A16 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2019
after successful treatment, and
hospitals must try to render them
sane enough that they won’t pose
too much of a threat if let out.
The ultimate goal for NGRIs is
total liberty. But first comes a
progression of smaller freedoms
called “conditional release.”
While still an inpatient, an NGRI
might be allowed unescorted
home visits a few times a year. If
all goes well, these furloughs
might be expanded to two visits a
month or more.
In the District, the final phase
of conditional release, before
complete freedom, is called “con-
valescent leave” from St. Eliza-
beths, in which an acquittee re-
sides in the community as an
outpatient while being moni-
tored by the Department of Be-
havioral Health.
The agency says 129 NGRIs are
under its supervision. Of those, 61
are inpatients (about half of
whom are occasionally let out of
St. Elizabeths on furloughs). The
remaining 68 are living full time
in the community on convales-
cent leave — including 13 who,
like Jordan, were charged with
murder or manslaughter. The
rest of the 68 were found not
guilty by reason of insanity in
assaults, arsons, robberies, bur-
glaries, property crimes and “var-
ious sexual offenses,” t he depart-
ment says.
Every step in the incremental
release process, each new liberty,
requires permission from a Supe-
rior Court judge. In most cases, a
defense attorney and a prosecu-
tor negotiate the limits of a re-
quested new freedom, with input
from St. Elizabeths, and submit
their agreement to a judge in the
form of a proposed “consent or-
der.” Before deciding whether to
sign the order, the judge reviews a
“risk assessment” prepared by
the patient’s treatment team.
Here the process gets especial-
ly dicey.
As the D.C. Public Defender
Service says in a manual for
lawyers, “in order to grant condi-
tional release, the court need not
find that the acquittee’s release
will pose absolutely no risk.” The
standard is merely “preponder-
ance of the evidence.” I f the judge
concludes there’s a 51 percent
chance that the acquittee won’t
be dangerous to the public, then
the consent order must be ap-
proved — regardless of the
49 percent probability that the
release will end badly, maybe
tragically.
So it was with Jordan.
On Dec. 9, 2003, after a pros-
ecutor and a defense lawyer nego-
tiated the terms of Jordan’s first
conditional release, Judge Fred B.
Ugast signed a consent order
allowing him to spend Christmas,
New Year’s Day and Martin Lu-
ther King Jr. Day with his mother
and stepfather in Silver Spring. In
subsequent months, his fur-
loughs were expanded until he
was permitted to visit his family
one day a week and every holiday.
It did not go well.
In 2005, Jordan was “feeling
‘stressed,’ ” which “led him to
smoke marijuana,” prosecutor
Colleen M. Kennedy said in a
court filing years later. She said
the U.S. attorney’s office didn’t
know in 2005 that Jordan was
violating his release terms. How-
ever, she said, members of his
treatment team at St. Elizabeths
were aware of several transgres-
sions back then, which they failed
to disclose to prosecutors or the
judge.
“He submitted multiple urine
screens that were positive for
marijuana” and was “engaging in
a sexual relationship with a fe-
male staff member,” Kennedy
wrote. When Jordan’s mother re-
ported that he tended to sit silent-
ly in her home, gazing into space,
and that she felt nervous and
ill-equipped to deal with him, the
hospital staff assured her that her
son was “fine,” Kennedy said.
Then, in June 2005, he stole a
pistol from his stepfather during
a home visit and smuggled the
gun into St. Elizabeths, Kennedy
wrote. Possibly because he had
been using cannabis, he was hav-
ing “homicidal thoughts” toward
a fellow patient. Kennedy said
Jordan “apparently made plans
to shoot’” the man, “including
requesting additional privileges
to increase his chances of en-
SEE PLEA ON Acrime, and the hospital’s job was
to reduce his psychotic symptoms
until the law considered him fit to
be released.
Jordan’s illnesses caused “per-
secutory delusions... hallucina-
tions... and lethal conduct,” a
clinical report said. But over time,
psychotropic drugs led to “con-
siderable improvement.” He
learned coping skills and behav-
ior-modification strategies. His
marijuana dependence, a catalyst
for his psychoses, was addressed
in counseling. Gradually, his
symptoms subsided, a report
said, and he presented “little or
no management problem.”
In December 2003, he would
taste freedom again.
Just as the process of adjudi-
cating insanity verdicts is highly
subjective, so is the process of
deciding when acquittees should
be freed. Jurists and others with-
out medical training are forced to
predict the future behaviors of
latently dangerous mental pa-
tients, relying on recommenda-
tions from psychiatrists who ac-
knowledge that theirs is an inex-
act science.
If Jordan had been convicted of
first-degree murder in 1998, he
would have been imprisoned
with no parole eligibility until- But the legal principles for
dealing with insanity acquittees
are far different. The parameters
were established by federal ap-
pellate decisions in the past hal-
f-century, including landmark
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in
forensic mental-health law.
People found not guilty by
reason of insanity — known as
NGRIs — can’t be punished. They
are legally entitled to freedom
quirements of the law” because of
mental illness.
Research shows that a majority
of the public thinks the insanity
defense is a loophole through
which criminals often escape
punishment. In fact, trials involv-
ing the defense are exceedingly
rare nationwide, and the success
rate for defendants in those cases
is minuscule. Usually when law-
yers invoke the defense, they have
valid reasons for doing so, and
prosecutors typically end up con-
ceding that the defendants aren’t
legally guilty.
So it was with Jordan.
Fourteen months after the kill-
ing, he admitted in court that he
pulled the trigger, and a prosecu-
tor acknowledged he wasn’t c rim-
inally responsible. On Oct. 1,
1999, a judge declared him not
guilty by reason of insanity and
committed him to St. Elizabeths.
Back then, the hospital, in
Southeast D.C., resembled the
19th-century asylum it had once
been, with Victorian-era brick
edifices and acres of rolling fields
behind a forbidding wrought iron
fence. To day, the rebuilt hospital
houses about 260 patients, half of
them “civil commitments,” mean-
ing people not charged with
crimes. The rest, being treated in
prisonlike wards, are insanity ac-
quittees or defendants undergo-
ing pretrial psychiatric evalua-
tions or accused criminals found
mentally incompetent for trials.
Jordan was ordered confined
there “indefinitely.”
Which wouldn’t be forever.‘Homicidal thoughts’
In the eyes of the justice sys-
tem, he was innocent of anyThe onset of his psychoses that
spring, weeks before his 25th
birthday, was swift and devastat-
ing, a report said: He lost his
appetite and 25 pounds; he show-
ered 10 times a day; he became
increasingly agitated and fearful
— a recluse who hardly slept —
thinking strangers planned to kill
him; he “believed messages were
being sent to him from the televi-
sion”; he “heard voices in his
head... being critical of him”; he
pummeled a punching bag in the
townhouse for hours at a stretch.
In an attempt to calm himself,
reports said, he began smoking
marijuana heavily that summer,
which might have worsened mat-
ters. Studies show that the active
ingredient in pot, known as delta-
9-THC, can exacerbate the para-
noia and delusions of someone in
the throes of mental illness. As
his downward spiral accelerated,
a report said, “his family urged
him to see a doctor, but he re-
fused,” preferring to self-medi-
cate with cannabis.
Then, in midsummer, he was
gripped by an irrational belief
that a relative and longtime
friend, Kenneth Luke, had raped
him. The imagined trauma and
humiliation consumed Jordan’s
disordered mind. “This man took
my manhood,” he later told a
homicide detective, “and I want it
back.”
A little past 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 7,
1998, the two were walking in
Southeast D.C. when Jordan
pulled out a revolver, held it to his
friend’s head and squeezed the
trigger. Luke, 27, pitched to the
pavement, mortally wounded.
Jordan ran three blocks and wait-
ed on a street corner, gun in hand,
until police cars rolled up. Sur-
rendering without a struggle, he
told the officers, “It’s just me — I
did it.”
After being held in St. Eliza-
beths for months, taking a regi-
men of antipsychotic drugs, Jor-
dan was indicted on a first-degree
murder charge in January 1999.
With his client locked in a hospi-
tal ward, awaiting a trial, lawyer
Matthew Alpern argued to pros-
ecutors that Jordan’s schizophre-
nia and paranoia had been so
severe at the time of the killing
that he wasn’t legally culpable.
Alpern said Jordan should be
declared not guilty by reason of
insanity and, like any insanity
acquittee in the District, he
should continue receiving treat-
ment at St. Elizabeths until he
was deemed safe enough to be
released, as the law requires. The
U.S. attorney’s office in Washing-
ton, which handles both federal
and local criminal cases, waited
to review more in-depth mental
evaluations of Jordan before de-
ciding how to proceed.
Insanity-defense laws vary
among U.S. jurisdictions. In D.C.
Superior Court, as in about 20
states, a defendant is entitled to
acquittal if he proves that during
the offense, he “lacked substan-
tial capacity to appreciate the
wrongfulness of his conduct or to
conform his conduct to the re-shooting, the internal review still
isn’t finished, Jones says.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s
office also won’t comment on
Jordan, referring questions to
mental-health authorities. In D .C.
Superior Court, though, Judge
Milton C. Lee Jr. made his opin-
ion clear at a June hearing. Rath-
er than return Jordan to St. Eliza-
beths, which is run by Behavioral
Health, Lee ordered him jailed
while he awaits a trial on a
first-degree murder charge.
“I have no faith whatsoever”
that the agency and hospital “will
do what is necessary to keep you
consistent with your treatment
and to monitor you in a way that
will protect the community,” the
judge said, staring down at the
shackled Jordan, who has yet to
enter a plea in the killing. “It
appears in this regard they have
failed, and I’m not going to give
them another opportunity.”‘It’s just me — I did it.’
Born in 1973, Hilman Ray Jor-
dan was raised in Silver Spring,
Md., the second-youngest of eight
siblings, according to a St. Eliza-
beths report. His stepfather was a
custodian, and his mother stayed
home with her children. “Mr.
Jordan does not have a history of
severe misconduct or any psycho-
logical disorder” as a child or
adolescent, the report said.
His psychiatric treatment over
the years is described in hun-
dreds of pages of clinical docu-
ments filed in Superior Court.
After finishing high school,
Jordan worked in landscaping
and construction. In April 1998,
he lost his maintenance job at a
hotel. Struggling to get by, he
moved back in with his mother
and stepfather in their rented
townhouse.wonders why the D.C. Depart-
ment of Behavioral Health, legal-
ly obligated to monitor Jordan,
wasn’t also required to warn City
View residents that he was a St.
Elizabeths outpatient with a
homicidal history. And echoing
others, she questions why Jordan
was allowed to remain free de-
spite what neighbors say was his
chronic pot smoking — a trigger
for his psychotic delusions and a
violation of his court-approved
release terms.
After Bhutto was shot to death
March 1, detectives say, they saw
Jordan sitting calmly on his bal-
cony overlooking the crime scene,
his right shoe stained with blood.
They s ay t hey found a 9mm Smith
& Wesson and a marijuana joint
in the condo.
“Someone didn’t do their job,
obviously,” Hoodbhoy, a journal-
ist, says bitterly. “Someone who
should have been watching this
insane murderer didn’t do their
job.”
Schizophrenia and paranoia
had driven Jordan to kill years
earlier. The court order authoriz-
ing his release from hospital con-
finement in 2015 required Behav-
ioral Health staffers to screen his
urine regularly for traces of intox-
icants, and a failed test was sup-
posed to land him back in St.
Elizabeths immediately. Ye t he
rapped about pot use in YouTube
videos that show him with appar-
ent marijuana joints on his balco-
ny, his eyes narrowing as he
smokes. Neighbors say he would
sit outside getting high for hours.
Seven weeks before the shoot-
ing, Bhutto, who lived directly
above Jordan, complained to Jor-
dan’s landlord about the persis-
tent odor of marijuana coming
from downstairs, and the land-
lord says he warned Jordan that
Bhutto was upset. After the kill-
ing, a prosecutor said in court,
Jordan “tested positive for PCP,”
or phencyclidine, a powerful hal-
lucinogen. The drug, often mixed
with marijuana, can induce fren-
zied aggression, especially in us-
ers who are prone to violence.
Jordan, about 5-foot-10 and
heavyset with graying whiskers,
also was forbidden to have a
firearm; how he allegedly got one
isn’t publicly known.
Citing privacy rules, the Behav-
ioral Health agency, which
pushed for Jordan’s release in
2015, won’t comment on his men-
tal state then or discuss details of
its supervision of him at the
condo complex. The agency’s
chief of staff, Phyllis Jones, says
records show Jordan “was in
compliance with the conditions
of his discharge,” but she adds,
“A n internal review is ongoing.”
To day, six months after the
PLEA FROM A
‘He was my
everything,’
widow says
BY PAUL DUGGANLawgivers have wrestled since
biblical times with the issues of
whether and when brainsick peo-
ple are morally responsible for
bad acts.
In English law, a standard for
insanity verdicts dubbed the
M’Naghten rule was adopted in
1843, and it eventually took root
in the former colonies.
Named for a deranged, would-
be political assassin, the rule said
an accused person should be ac-
quitted if, during the offense, he
was “labouring under such a de-fect of reason, from a disease of
the mind, as to not know the
nature and quality of the act he
was doing; or, if he did know it,
that he did not know he was doing
what was wrong.”
The M’Naghten test was used
in most U.S. courts well into the
20th century, before the Ameri-
can Law Institute, a think tank,
proposed a more liberal rule.
The ALI model, drafted in
1962, softened the rigid “did not
know” l anguage of M’Naghten. It
said a defendant should be found
not guilty if, during the offense,
he lacked “substantial capacity toappreciate the wrongfulness of
his conduct or to conform his
conduct to the requirements of
the law.” Over time, most states
and the District of Columbia re-
placed M’Naghten with the ALI
standard.
In federal courts, the ALI rule
was in effect in 1981 when John W.
Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded
President Ronald Reagan and
three others outside a Washing-
ton hotel.
Hinckley’s insanity acquittal
ignited a nationwide backlash.
Under the Insanity Defense Re-
form Act of 1984, signed by Rea-gan, federal courts reverted to the
stricter M’Naghten rule, with
even tougher language than the
original. Most states followed
suit, and some abolished the de-
fense altogether.
In D.C. Superior Court, though,
the looser ALI rule still applies.
As f or the handful of states that
did away with the insanity de-
fense, the U.S. Supreme Court is
set to hear arguments Oct. 7 in
Kahler v. Kansas , in which a
death-row inmate asserts that
abolishing the defense was un-
constitutional.
[email protected]The long history of the insanity defense in law
EVY MAGES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Hilman Jordan was committed to St. Elizabeths, run by what is now called the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health, in 1999 after
admitting in court that he pulled the trigger in a 19 98 slaying. But he was deemed not criminally responsible.YOUTUBE
A video still shows Hilman Jordan smoking what appears to
be a marijuana joint on the patio of his home in Washington.Don’t missthe High HolyDays.Find Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services
near you in a special directory appearing
in The Washington Post in the Arts & Style section
on Sunday, September 8 and in the Weekend section
on Friday, September 13.The Directory will publish in Express
on Friday, September 20 and
Friday, September 27.For advertising information, contact
Melissa Abell, 202-334-7024,
[email protected].A0717 2x