Free Republic

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) -- Sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo has mental diseases that left him "psychologically numb" and legally insane because he couldn't tell right from wrong, a defense psychiatrist said. During the months he lived with convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad starting in 2000, Malvo lost his sense of identity and became vulnerable to Muhammad's wishes and "intense, coercive persuasion," psychiatrist Neil Blumberg testified Wednesday in Malvo's murder trial. Malvo's dissociative disorder that allowed him to tune out reality, his depression and a childhood "conduct disorder" of shoplifting and cat-killing all meant Malvo was "unable to distinguish between right...

<p>That countered testimony by Hinckley's mother and his former psychologist that he is ready for more freedom.</p> <p>Robert Phillips, the first witness to testify for the government, said Hinckley still suffers from the same narcissistic personality disorder that drove him to shoot Reagan and three others outside a Washington hotel in March 1981.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — A forensic psychiatrist who examined John Hinckley Jr. this year said Tuesday the man who shot President Reagan should not be allowed to visit his parents without supervision, countering testimony by Hinckley's mother and his former psychiatrist that he is ready for more freedom. Robert Phillips, the first witness to testify for the government, said Hinckley still suffers from the same narcissistic personality disorder that drove him to shoot Reagan and three others outside a Washington hotel in March 1981. Hinckley has asked U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman to let him leave Washington's St. Elizabeths...