The Thread

The 2015 conviction of Aurora gunman James Holmes really begins almost two centuries earlier in England, with the attempted assassination of the king. This episode explores how the insanity defense challenges lawyers, judges and juries in their pursuit of justice, and how it speaks to things that all of us hold dear, such as moral responsibility, free will and even our own sanity.

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Francis Scott Key, the pro-slavery lawyer and amateur poet who penned “The Star-Spangled Banner” after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry 200 years ago, was famously inspired by the resilient spirit of a young nation. Forty-five years later, Key’s other notable creation, his only son, Philip Barton Key II, would experience an entirely different side of American life when he was slain in 1859 by a U.S. congressman and disgruntled cuckold named Daniel Sickles.

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It was a grand time to be a rich New Yorker. The wealthy architect Stanford White was responsible for designing several iconic public, institutional and religious buildings in the city in a decadent beaux arts “American Renaissance” style, including the original Madison Square Garden, which he owned. White, more than any other man, was responsible for the look of what was quickly becoming the wealthiest city on Earth. This week, we tell the story of the murder of Stanford White. White’s killer was an eccentric businessman from Pittsburgh named Harry Thaw. Thaw’s wealthy family was prepared to pay a million dollars to spare him from the electric chair. They were also prepared to embrace an unorthodox legal strategy. Harry Thaw’s murder trial, and his temporary insanity plea, shook America to its core.

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In 1981, on his way to look for the actress Jodi Foster at Yale, where he had been stalking her, John Hinckley Jr. stopped off in Washington, D.C., and ended up shooting U.S. President Ronald Reagan in front of the Hilton Hotel. Hinckley claimed he was trying to impress Foster, with whom he was infatuated. He later described the incident in a letter to The New York Times as “the greatest love offering in the history of the world. ... I am Romeo and she is Juliet.”

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The ultimate act of revenge or the act of a woman driven so crazy by domestic violence that she could not comprehend what she was doing? It seemed crazy to raise that defense given the deliberateness of the act, the fact her husband was asleep at the time and more. And prosecutors thought the defense had no chance: They were ready to argue that Lorena was not insane, and one sign of that is that she acted out of revenge. Revenge, the prosecution argued, is a rational act, not an irrational one.

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Shortly after midnight on July 20, 2012, in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. He threw a canister of tear gas into the crowd and began firing. Soon 12 were dead and 58 were wounded; young children and pregnant women were among them.

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This season of The Thread, from the trial of James Hadfield in 1800 to the trial of Aurora gunman James Holmes over two centuries later, we explore six of the most high-profile murder cases in history through the lens of the controversial legal defense that unites them all: not guilty by way of insanity. The Thread examines the question: does the insanity defense represent a way of recognizing the psychological complications that underlie criminal culpability or rather a misguided means for escaping justice? Were they bad, or were they mad?

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Would Martin Luther King, Jr. have taken a knee alongside Colin Kaepernick? Is there any precedent for the protests being waged by high school students in Parkland, Florida? This special bonus episode of The Thread examines how the impact of Dr. King and the civil rights movement continues to influence nonviolent resistance today.

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In the final episode of this season, we trace the path of the revolutionary idea that spread across the globe to become the dominant form of political resistance today. We also examine the role that personal psychology, and even mental illness, play in what Gandhi, King and others recognized as the secret ingredient of any nonviolent approach: empathy.

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William Lloyd Garrison, one of the leading figures of the early abolitionist movement in America, was a major influence on Leo Tolstoy. Garrison believed in using “moral suasion” rather than violence to achieve social change. Armed only with his newspaper and pen, the social reformer forced America to confront the most defining moral issue in its history, kick-starting a nonviolent revolution that would change the world.

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