Capital Gazette shooter's insanity case rests on autism diagnosis. Why it concerns advocates

The man who killed five people inside a Maryland newsroom is claiming that autism spectrum disorder is one reason he should not be held criminally responsible for the 2018 mass shooting.

It's an unusual legal argument as the trial heads into its third week Monday. It's also one that threatens to harm people living with autism, advocates told the USA TODAY Network's Maryland Capital Bureau.

Autism spectrum disorder is not associated with violent behavior. In fact, studies have found that people with developmental disabilities and mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of crime.

But the defense team for the gunman, 41-year-old Jarrod Ramos, is claiming that autism spectrum disorder, combined with obsessive-compulsive disorder and his delusion that the Annapolis newspaper was conspiring against him, make him not criminally responsible for the shooting at the Capital Gazette.

Claiming a defendant is not criminally responsible is Maryland's version of the insanity defense. It hinges on the notion that defendants can't be held responsible for a crime if mental illness prevents them from understanding their actions are criminal or from following the law.

Autism shouldn't be part of that argument in this case, said Sam Crane, the legal director for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a national group based in Washington D.C.

"Autism doesn't in any way interfere with a person's ability to understand that it's wrong to kill people," Crane said. "In fact, a lot of autistic people are extremely empathetic."

Raising autism spectrum disorder at a mass shooter's trial could create the inaccurate perception that autism is linked with violence, she said.

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"It is something that we have grave concerns about," Crane said. "There is a possibility that it could result in serious stigma against autistic people and misperceptions that autistic people pose a danger that we don't actually pose."

Christopher Banks, the president of the Autism Society of America, called the legal argument "dangerous."

"The Autism Society of America advocates every day for acceptance and inclusion for autistic individuals to fully participate in society to achieve meaningful, quality lives," Banks said in a statement.

"Dangerous arguments like this threaten to further promote stigmas and violence against people with autism, and disrupt all that we and other disability organizations work towards," he said.

A risky strategy

Ramos's sanity trial has been unusual from the start.

It's rare for criminal defendants to pursue an insanity defense. It's even more uncommon for that claim to go before a jury.

Raising autism spectrum disorder as part of that defense is more unusual still, said Amanda Pustilnik, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law who studies the brain.

"Autism spectrum disorders are not associated with violent behavior," Pustilnik said. "They are not even associated with law-breaking behavior."

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The defense team representing Ramos claims that his autism spectrum disorder made him unable to understand the devastation he would cause to the families of his victims.

That trait clashed with his obsessive tendencies and his growing delusion that the Capital Gazette was working to destroy his reputation, the defense argued this week, and Ramos turned to violence.

On June 28, 2018, Ramos shot his way into the Capital Gazette's office and murdered newspaper staffers Rob Hiaasen, Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara and Rebecca Smith.

"He can't appreciate the magnitude of the sadness and the tragedy for these families," said Dr. Dorothy Lewis, a defense expert who testified last week.

"That combination is dangerous," she said.

Ramos has pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including five counts of murder.

The jury gathered in Annapolis will have to decide if he is criminally responsible for the massacre. If the panel finds that Ramos is not criminally responsible because of mental illness, he could be sent to a state hospital for an indefinite period of time rather than sentenced to life in prison.

What the case is centered on

The defense and prosecution largely agree on what happened before and during the shooting. Ramos became obsessed with the Capital Gazette after the newspaper published an article about his involvement in a 2011 harassment case.

The story, titled "Jarrod wants to be your friend," recounted how Ramos had reached out on Facebook to a woman he barely knew in high school. When she slowly stopped responding to him, Ramos began sending her increasingly angry messages and eventually called her workplace in an effort to get her fired.

Ramos fixated on a single line in the article, which said that his messages "rambled" and that he messaged the woman "'expletive you, leave me alone,' though she hadn't written him in months." 

Ramos's lead defense lawyer, Katy O'Donnell, told jurors in her opening statement that Ramos thought that sentence made him seem delusional.

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The affront became his sole focus, occupying his entire life. He sought to restore his reputation by suing the Capital Gazette, representing himself in a defamation lawsuit that stretched on for years and ultimately failed.

With his legal options exhausted, Ramos lived as a hermit for two years, rarely leaving his basement apartment, and began planning his attack on the newspaper's office.

He purchased tactical gear and a 12-gauge shotgun, surveilled the newsroom using publicly available photographs, and even waited for his elderly cat to die so that he would not leave it alone when he went to jail.

He traveled to the Capital Gazette's office on the afternoon of June 28, 2018. He barricaded the office's other exit, shot through the locked glass front door and fired a total of 11 times, killing the five staff members.

He used a computer in the office to tweet out a single sentence, a reference to the original 2011 article that sparked his obsession: "F--- you, leave me alone."

The defense claims that Ramos spent years becoming consumed with delusional thinking — that he believed the Capital Gazette and the Maryland judiciary were conspiring against him.

Lewis, the psychiatrist who testified for the defense, diagnosed Ramos with autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and delusional disorder.

"He has a combination of mental problems that together seem to cause this kind of violence," she said.

"His delusional beliefs have a great deal to do with his criminal behavior," she told jurors Wednesday. "He also is obsessive-compulsive, and he harbors obsessions, and he has for the past decade or so, that he has not really been able to get rid of or wanted to."

"Because of his inability to recognize his own feelings, much less the feelings of other people, he belongs on the autism spectrum," she said.

That's a risky argument, Pustilnik said. Whether or not Ramos can understand the feelings of other people isn't relevant to whether he could understand his actions were criminal, she said.

"I think there's a real risk in making the case to a jury or to a judge that a person is so emotionally impaired that he's incapable of understanding that murder causes sadness," Pustilnik said.

A difficult legal standard

It's also an argument that could be dangerous for people with autism, said Crane, the legal director for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

If members of the public falsely believe that people with autism are dangerous, they might be more likely to call the police if they see someone whose behavior they don't understand.

"That could particularly harm autistic people of color," Crane said. "We already know that autistic people of color are often subject to police calls because they're acting differently out in public."

"Those police calls have resulted in serious injuries and death," she said.

Crane believes it is becoming more common for mass killers to claim a link with autism, a trend that she thinks is related to the stereotype of perpetrators who are socially isolated.

A Canadian murder trial made headlines earlier this year when the defendant, who rammed a van into a crowd in 2018, killing 10 people, argued that he was not criminally responsible in part because he had a form of autism.

The claim caused an outcry among autism rights advocates in Canada.

A judge ultimately rejected the van driver's argument and found him guilty of 10 counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. But she also acknowledged that autism could be used as part of an insanity defense.

In the Capital Gazette case, the prosecution is arguing that Ramos does not fit the legal standard for the insanity defense.

In her opening statement Thursday, Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said Ramos is a narcissist who was bent on revenge because of an unflattering article.

“He does suffer from mental health disorders, there’s no doubt about it,” Leitess said, according to The Washington Post. “But they are personality disorders.”

The case will test whether a jury believes that a gunman who was capable of intense planning was also so mentally ill he could not understand the criminality of his actions.

It's possible that Ramos does have a significant mental disorder but doesn't qualify as not criminally responsible, Pustilnik said.

"The insanity defense is by design restricted to only the most extreme cases," she said. "It's an incredibly difficult standard to meet.

The prosecution will continue presenting its case against Ramos this week.

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Madeleine O'Neill covers the Maryland State House and state issues for the USA TODAY Network. She can be reached at moneill@gannett.com or on Twitter at @maddioneill.