Compulsion

by Meyer Levin

  Had Judd actually taken part in the other crimes? Or had he only known of them? Artie’s words in the report suggested that he had always used an accomplice. But Artie was the less believable of the two.

  Horn blunted himself against the stone wall of the unknown, but the episodes were to remain for ever a mystery, and in them, it has always seemed to me, lay the mystery of Artie, of his true mental state.

  When Dr. Allwin stepped down from the stand, it was as though, for Judd, the most dangerous moment of the trial had passed. His eyes turned again to Artie, and there was a subtle smile between them, an instant of their old, intimate sharing.

  Those were Horn’s days, and the defence seemed to recover only slight ground with a Sing Sing alienist who had specialized in juvenile delinquency. Dr. Holliday pointed out that Judd’s mania for collecting things, his mania for perfection, fitted in with the “compulsive behaviour” of manic patients, and that his thinking was “autistic”, a new word to us then. As I understood the explanation he made, it is the belief that things really are the way we imagine they are – a kind of self-contained magical thinking, without reference to the outside realities. Both boys had this characteristic to some extent, Holliday said, for it was a splitting off from reality. He showed how Judd’s planning even manifested itself in anticipation of his execution. He would make a great speech from the platform. He would convey his philosophy to the world; he would be “consistent” to the end.

  And Artie, in contrast, was indifferent, passive. Hanging seemed hardly a real possibility to him, but something that might happen to someone else. He had said, “Well, it’s too bad a fellow won’t be able to read about it in the newspapers.” And if he got a prison sentence, and at some time came out, Artie wanted to know if at that time he could get a complete file of the newspapers of this period. “I have examined a lot of hardened criminals in my lifetime, but-”

  Horn interrupted, objecting, and Feldscher helped the doctor, by reformulation: “Did your experience in your work at Sing Sing in examining over two thousand prisoners aid you in forming any conclusions in reference to Artie Straus in his emotional responses or lack of them?”

  “Yes. The hardened criminal shows in every response a kind of crudity. Straus seems to be incapable of responding to this situation with an adequate emotional response. His actions can only become comprehensible when one keeps in mind that one is dealing here with a disintegrated or not completely integrated personality, a split personality, if we will.”

  “Or to use another term,” Horn interjected rather feebly, “he is insane?”

  The studious Holliday was followed by a gland specialist, Dr. Vincenti, an extreme enthusiast of the new science. Younger than the others, he had a quick, wide-eyed air about him, as though the whole thing were altogether too self-evident. He produced his X-ray pictures of Judd’s cella turcica, the cradle of bone, holding the pineal gland. There! Anyone could see it was already calcified! Calcified at nineteen! All of Judd’s disorders might have resulted from this early calcification. His illnesses, his sexual maladjustment, everything!

  As for Artie, his low basal metabolism was an indication of poor functioning of the endocrine glands and accounted for his periods of morbid depression, his suicidal tendencies, and his lack of sexual development.

  On this note, the defence testimony ended. It was a weak ending. Disingenuously, Horn asked: The doctor was positive, was he, of his interpretation of all of this new-fangled science?

  Vincenti beamed. Positive.

  The prosecution’s first rebuttal witness was a gland specialist who promptly declared that nobody knew a thing about the ductless glands. Redheaded, truculent, forthright, Horn’s expert set the courtroom howling with laughter. Never had an expert proved he knew so much as Dr. Leahy did by explaining how little he knew.

  Had he specialized in the endocrine glands? Yes, for fifteen years and more. Come to any conclusions? Exactly none. “Except for certain isolated facts, the status of our knowledge of the endocrine glands might be compared to our knowledge of Central Africa before Stanley’s day.”

  Could glandular activity have an effect on emotional growth?

  “Your guess is as good as mine or any other expert’s.”

  So much, said Horn, for Judd’s famous cella turcica. And he proceeded to produce his other counter-alienists.

  Against Hugh Allwin, there was the elderly Arthur Ball, a hometown authority who could stand up against the biggest man from the East.

  Yes, he had been called in, that Sunday, to examine the young gentlemen. Mr. Horn had then asked the young gentlemen to tell their story, and they had done so in detail. “The other young gentleman had done most of the talking, with occasional corrections from Mr. Straus-”

  “Mr. Steiner, you mean?”

  “Yes. Mr. Steiner.” He smiled, to accent that the confusion was natural.

  “Now, doctor, from any interview which you had with Straus or Steiner, do you know anything that might throw some light on the motive for this crime?”

  “I remember Mr. Straus said, ‘God, I don’t know why’.” Once more he was straightened out. Wasn’t it Mr. Steiner who had said that? The professor looked from one to the other, fixing them in his mind. Yes, that was Steiner’s remark, the short one. The tall one, Mr. Straus, had said it was for the thrill, the experience, and the money.

  “Did they speak of the ransom?”

  “They were going to keep the money hidden in a safe-deposit box and none of it was to be spent within a year inside of Chicago, but one of them expected to go to Mexico.” He looked at them carefully. “Mr. Straus, that was.” He smiled at having got it correct. “And the other, Mr. Steiner, was going to Europe.”

  Horn opened the Storrs-Allwin report. Now, if the professor was familiar with this report -?

  But the professor was not. He had not even seen it.

  Would he care to examine it?

  Indeed he would, as he was always curious about new psychology.

  Smilingly, the members of the defence counsel agreed to an adjournment, since noon was close. When court resumed, the professor said that he had thoroughly studied the report. Horn opened his copy. From the evidence in the report, would he conclude that either of the defendants indulged in fantasies to an extreme degree?

  No, they seemed the fantasies that a normal boy indulges in.

  Judge Matthewson was leaning forward on both elbows. Professor Ball expatiated. “Everybody has fantasies. A lawyer has fantasies about winning a big case. A golfer has fantasies about playing a good golf game, and a young man of criminalistic tendencies, like the young gentleman here, Artie, quite naturally had criminalistic fantasies. Unless one wishes to take the crime itself as proving an abnormal mind, there is nothing abnormal in the fantasies as reported.”

  We all noted that the judge nodded, as though he had at last heard common sense spoken.

  Horn went on. Had the professor observed any lack of emotion in the subjects?

  Artie had shown intense emotional reaction. And as Judd had stated that he had systematically suppressed any show of emotion since childhood, his lesser show of emotion was self-explanatory. Yet no one could deny intense emotion in his relationship to his companion, Mr. Straus.

  Smiling, Horn asked whether the professor would agree with the statement that Judd was “pathologically suggestible”?

  “I saw no evidence that he was at all suggestible.”

  And Judd’s sense of inferiority in reference to his puny stature – was it so marked that it could be called pathological?

  Indeed, no! The young gentleman was not, after all, a dwarf.

  Finally, taking into account not only his own examination but the Storrs-Allwin report, both young men had to be pronounced unquestionably sane.

  Wilk approached, conversing casually, reminding Dr. Ball of the many pleasant discussions they had had. Wilk knew he was a scientist of integrity who would state his facts accurately.

  Now that exa
mination lasting a few hours, in a crowded office – had that been a good opportunity for an examination?

  In some aspects, yes. A man had to be in excellent possession of his faculties to give a detailed and accurate recital in the midst of such distraction.

  Granted. But was the situation well adapted to bringing out everything connected with the mental state of an individual?

  Professor Ball smiled. “Let me frankly avow, Mr. Wilk, that I would not consider it a complete mental examination, if that is what you are driving at.” But as far as the requirements of the case were concerned, Dr. Ball was satisfied that his conclusions were accurate.

  Undoubtedly, Wilk agreed, if one limited oneself to the legal definition of insanity. But would the doctor not admit that the legal definition was inadequate by medical standards?

  Yes, the doctor agreed. And here in the Storrs-Allwin report was the evidence of a prolonged examination. Yet he could not agree with the conclusions.

  Wilk quoted from an article by Dr. Ball in a medical journal, “‘The whole past life of the patient, his diseases and accidents, his schooling, environment, and character, and the entire history of his antecedents should be examined’.”

  “Yes!” Dr. Ball readily agreed. “In a case for treatment. But this is not necessary, if one seeks only to determine their legal sanity.”

  Wilk smiled. “We too consider them legally sane. We are here to ask for mitigation on the grounds of a medical condition of mental abnormality which probably could not be observed in a rapid examination. Did you make any notes on that occasion, Dr. Ball?”

  A few. Dr. Ball brought out a folded sheet of paper; he deciphered and read aloud a scrawled word, “Zuganglich”.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It is a term used in psychiatry, for ‘accessible’. We first determine whether the patient can be reached in normal communication, or whether, as it is popularly put, he is too far gone.”

  “And they were not too far gone?”

  “Not at all. Completely Zuganglich.” Edgar Feldscher smiled.

  Wilk asked, “You have other notes?” Yes, but the rest of his notes he had to confess he couldn’t make out. Dr. Ball chuckled, joining the general laughter.

  Then, coming to the fantasies, hadn’t the doctor written somewhere that dreams and fantasies were the clues to the condition of the mind?

  Why, yes, the professor agreed, with a new air of interest. But persistent fantasies wouldn’t indicate a disorder unless of course they reached the delusional stage.

  “That is the stage where fantasy becomes confused with fact?”

  Yes, when a fantasy was accepted as reality, as actually happening, there was delusion.

  A young man, a college graduate, playing cops-and-robbers in the street, following his uncle to his door, wasn’t he acting out a fantasy and making it real?

  The professor smiled. “It could appear so,” he said. “But you would have to know just how far he was lost in his little game.”

  Wilk swung now to another form of derangement. An obsession, an obsessive belief – didn’t that reach up to the state of a delusion? For example, there were people who believed absolutely in religious visions and predictions, believed themselves to be saints and messiahs.

  “Oh, yes,” Dr. Ball agreed, “there are people who are confined to insane asylums because of such delusions.”

  “Now, couldn’t the same thing be the result of a philosophical belief?”

  “If one believed strongly enough.” But Wilk didn’t ask the expected, linking question. Instead he asked whether there were states of mind, short of mental disorder or insanity, that would alert one for watching and that would even call for treatment.

  Yes, yes, indeed, Dr. Ball said.

  Their pleasant discussion was over. Dr. Ball’s real conclusions, if one thought about them seriously, were precisely those of the defence.

  It was the second of the State’s alienists who brought out, in Wilk, a kind of savage brutality that we had until then associated only with Horn.

  The witness was Dr. Stauffer, pudgy, self-assured. A familiar figure in the courts, Tom told me. “Makes his living testifying for the State.” Yet his record was impressive enough; he had been head of the department of psychology at the University of Illinois; he had been in charge of the psychiatric laboratory at the State Hospital for the Insane.

  There seemed scarcely any point to his lengthy recital, until Dr. Stauffer came to Artie’s description of the ride with the body. “He told how they got to a blind road near a Russian Orthodox cemetery. He related that there they stripped the body from the waist down, took off the pants, shoes, and stockings. Now, there is a little matter here I would like to speak of just before you and the attorneys, if I may, Judge.”

  The group of lawyers huddled around the judge’s bench. The doctor sanctimoniously lowered his voice. “It was because of this circumstance of undressing the boy just from the waist down.” He had made that the occasion to ask a great many questions along the line of sexual perversion and homosexual practices.

  It was clear that he had got nothing out of the boys. He had raised the question of abuse, undoubtedly with Horn’s approval, purely for the effect of suggestion. Wilk’s face had become dark, clotted.

  Stauffer continued with his description of the burial, piling on the details. “Straus stated that the body was stiff and the eyes were glazed. They let the body down easily into the culvert so that it would make no splash…”

  He had asked Artie Straus if at any time he could have withdrawn, “and he stated that he always hated a quitter, that he had no use for a coward. Mr. Steiner made practically the same answer.”

  Categorically, the doctor testified that each defendant was sane, in excellent possession of his faculties, including the faculty of judgment.

  Horn asked him then whether he was familiar with the “new psychology”. Certainly, said Dr. Stauffer, he was entirely familiar with it, but he did not believe in it at all. Why, if the defence was successful here, every criminal would start studying dream books!

  Through the laughter, Wilk advanced upon Dr. Stauffer, head down. He halted at some distance, as if to avoid contamination.

  How long was it since Dr. Stauffer had been in the actual practice of medicine, where he might be trying to help someone?

  Horn objected.

  The question amended, Dr. Stauffer replied that he had not for ten years been in practice, being occupied with teaching and research.

  “In fact, you have been almost fully occupied testifying for the courts?”

  Stauffer admitted that he was in considerable demand by the State.

  “And what is your usual fee?” Wilk wrung out of him that it was fifty dollars per day. “And what are you receiving in this case?” It was “the same as all the others, two hundred and fifty.”

  Wasn’t it a fact that he had refused to testify unless he received this raise?

  Horn was livid. Angrily, Stauffer replied, “Why shouldn’t I get the same as the others?”

  Just as angrily, and just as hopelessly put in the wrong, he declared that he didn’t need more than two hours to make an examination. And as for the examination taking place in a crowded room, no matter!

  “You heard Dr. Ball state that the conditions and the time limit permitted only the beginning of an examination. Do you disagree?”

  Dr. Stauffer shrugged. He had every respect for Dr. Ball, but his own experience with criminals was far more extensive, so he could see through them more readily. “Nobody from the defence had got to them as yet, to tell them what not to say!”

  “Exactly!” Wilk roared. “They were without defence, without help, and for two hours you could do as you pleased with them.”

  “Two minutes would be enough to see through those smart alecks!”

  Wilk picked up a text book. Had Dr. Stauffer studied in Germany?

  Yes.

  Did he recognize Dr. Bleuler as an authority on nerv
ous disorders?

  Dr. Stauffer granted that Dr. Bleuler was a man of high reputation.

  Wilk read, “‘A negative finding without prolonged observation never proves a patient to be normal.’” Did Dr. Stauffer agree with that statement?

  Stauffer snorted. As a matter of fact, he had observed the criminals right here in court, day after day. They were perfectly oriented.

  Wilk read another passage from Bleuler. “‘To suppose that people are well mentally because they are oriented in time, space, and presence is just as naïve as to suppose a person is well mentally because he is not a raving maniac.’”

  If they were mentally sick, Dr. Stauffer retorted, then they certainly had a good time with their supposed illness, sitting there laughing.

  And didn’t that demonstrate their emotional deficiency?

  “No,” said Stauffer. “It shows they’re heartless killers, that’s all.”

  “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.