Art on Trial: Art Therapy in Capital Murder Cases
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0231162510
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A man kidnaps his two children, murders one, and attempts to kill the other. The prosecution seeks the death penalty, while the defense employs an unusual strategy to avoid the sentence. The defendant's attorneys turn to more than 100 examples of his artwork, created over many years, to determine whether he was mentally ill at the time he committed the crimes. Detailing an outstanding example of the use of forensic art therapy in a capital murder case, David Gussak, an art therapist contracted by the defense to analyze the images that were to be presented as evidence, recounts his findings and his testimony in court, as well as the future implications of his work for criminal proceedings.
Gussak describes the role of the art therapist as an expert witness in a murder case, the way to use art as evidence, and the conclusions and assessments that professionals can draw from a defendant's artworks. He examines the effectiveness of expert testimony as communicated by the prosecution, defense, and court, and weighs the moral, ethical, and legal consequences of relying on such evidence. For professionals and general readers, this gripping volume presents a convincing account of the ability of art to reflect a damaged and dangerous psyche. A leading text on an emerging field, Art on Trial demonstrates the practical applications of an innovative approach to clinical assessment and treatment.
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depiction of a brain. While such details were noted in my initial assessment, they became even more significant when additional images were received at a later date (chapter 5). Some color sketches from the drawing pads reveal the same disjointed, fragmented, and unrelated composition seen in the monochromatic pages. Yet some works display a contained explosion of color. For example, figure 18 is a brightly colored drawing whose intricate shapes and tightly controlled forms made up a confusing
another, speculations about any education the defendant may have had, conjectures about moods he may have been experiencing when completing selected images, and thoughts about when he may have been exhibiting an exacerbated symptom of the schizophrenic-like illness. Once I finished presenting my initial conclusion, that the art reflects Schizophrenia and Depression, Peters offered no additional information and no opinion about what I had presented. It was only in a recent conversation with
was asked to provide examples of the more recent work. I showed him figure 44, demonstrating Ward’s need to hide under layers: [H]e could very well be trying to hide something, trying to cover something up or covering something over. Generally, it involves a level of … I don’t want to say paranoia as much as a need to hide something.… And that’s what we have here if you can see closely. In person, again, it is an artfully done piece but also is very revealing in the covering up. Now in defense
away from this notion of the separation of mind and body, emotions from intellect—but it’s an incomplete head, disembodied, floating that he then connects with what he considered a tunnel.” When asked to clarify a “disassociation between the mind and the body or the emotion and the intellect,” I explained that in my experience, people with Schizophrenia maintain a “separation of mind and body.” Those with such a mental disorder develop almost a “schism between … their feeling and thinking,” which
the sentencing phase. Her job may be to demonstrate mitigating circumstances that were not considered during the trial, such as a physical or mental illness, but could convince the judge or jury that the defendant should not be sentenced to death. Similar to my experience in Kevin Ward’s defense, an art therapist may be called in to demonstrate through the defendant’s art his state of mind at the time of the crime. In the early 1990s, Edward Ronalds, a white man in his early 20s, was arrested
