Lack of Volitional Control and Culpability

Facts of the Case

Mr. Rendelman had been writing obscene and threatening letters to prosecutors, judges, and presidents for over 20 years. While incarcerated in the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, for threatening public officials, he wrote threatening letters to the President, which were intercepted by staff and given to the Secret Service. A grand jury investigation subsequently followed. He refused to comply with two grand jury subpoenas for handwriting samples, even after the district court ordered him to comply. Following his second refusal, the prosecutor informed him that he would be charged with contempt of court. Shortly thereafter, he wrote a letter threatening to murder and sexually assault the prosecutor. As Mr. Rendelman continued to refuse to provide an example of his handwriting, a psychologist, Dr. Kevin Miller, was retained by appointed counsel to evaluate his mental state and competence to stand trial. Dr. Miller concluded that Mr. Rendelman was competent to stand trial and that he understood that refusing to provide handwriting examples was wrong. Dr. Miller's diagnosis was unspecified autism spectrum disorder. He additionally noted that Mr. Rendelman was in control and fully aware when writing the letters and that his letter writing was not a result of compulsions, as seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The government arranged for a second psychologist, Dr. Christina Pietz, to evaluate Mr. Rendelman's competence to stand trial and his mental state as it pertained to refusing to provide a handwriting sample. Dr. Pietz opined that Mr. Rendelman was competent to stand trial and that he understood that refusing to provide a handwriting sample was wrong. Her diagnosis was obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, with the presence of narcissistic personality traits. In addition, she agreed that Mr. Rendelman was in control of his behavior when writing the letters.

Before trial, Mr. Rendelman requested authorization to retain Dr. Miller again to offer an opinion on his mental state at the time that he wrote the threatening letters, as this was not the focus of his first evaluation. The district court denied this request, stating that Dr. Miller's initial report included enough information about Mr. Rendelman's mental state at the time of his writing the letters. The government moved in limine to curtail the evidence that Mr. Rendelman could present at trial about his mental state, arguing that psychological evaluations from past prosecutions should not be permitted because none established that he had a mental disease that would affect his culpability.

At trial in federal district court, Mr. Rendelman testified that he wrote the letters to protest being raped and beaten in prison and that he had wanted to demonstrate that incarceration does not rehabilitate or deter offenders. He indicated he was compelled by his conscience to write the letters because he would otherwise feel complicit in the sexual assaults that occur in prison. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. He appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the district court abused its discretion by denying a second evaluation by Dr. Miller and excluding evidence obtained during mental health evaluations conducted during prior prosecutions, both of which he believed would demonstrate that he could not stop himself from writing the letters.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Mr. Rendelman's request for an additional evaluation. The court reasoned that his reported inability to stop writing letters was not a valid defense for culpability, as the evidence of mental condition is relevant to culpability only if it bears directly on sanity or mens rea. Citing United States v. Worrell, 313 F.3d 867 (4th Cir. 2002), and United States v. Cameron, 907 F.2d 1051 (11th Cir. 1990), the court ruled that a lack of capacity to control behavior is not a relevant consideration under the federal insanity standard (18 U.S.C. § 17 (2006)), which considers mental disease or mental defect as an excuse only if an individual does not appreciate the nature or wrongfulness of his actions. The court similarly noted that because evidence of unconscious behavior is irrelevant to the question of intent (United States v. Pohlot, 827 F.2d 889 (3d Cir. 1987)), Mr. Rendelman's argument that he wrote the letters because of an unconscious compulsion, to which Dr. Miller testified during sentencing, was not a plausible defense to culpability. The court reasoned that it was appropriate for Mr. Rendelman to present evidence of compulsion at sentencing, which was permitted. The federal sentencing guidelines (U.S.S.G. § 5K2.13) allow for a downward departure if a defendant has a significantly reduced mental capacity that substantially contributes to the commission of the offense.

The court further rejected Mr. Rendelman's argument that he should have been granted an additional evaluation because the prior evaluations authored by Dr. Miller and Dr. Pietz were related to his refusal to provide writing exemplars, rather than his mental state at the time he wrote the threatening letters. The court reasoned that although the focus of Dr. Miller's evaluation was related to the contempt charge, it did address Mr. Rendelman's mental state at the time he wrote the letters. Specifically, Dr. Miller reported that Mr. Rendelman was in control and fully aware when he wrote the letters. He further noted that Mr. Rendelman denied having obsessions or compulsions relating to his letter writing.

Finally, the court rejected Mr. Rendelman's argument that the district court abused its discretion by excluding the evidence from psychological evaluations conducted for the purposes of prior prosecutions. He asserted that this evidence was relevant because it would show he lacked mens rea as a result of his compulsion to write the letters. The court asserted that the evidence was properly excluded because, as previously discussed, his reported compulsion was not a valid defense for culpability.