A Man Walks Into A Bank

The crime charged is bank robbery, not ordinarily considered an impulse crime of the sort that can be easily understood as an aberrational act resulting from either momentary psycho-emotional overload or an altered state of reality.  People plan bank robberies. After thinking, they execute the plan.  It’s a very thoughtful crime.

After Feliz Vega, Jr., was arrested for bank robbery in Georgia, however, his lawyer announced a curious defense.  Vega was taking Paxil, and it was the drug that prevented Vega from distinguishing right from wrongPaxil, an SSRI antidepressant, is a very strong drug with a very long list of significant side effects, but it’s been prescribed since 1993 to millions of people, without any suggestion that it’s caused a rash of bank robberies.

Naturally, the defense was immediately ridiculed for laying blame on Paxil.


But Assistant District Attorney Hank Syms waved away any claims of “involuntary intoxication,” telling Superior Court Sheryl Jolly he would object to any witness testimony that did not directly reflect on Vega’s state of mind when he entered the Bank of America at 1740 Gordon Highway on July 30, 2010.


Syms said that about a third of clients that make guilty pleas in court say they are on some form of medication. But Syms said this is the first time he’s heard this medication defense because most attorneys know better than to try it.


“What we have with this charade about ‘Paxil made him do it’ is the opposite of taking responsibility,” Syms said.


The defense plans to call an expert at trial to show that the defendant lacked the capacity to form criminal intent.  Obviously, ADA Hank Syms thinks defense counsel Peter Johnson is a damn fool.

Without regard to the merit of the defense’s position that Paxil, a mind-altering drug, altered the defendant’s mind, or the legal significance of his taking Paxil (presumably with a prescription) on his mens rea, what’s striking about the prosecution’s reaction, not to mention the reaction of commenters to the story, is that this defense is just, well, stupid.

The defense’s theory is immediately reminiscent of the dreaded “twinkie defense,” offered on behalf of Dan White in the killing of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk.  While it’s been largely misunderstood, as the defense was not that twinkies caused White to commit the crime, but rather was evidence of his changed behavior reflecting his depression, it’s managed to sour, in public perception, the idea that a person’s mental state can be altered by an external cause to impair the ability to distinguish right and wrong.  Syms’ characterization reflects how most people think.

The problem is that the knee-jerk dismissal of the defense is based on some ignorant “common sense” notion, which Syms is playing to the hilt.  To the extent we seek only those individuals who possess the mental state needed for guilt to be convicted, playing to ignorance undermines the validity of the system.  It does, however, help to get a conviction.

Maybe the Paxil defense is total nonsense, a facile attempt at excusing a deliberate act for which the defendant should be properly convicted.  Maybe Paxil altered the defendant’s state of consciousness such that he was disinhibited, incapable of the thought processes that would lead a person to recognize the wrongfulness of robbing a bank.  Not being anywhere near competent to draw a conclusion, I wouldn’t venture a guess.  But I similarly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.

The problem is that this isn’t the sort of thing that a group of nice folks, sitting in a bar, around a coffee table, or in a jury room, can figure out on their own.  They aren’t near competent to assess the impact of Paxil on this defendant either.  Yet that’s the basis of the prosecution’s dismissal of the defense, as well as the general attitude of those commenting on the story.

For example:


Since first approved in 1993, over 70 million prescriptions for Paxil have been filled.
Do we now need to worry that all 70 million users will drink booze, attempt to rob banks, elude police officers and crash into neighborhood fences? Kinda grasping at straws, aren’t you Peter Johnson??

And:


To paraphrase Geraldine…”The devil made him do it.”
And if you know who Geraldine is, you’re showing your age

Or:


Using that lame defense will probably get Mr. Johnson’s client the max based on his wasting the Judge’s time.

And of course:


And let the new excuses begin for committing crimes. Even three sheets in the wind, an honest person doesn’t commit armed robbery or any other crime while intoxicated with some exceptions made for dui’s/conduct issues. I certainly hope this man is convicted of his crime. Poor, poor, Paxil victims.


On the flip side, some commenters noted that there have been numerous cases in which drugs taken by the defendant was successful in showing diminished capacity, including the cases of  Christopher DeAngelo and former all-star pitcher Jeff Reardon.

It’s not an easy defense to prove, or an easy defense for a jury to accept.  There is a strong tendency to reject that which doesn’t fall within the common sphere of experience, much like the refusal of jurors to accept the notion that anyone would falsely confess.  But this isn’t about common experience, and the limits of a juror’s don’t define the parameters of other people’s lives. 

This is particularly true when the issue revolves around something like a serious drug such as Paxil, where those of lacking in the expertise necessary to appreciate what it can do to a person’s mental state have no business making off-the-cuff, simplistic assessments. 

More importantly, the prosecution’s effort to feed into this ignorance, to use prejudice under the guise of some “common sense” type argument to ridicule a defense that could very well be true, is outrageous.  Not that Hank Syms suggests he’s got the competence to assess the medical validity of the defense, but that in his ignorance, he’s amply qualified to encourage others to be as ignorant as him.  Fostering prejudice and ignorance may help to win convictions, but doesn’t do much to foster confidence in the legal system.

The defendant has a right to present a defense.  Hopefully the judge will be sufficiently enlightened, or at least immune from falling into the hole of ignorance that Syms is busy digging, and allow him to do so. Even if it flies in the face of ol’ Hank’s ridicule. 

3 thoughts on “A Man Walks Into A Bank

  1. John Burgess

    I imagine that one of the first questions coming up in voir dire will be, “Have you or a family member ever been prescribed Paxil?”

    Given that 20% of the US population seems to have this prescribed to them, it should make jury selection interesting.

    Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Paxil does not facilitate bank robbery in general, is there any winning argument that in this particular, idiosyncratic case, it might have done so?

  2. SHG

    I suspect there’s an excellent argument to be made that Paxil impaired this defendant’s ability to distinguish right from wrong, but it defies “common sense,” the old baseless belief grounded in ignorance and assumption.

  3. tom felding

    Wouldn’t questions like “Have you or a family member ever been prescribed Paxil?”
    be rather used to strike off jurors, if at all allowed. In this case, it might help if paxil had been recently prescribed at the time of the alleged crime. Some people struggle with initial side effects, including a higher risk of suicide. Assuming he really has serious depression, I wonder what a Georgia prison would do to him.

    In general does US have any restrictions on what prosecutors can mouth off in public before conviction. Influencing prospective jurors aside, isn’t this particularly cruel to those eventually found “not guilty”. Is there a tradition of apology from prosecutors. Where I’ve lived sub-judice reporting was better but I suppose things were whispered into reporter ears.

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