William L Tabac - The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights: Examining the Trial of Mariann Colby

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer;
nothing is more difficult than to understand him.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist

These psychiatrists, they tell you different things.
George Moscarino, assistant prosecutor, Cuyahoga County, Ohio

In 1965, Mariann Colby, an intelligent, attractive Shaker Heights housewife and mother, shot a nine-year-old neighbor boy to death. Colbys plea to the charge of premeditated murder was insanity. To be acquitted on that ground in Ohio back then, the defense had to prove either that the accused was so ill that she did not know the difference between right and wrong or, if she did, that she lacked the capacity to control herself.

The textbook example of being oblivious to the moral implications of ones actions is an accused who is so delusional that she believes she is slicing a chunk of cheese as she is stabbing someone to death. But Mariann Colby did know the difference: she not only took steps to conceal the crime, but she tried to blame it on someone else. That meant her lawyer had to persuade the judges who heard her case that she was so ill she was unable to control herself.

Under the insanity rules that existed in the sixties, psychiatrists were invited to offer their opinions on that critical issue. Yet, as Mariann Colbys case made its way through the Ohio legal system, the judges and the psychiatrists would sharply disagree over it.

He knew how to use psychiatric testimony, Arthur Rosenbaum, a prominent psychoanalyst, explained about the defense lawyer who had used him as an expert witness in the trial. I had asked Rosenbaum about his role in the case because, a decade later, I was teaching a course in criminal responsibility at the Cleveland State Law School.

Rosenbaums response intrigued me, for no matter how good the psychiatrists were, and no matter how skilled Colbys lawyer was, psychiatrists can only offer an opinion, and when they do, they often disagree. The best person to explain whether Mariann Colby was unable to prevent herself from murdering the neighbor boy might very well have been Mariann Colby herself. But she was not confronted with that question because her lawyer did not put her on the stand, and because of her right not to incriminate herself, the prosecutors were unable to interrogate her.

Was it malice or madness that drove Mariann Colby to murder the child? In taking up that challenging question, this book tells the story of the murder and its aftermath, of its far-reaching effects on the childhood friends of the victim, and of a legal system that was unable to reach a consensus about whether Mariann Colby should be punished or hospitalized for her crime.

William L. Tabac

January 22, 2017

Parkman, Ohio