned Hemy up against the car, and beat him.
When it was over, Hemy looked at his sister and said, “Thanks a lot.” But Hemy never resented his sister for this; he was a protective older brother and often took the blame to spare her.
“I was the sandwich. I was in the middle,” Hemy would explain to a therapist. “My sister would do something stupid and then blame me for it. She was my father’s little princess. He would come home and hear it and give me a beating. I was just getting it from all sides. I might as well just stay away. Just leave me alone.”
Their mother missed most of this. She’d be with friends, playing bridge or gambling at a casino, according to Hemy’s sister. Their father became enraged when he didn’t know where she was or realized that she wouldn’t take orders from him, Hemy and his sister said. The children didn’t seem to blame her for being away. They would, too, if they could.
When they came home from school, if their mother was there, she would be sleeping off a big night before. Their father didn’t want her awakened. It was her beauty sleep and he wanted to protect her beauty, he would say, according to Hemy’s sister. The family always had a maid, who would let the children in, feed them, watch them. But the kids always felt as if they raised themselves.
Despite it all, Hemy did well in school. He was the bright one in the family. Things seemed to come easily to him.
When Hemy turned thirteen, his already difficult life was plunged into upheaval. “Pack, you’re going to Israel,” his father told him one day.
Hemy was being sent to a boarding school. He had never been to Israel and didn’t speak Hebrew. His mother apparently knew nothing of this and was out of the picture at the time, separated from their father. His father drove him to the airport, dropped him off, wished him good luck, and gave him a piece of paper with the father’s phone number and the name of the boarding school. The plane arrived in Israel at 11:30 p.m. The person who was supposed to pick him up at the airport never materialized. Young Hemy hailed a taxi, which took him to the school, but the gates were closed that late.
Hemy would later describe his feelings as “scared shitless.” A guard came up but Hemy couldn’t speak to him. The man was short and scary—like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hemy would recall—but he opened the gates and let him in. It was now past midnight. Hemy spent the first few weeks not in the classroom but in the infirmary in a sickly haze, his temperature soaring to 104 deg
rees. A nurse asked him where his parents were so they could pick him up. Hemy said they were in Puerto Rico and wouldn’t be coming. He said he had relatives in Israel but didn’t know where they were or how to contact them. As Rosh Hashanah approached, the nurse asked where he would spend the holidays. Hemy said he didn’t know. So the nurse brought him to her home. She placed him in what Hemy later described as a shack that lacked heat in January. He felt orphaned and abandoned and plunged into what would later be determined to be depression.
After boarding school, Hemy went to the United States to study at Georgia Tech. There he would be a solid student. But in 1981, his sophomore year, the dark feelings returned. He lacked energy, had no motivation, didn’t want to go to class, didn’t want to study. All he wanted to do was sleep. When he was awake, he felt in a fog, unable to focus. His GPA fell and for the first time he didn’t make the dean’s list. That summer the depression lingered, even though he joined his sister in Miami.
Their parents had divorced by then and their mother remarried. Their father also would remarry and move into an apartment with his new wife. The divorce did them well. Their father’s rage subsided—he was a different man without their mother around. Every day, Monique would thank God that her parents had divorced. The nineteen-year-old Hemy stayed with his mother and stepfather and his sister at their town house. The new husband bought Hemy a new Mustang, but that couldn’t pull him out of the depression. For weeks all he did was sit on the sofa and watch HBO.
After graduating from Georgia Tech and returning to work in Israel, he married Ariela. He had a good job and they started a family, welcoming the twins. Then in 1998, Hemy surprised everybody. During a trip to South Florida to visit his family, he impulsively bought a house in Boca Raton and moved his family there. He quit his job and was unemployed when they arrived. They lived off the proceeds of selling their house in Israel. He put the twins in a private Jewish school. His energy level soared; he couldn’t sleep. He toyed with becoming a pilot. He never found employment. The money ran out and tensions ran high at home between him and Ariela, family history repeating itself, though their fights were always verbal.
Crazy for You Page 17