Bruce DeSilva - Providence Rag

Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren had both been leaked advance word of Judge Needham’s ruling-or so they claimed. Grace, the CNN court reporter and failed Dancing with the Stars contestant, was reporting that Needham had approved the state’s request and that Diggs would be examined by a committee of experts at the Harvard University Department of Psychiatry. Van Susteren, the Fox News harpy, was reporting that Needham had denied the state’s request, and she was howling for his removal, branding him “a liberal activist judge who is way out of the mainstream.”

Mulligan figured both of them were talking out of their asses.

On Thursday morning, the protesters on the Superior Court building steps numbered three hundred by Mulligan’s rough count. He bobbed and weaved through them, made his way to Needham’s third-floor courtroom, and settled into a seat in the jury box between a reporter for the National Law Journal and a stringer for The New York Times .

Needham’s new robe was a wonder to behold, the lightning bolts on the sleeves reminding Mulligan of the design on the San Diego Chargers’ football helmets. The judge again cautioned the packed benches that he would not tolerate any outbursts, swiveled on his booster seat to face the TV camera, and read from his decision.

“In the matter of The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations versus Kwame Diggs…”

He began by noting that in 1994, Diggs had been examined by a psychiatrist and found competent to stand trial on five counts of first-degree murder.

“During his eighteen years of incarceration,” the judge said, “Mr. Diggs has never been diagnosed as mentally ill by the prison medical staff, and he has received no psychiatric treatment. It is conceivable, however, that he could be suffering from a mental illness that the Corrections Department negligently failed to diagnose despite having many years in which to do so.

“But if that is the case, in what way is it relevant to the issue at hand? The State has offered no evidence that the mentally ill are more dangerous, per se, than other members of the public. In point of fact, they are not. Statistics show that as a group, they are much more likely to be victims of violent crimes than to commit them.

“Given these facts, which are not in dispute, it is reasonable to conclude that the State’s insistence on a psychiatric examination at this time is nothing more than subterfuge to deprive Mr. Diggs of his civil liberties.”

Needham then digressed to review the shameful history of involuntary psychiatric commitments in the United States. For the best part of two centuries, he said, thousands of citizens who had committed no crimes were declared “deviant,” “socially aberrant,” or “morally insane” and locked away in lunatic asylums, often for life. Their so-called deviant behaviors, he explained, had included masturbation, extramarital sex, homosexuality, and denying the existence of God.

“In some cases,” he said, “husbands had their wives involuntarily committed just to get rid of them.”

He then turned to recent reports that some political dissidents in China had been declared “politically insane,” forced into psychiatric hospitals, and subjected to electroshock therapy.

“Such abuses should offend the sensibilities of every civilized person,” the judge said. “And yet now, the attorney general of the state of Rhode Island seeks to have Kwame Diggs declared mentally ill on the grounds that he might pose a danger to others at some indeterminate date in the future.”

Mulligan stole a glance at Attorney General Roberts, who was squirming in his chair at the defense table.

“The court is cognizant of what is at stake in this case,” the judge said. “It is common knowledge that both Attorney Freyer and The Providence Dispatch have been making inquiries about the drug and assault convictions that have kept Mr. Diggs incarcerated since his original sentence expired in 2001. The prospect that Mr. Diggs could be released as a result of these inquiries has engendered widespread fears-fears that have been stoked by an irresponsible member of the media.

“Of course, there is no guarantee that any prisoner will become a law-abiding citizen upon release. The recidivism rate is sixty percent. If the legal standard was a guarantee, we would never release anyone. It is worth noting, however, that the recidivism rate for murder is less than two percent within three years of release.

“Nevertheless, the murders for which Mr. Diggs was originally incarcerated were particularly heinous and brutal. The people of the state of Rhode Island are entitled to receive some degree of assurance that he would not pose an intolerable threat to public safety if he were ever to be released from state custody.

“The bar the State must meet in cases such as this has been set high. According to a large body of case law, a finding that Mr. Diggs is mentally ill would not be enough to justify continuing his confinement. Nor would a finding that he might pose a danger at some point in the future be sufficient. Rather, the State can commit Mr. Diggs to a secure psychiatric facility against his will only if it presents clear and convincing evidence that his release would pose an imminent threat to himself or others.

“Imminent does not mean three years from now,” the judge said. “It does not mean six months from now. It means that Mr. Diggs must be declared so deranged and violent that he would pose a mortal threat to society on the day that he steps out of the prison gates.

“To determine whether Mr. Diggs would, in fact, pose such a threat, the court hereby orders him to submit to a psychiatric evaluation by a qualified professional to be selected by the State of Rhode Island.

“Court is adjourned.”

As the judge scrambled down from his booster seat, spectators filed out. Mulligan made his way over to the prosecution table and tapped the attorney general on the shoulder.

“Is it true that you plan to have Diggs examined by Harvard psychiatrists?” he asked.

“No,” Roberts said.

“Who will be performing the examination?”

“We have yet to determine that.”

Back in the newsroom, Mulligan called the director of Eleanor Slater Hospital, the state mental hospital in Cranston; the chief psychiatrist at Butler Hospital, a private mental hospital in Providence; the head of the Department of Psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence; and the chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. All four said they had been contacted by Roberts’s office. All four said Roberts was shopping for a psychiatrist who would not be reluctant to authorize an involuntary commitment.

All four wished him good luck with that.

“Believe me,” Jennings said, “after we arrested Diggs for the Medeiros and Stuart murders, we spent weeks trying to connect him to unsolved crimes. There’s nothing there.”

“Just in Warwick?” Gloria asked. “What about the rest of the state?”

“He was a kid back then,” Mulligan said. “He wasn’t even old enough to drive. He couldn’t have gone far by himself.”

“Maybe he had a friend who took him somewhere,” Gloria said.

“The state police gave us a hand looking into that,” Jennings said. “They came up dry.”

“Did his parents take him out of state for a vacation?” Gloria asked. “Maybe Disney World or something?”

“We asked them about that,” Jennings said. “They said they didn’t. We asked the neighbors, too. None of them could remember the family being away for any length of time between the two murders.”