In January of 2007, John Odgren followed James Alenson into the bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, drew out a long knife and stabbed Alenson multiple times. Alenson's heart was punctured and he was pronounced dead at Emerson Hospital shortly thereafter. The charge of first degree murder is currently being heard by a jury in Middlesex Superior Court in Massachusetts. Odgren's attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, does not seem to be disputing the facts in this tragedy but claims that Odgren killed Alenson while in a delusional and psychotic state.
"Why did a geeky, uncoordinated, awkward 16-year-old who had never been in any trouble with the law suddenly and without provocation ferociously stab to death a 15-year-old classmate who he did not even know?" Shapiro said. "The illnesses that John Odgren suffers from made him lose touch with reality.
Shapiro said Odgren was struggling with Asperger's, a form of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, anxiety and possibly bipolar disorder when he attacked Alenson.
Shapiro, though, told the jury that Odgren's mental illnesses made him incapable of premeditated murder."
For the rest of the story go to: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/features/x1030871855/Odgren-murder-trial-begins-in-grim-testimony
So, one question the jury will have to ponder is whether Odgren's Asperger's Syndrome and other problems caused him to commit this act. During testimony it has been revealed that Odgren was especially interested Stephen King novels, violent video games, weapons, and forensic science. Did these interests occur because of his AS? Though it seems that Odgren's lawyer is grouping all of his mental health issues, ASDs are partly characterized by restricted interests. If AS caused restricted interests that eventually led to the murder of James Alenson could this be a premeditated act?
As a radical behaviorist, personal responsibility is a tricky subject. As a society we view a person who is acting freely as owning their actions whereas the influences of variables external to the person may diminish personal responsibility. As I wrote previously (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-behaviorist/201002/the-radical-in-radical-behaviorism), behavior evolves (or develops) for the individual in a complex manner that involves three primary sources of influence; genetic inheritance, contingencies encountered during one's lifetime, and the socio-cultural context in which the person evolves. Natural selection at the phylogenic level operates on the species to produce the structures, reflexes, and predispositions that make up the individual. A person is the product of natural selection which operates through contingencies of survival and reproduction with hundreds of thousands of years of history influencing their bodies and behavior. Selection also affects individual organisms on an ontogenetic level during the course of their lifetime. For adapting to the dynamic nature of changing environments, selection by consequences or sensitivity to environmental contingencies allows for the evolving species to adapt to proximal changes in the environment. Selection by consequences operates on the behavior of the individual with the environment serving as the selecting "agent" with the person as the vehicle, so to speak, of behavior interacting with environment (Hineline, 1992). These contingencies shape and establish behavior in interaction with our genetic inheritance and the socio-cultural environment in which one is raised. The social context is of critical importance as the social environment in which the child develops heavily influences learning.
This determinism, though it involves exceptionally complex interaction between physiological, psychological, and social influences, seems to preclude any notion of personal responsibility. The radical behaviorist, however, can only infer the causality of an individual's actions. Personal or moral responsibility is a social construct and the fact that behavior is determined has very little bearing on the social judgment of personal responsibility. That said, if an act is strongly influenced by physiological predispositions or tendencies is the person responsible for their act? Is the alcoholic responsible for drinking? They have a predisposition to their behavior being reinforced by alcohol but does every predisposed person drink? Personal and social influences may strongly steer behavior towards or away from sources of reinforcement one may be predisposed towards.
Where does this leave us in this situation? Is John Odgren personally responsible or are there mitigating influences that diminish this responsibility? My perspective leads me to believe that John Odgren's behavior was determined by the unique set of circumstances related to his life. His Asperger's Syndrome is part of that but he, like all persons with or without an ASD, is bound to the rules established in the society he lives in. A jury will decide soon just how responsible he was for his own actions.
