Word: gaylin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...YALE MURDER by Peter Meyer Empire Books; 302 pages; $12.95 THE KILLING OF BONNIE GARLAND: A QUESTION OF JUSTICE by Willard Gaylin Simon & Schuster; 366 pages...
...Authors Peter Meyer and Willard Gaylin make abundantly clear in their equally compelling accounts of the case, what actually happened that morning in Bonnie's bedroom was to have less bearing on subsequent events than what had gone before. Bonnie, an affectionate, vivacious woman with a mane of red hair and a fine soprano voice, came from a well-to-do suburban family. Richard, an illegitimate child, was a product of the Los Angeles barrio. The lovers met at Yale, of which Bonnie's father was a prominent alumnus; she was a freshman and Richard was a senior...
...John Train, another brilliant performer on the criminal circuit, who argued that Herrin was suffering from both severe mental disease that impaired his ability to realize what le was doing. (Herrin testified repeatedly that he "wasn't feeling anything" when lie set out to kill his lover.) Thus, Gaylin points out, Litman was actually arguing two incompatible cases: "Not guilty by reason of insanity; or if guilty, only of manslaughter...
Both books show the results of exhaustive research, including lengthy interviews with Herrin. Meyer, a freelance journalist, re-creates the case with admirable detachment. Gaylin, a distinguished psychiatrist and author (Feelings; Partial Justice) - and an admitted "father of daughters" - has specialized in questions of crime and punishment for more than 20 years. He delivers some pungent comments on the psychiatric "storytellers" on both sides, who "were acting as dutiful agents of the men who were paying their fees...
...Catholic Church did for him, Herrin is now an atheist who has "retired from religion." Interviewed by Meyer after he had spent three years in a medium-security prison, he insists: "I think I've served enough time to compensate." Others would side with the prosecution, among them Gaylin. Arguing against canny insanity pleas, and for moral responsibility, he concludes: "The killing of Bonnie Garland, first by Richard Herrin and then again by a legal and cultural process . . . endangers us all. In our compassion for the criminal, we must remain vigilant in defense of the social for the sake...