TORONTO – He’s pleaded not guilty to macabre crimes that have garnered worldwide attention and in a surprise move Thursday, Luka Rocco Magnotta’s lawyer ultimately decided against requesting a psychiatric evaluation of their client.
This left some experts Global News interviewed with one obvious question: what will Magnotta's legal counsel argue in his defence? But experts in the forensic psychiatry and psychology fields say there may be many reasons behind why Magnotta backed away from a mental health assessment.
And they all centre on traits of Magnotta’s characteristics that experts say point to conditions, such as extreme narcissism, delusion and histrionic personality.
“If he’s very narcissistic, he doesn’t want to be thought of as being crazy. He doesn’t want to pursue that route,” Dr. David Nussbaum speculates.
Nussbaum is a University of Toronto psychology professor and research psychologist. He has decades of experience as a forensic psychologist.
“There’s a stigma attached to being mentally ill, whether there should be or shouldn’t be. People who are narcissistic don’t want to be thought of in any negative way. He may rather be found guilty than to go to an insanity plea and face that kind of damage to the persona he’s created,” he says.
The experts Global News spoke with for this story have not met or evaluated Magnotta, but their opinions are based on what they’ve seen so far from web pages, auditions, and other online footprints.
A forensic psychiatric assessment would dig deep into Magnotta’s life in an attempt to piece together who he is and determine what led him to do what he allegedly did, says Dr. Oren Amitay, a registered clinical psychologist and Ryerson University lecturer who conducts psychological evaluations.
Most importantly, the assessment would decipher whether Magnotta is fit to stand trial and whether he could be found to be criminally responsible for the crimes he’s accused of committing.
“This type of assessment is very in-depth and seeks to determine culpability – specifically whether the individual’s actions were caused by a mental illness,” such as being in a psychotic state, says Dr. Michael Seto, a psychiatrist at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group. Seto would not comment on Magnotta’s case.
Psychiatrists typically spend about a month with the person they’re interviewing in a mental health facility. It’s an intrusive process – they gather collateral information by interviewing family members, old teachers, classmates and friends, coworkers and anyone who may shed light on the person in question, Nussbaum says.
Personality tests are also conducted, and Magnotta would be interviewed for days or even weeks, as psychiatrists pick at his brain with open-ended questions, retracing his childhood and personal relationships along with cognitive tests.
Amitay says that based on what he has seen of Magnotta’s prolific online footprint, spanning from photos, reality TV show auditions and multiple Facebook pages, he is narcissistic and would love an opportunity to continue to portray his constructed persona.
“He gets to talk about himself and brag about accomplishments and deeds without looking like he’s bragging,” Amitay said.
“People with this personality style believe they can portray themselves the way they want. They are so arrogant that they believe they can be manipulative and deceive the tester,” Amitay says, noting that in these interviews, psychiatrists rely on this sole source’s self reporting.
If psychiatrists asked Magnotta to talk about his romantic relationships, he could say he had hundreds of lovers and if they asked about his education, he could say he was a rebel, Amitay says.
“It all depends on the character that you want to portray and maintain.”
Nussbaum says that in forensic psychiatry, comments need to be supported by corroborative evidence. If Magnotta says he has a lengthy criminal record, for example, psychiatrists verify this detail with police records.
“These people aren’t there because they want to be there. They have to do and they want to portray themselves in the best light. You can’t believe what people say . . . corroborative evidence is absolutely critical in forensic work,” Nussbaum says.
Nussbaum says minute family details may even be exposed through these assessments – medical history and traces of mental disorders in the family, depression or even suicide could surface.
Both Nussbaum and Amitay concede that what they’ve seen in Magnotta would be consistent with elements of psychopathy, a condition largely hinged on control.
And while Magnotta can deny any anecdotes psychiatrists may come across while gathering collateral info, he may be uncomfortable in the situation.
“I don’t know if he’d feel intimidated by that lack of control – who are they going to speak to, who knows what skeletons he has hiding in his closets. Maybe he’s afraid that something’s going to come up that’s really going to embarrass him,” Amitay says.
In short, he may be more interested in protecting this identity he’d built than to be viewed by world as being mentally ill, Nussbaum.
“I’ve had patients . . . who have said if I have to do time, I’ll do time but I’m not crazy,” he said.
In Canada, meeting the criteria to be found not criminally responsible can be difficult, seasoned lawyers have said.
Under the Criminal Code, a person deemed not criminally responsible is “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 that it was wrong.”
Amitay says schizophrenia, manic episodes and dissociative disorder – when a person experiences an out of body experience – are the most common conditions that lead the courts in determining that a suspect is not criminally responsible for their acts. Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders occur when a person has lost touch with reality, Amitay notes. In some instances, psychotic states are induced by drugs, such as LSD or PCP.
Alberta’s Vince Li, who beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in 2008, was found not criminally responsible because he was suffering from schizophrenia and a psychotic episode when the grisly incident occurred.
Amitay suggests Magnotta comes off as narcissistic, with histrionic personality and is “colloquially” delusional, but that won’t suffice for being not criminally responsible for his supposed crimes.
“Nothing suggests he’s mentally unstable to the point where he wouldn’t know the difference between right and wrong,” he says.
In the meantime, Magnotta will fade into the background as his court dates are set for 2013. He will face a preliminary hearing next March where part of the evidence against him will be heard.
Magnotta, charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Chinese student Lin Jun, 33, has opted for a trial in front of a jury.
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