Under the Banner of Heaven

by Jon Krakauer

  This, after all, is a country led by a born-again Christian, President George W. Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God and characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. The highest law officer in the land, Attorney General John Ashcroft, is a dyed-in-the-wool follower of a fundamentalist Christian sect—the Pentecostal Assemblies of God—who begins each day at the Justice Department with a devotional prayer meeting for his staff, periodically has himself anointed with sacred oil, and subscribes to a vividly apocalyptic worldview that has much in common with key millenarian beliefs held by the Lafferty brothers and the residents of Colorado City. The president, the attorney general, and other national leaders frequently implore the American people to have faith in the power of prayer, and to trust in God's will. Which is precisely what they were doing, say both Dan and Ron Lafferty, when so much blood was spilled in American Fork on July 24, 1984.

  During pretrial hearings, Ron's behavior in the courtroom served to underscore his lawyers' contention that he was mentally incompetent. He appeared with a cloth sign attached to the seat of his prison jumpsuit that read, EXIT ONLY; his attorneys explained that he wore the sign to ward off the angel Moroni, who Ron believed was an evil homosexual spirit trying to invade his body through his anus. He believed that this same sodomizing spirit had already taken possession of Judge Hansen's body, which is why Ron made a point of shouting profanities at the judge and addressing him with such epithets as “Punky Brewster” and “fucking punk.”

  The defense team would try to spare Ron's life by calling as expert witnesses three psychiatrists and one psychologist who would testify that, after examining the defendant, they were utterly convinced that he was deranged. The prosecution, on the other hand, would attempt to have Ron executed by presenting one psychiatrist and three psychologists who would argue with no less conviction that Ron was quite sane and had known exactly what he was doing when he'd participated in the murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty.

  The first witness to appear was C. Jess Groesbeck, M.D., a psychiatrist who testified for the defense that Ron had slipped over the edge of sanity when his wife, Dianna, took their children and left him. “It's clear,” said Dr. Groesbeck, “that he could not tolerate her loss,” triggering the onset of what Groesbeck alternately termed a “schizo-affective disorder” and a “delusional disorder.”

  He based this diagnosis on the fact that Ron's bizarre beliefs could not be “changed with reason” and “are so fantastic and so beyond any kind of rational acceptance by anyone in the culture, that they would be categorized as delusional.” When Dianna Lafferty left him, Dr. Groesbeck speculated, Ron suffered “a total loss of self-esteem or self-image,” which prompted him to compensate “by creating a new but unreal view of himself and the world.”

  Mike Esplin, Ron's lead attorney, asked Groesbeck, “Do you feel that based on your evaluations that these mental disorders affect his ability, his capacity to comprehend and appreciate the charges or allegations against him?”

  “I do,” Groesbeck answered. “He can't, number one, even evaluate the reality of, for example, the case the State has against him. And, number two, I think that even when he can hear a few of those facts, his delusional system is so strong . . . for example, he absolutely believes that every piece of evidence that has been brought up against him had been planted. And I think that's a product of his delusional thinking. And because of that . . . in my opinion he does not meet the criteria of being able to appreciate the charges.”

  The next defense witness, a clinical and forensic psychologist named Robert Howell, seconded Dr. Groesbeck's opinion that Ron suffered from a delusional disorder, “a schizophrenic illness” that rendered him mentally incompetent to stand trial.

  Esplin asked Dr. Howell if he had “seen evidence of delusion in Mr. Lafferty?”

  Howell replied, “Oh, yes, clear back in 1985 and continuing on until now.” He pointed out that many of Ron's delusions concerned “the State and the family”: Ron didn't understand why he was being tried by the State instead of his own family. According to Dr. Howell, Ron considered the issue of his guilt or innocence to be “a family matter” that could best be resolved by having him “duke it out with Allen, the husband of the deceased woman.”

  Dr. Howell went on to describe other delusional behaviors on Ron's part: that he believed Moroni was trying to invade his body through his rectum; that he sometimes heard Christ speaking to him; that he heard a buzzing sound when spirits were present; and that he saw sparks shooting from his fingertips.

  When it was the prosecution's turn to make its case, however, the battery of expert witnesses the state put on the stand moved quickly to throw cold water on the notion that such behavior demonstrated that Ron was crazy or in any way unfit to stand trial.

  The first of these experts was Noel Gardner, M.D., a psychiatrist affiliated with the University of Utah Medical School. Dr. Gardner admitted that Ron's belief in “travelers,” evil spirits, reflector shields, and the like was due to “very odd, very strange ideas. The first time I read the defense memorandum describing them, . . . I thought this man may have become psychotic in some way, because they sounded so strange. What is interesting, though, is in an in-depth exploration of where those ideas came from, and how he uses those ideas and thinks about them, it is very clear to me they are not psychotic ideas. . . . [They are] very consistent with things he's learned as a child.”

  Gardner explained that Ron described “travelers” as being spiritual entities with the ability to “inhabit different bodies at different times.” Gardner pointed out that this belief wasn't really very different from the notion of reincarnation, and that Ron simply “used some very unusual labels” for a “rather conventional set of ideas. There are millions, literally, probably billions of people who believe in a spirit world.”

  Ron “talks about what he calls reflector shields,” Dr. Gardner testified, “warding off or defending against evil forces. And in talking about that, it has the quality that might suggest a psychotic, paranoid set of ideas.” But, Gardner continued, Ron actually “describes these forces in very much the same kind of language that ordinary religious people would. For example, I asked him how these spirits were alike or different than the idea of guardian angels, and I said I grew up in a family where we believe in guardian angels.”

  Ron responded that his “reflector shields” were very much like guardian angels, which struck Dr. Gardner as “very non-psychotic.” It seemed to him to be nearly identical to the ordinary Christian concept of erecting defenses “against the temptations or influences of Satan. It's not all that different in many ways than a common New Testament text. . . . And it's real clear that many of his ideas have come from his early Mormon religious teachings.”

  Prodding Dr. Gardner to continue in this vein, Utah Assistant Attorney General Creighton Horton asked him, “Are people who believe in divine guidance, or believe God sends guardian angels to protect us, mentally ill?”

  “I would hope not,” Gardner replied. “Certainly, the majority of people in our country believe in God. Most people in our country say they pray to God. It's a common experience. And while the labels that Mr. Lafferty uses are certainly unusual, the thought forms themselves are really very common . . . to all of us.”

  Horton: “From what the defendant told you, does the defendant say that he thinks travelers can enter humans?”

  Gardner: “Yes, he does believe that travelers can enter humans.”

  Horton: “Is there a Judeo-Christian parallel to that?”

  Gardner: “The idea that Christians should pray to have the Holy Spirit fill their lives, to come in and control their lives, possess them, . . . is a very common notion. . . . The idea that people can be influenced by evil, and that Satan is a personal being who can influence us, and that Satan can take control of our minds and influence our behavior, is a very common notion to Christians and non-Christian religious people.” Gardner reminded th
e court that a number of religions still engage in exorcisms, to remove evil spirits that have taken possession of individuals.

  “Are people who practice exorcisms,” Horton asked, “are they mentally ill, necessarily, because they believe in evil spirits?”

  “Certainly not,” Gardner answered.

  Later, Gardner expounded further on the distinction between believing in preposterous religious tenets and clinical delusion. “A false belief,” he reiterated, “isn't necessarily a basis of a mental illness.” He emphasized that most of mankind subscribes to “ideas that are not particularly rational. . . . For example, many of us believe in something referred to as trans-substantiation. That is when the priest performs the Mass, that the bread and wine become the actual blood and body of Christ. From a scientific standpoint, that is a very strange, irrational, absurd idea. But we accept that on the basis of faith, those of us who believe that. And because it has become so familiar and common to us, that we don't even notice, in a sense, it has an irrational quality to it. Or the idea of the virgin birth, which from a medical standpoint is highly irrational, but it is an article of faith from a religious standpoint.”

  Gardner explained that what makes Ron Lafferty's religious beliefs “so striking is not that they are somewhat strange or even irrational, because all religious people have . . . irrational ideas; what makes them different is that they are so uniquely his own.” And although Ron had constructed his own idiosyncratic theology, Gardner insisted that he did so “in a very non-psychotic way. . . . He created it by whatever feels good to him. He says, ‘It just gives me a sense of peace, and I know it's true,' and it becomes a part of his own unique article of faith. That is not a product of a schizophrenic, broken brain.”

  When defense attorney Mike Esplin was given an opportunity to cross-examine Dr. Gardner, he attempted to make Gardner concede that because Ron's theology was so outlandish, and “non–reality based,” it must be psychotic. But the psychiatrist stood his ground.

  “There are many irrational ideas that are shared in the community that are non-psychotic,” Gardner replied. “We all hold to non–reality based ideas.” Then, in a fascinating digression, he used as an example his own upbringing in a conservative Protestant family that adhered to the teachings of Archbishop James Usher, the Irish theologian who came to prominence in the seventeenth century. His family's beliefs, Gardner explained to the court, were “somewhat fundamentalist, not Mormon.” Although his father was an intelligent and very well-read physician, “a highly respected person and scientist in the community,” he raised his children to believe “the world was created in six literal days, 6,000 years ago.” Gardner recalled being taken, as a small child, to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where his father scoffed at the exhibits, insisting that the world wasn't nearly as old as the museum placards claimed—that the archaeological and geological evidence indicating the earth was many millions of years old was simply “a deception of Satan,” intended to fool the gullible.

  His father's stubborn belief that the world was created six thousand years ago, in just six days, was “a pretty irrational idea,” Gardner testified, “but he learned the idea just the way we do all other ideas”: from his family, and from the culture in which he was raised. And by these very means, Gardner said, his dad instilled that same irrational idea in him when he was a boy: “I learned the earth was 6,000 years old, just like two plus two is four.”

  Ron Lafferty's theology, Gardner argued, is definitely strange, but it is not an outgrowth of schizophrenia, or some other sickness of the brain. Ron's beliefs are rooted in things he was taught at an early age from his family and his community, just as Gardner's own beliefs are. And although Ron's theology amounts to “an odd set of ideas,” as Gardner phrased it, those ideas nevertheless have “a kind of cohesive coherence that is not unlike the coherence of other non-verifiable belief systems, other sorts of religions.”

  The next expert to testify for the prosecution was a psychologist from Utah County named Richard Wootton, a practicing Mormon who was educated at Brigham Young University. Hoping to persuade the jury that Ron's beliefs were so kooky as to be certifiably mad, defense attorney Mike Esplin asked Wootton what he thought of Ron's assertion that not only was the angel Moroni a homosexual “traveler” who invaded people through the anus but the reason a statue of Moroni adorns most modern LDS temples is that the angel made a deal with Brigham Young back in 1844, after the death of Joseph Smith. According to Ron, Moroni agreed to make Brigham the next leader of the LDS Church if Brigham would promise to render the angel's likeness in gold atop the highest spire of the Mormon temple.

  Dr. Wootton agreed that this was a bizarre belief on Ron's part, but he insisted that it was no more bizarre than many notions held to be true by religious folk, including members of his own faith, Mormonism. All kinds of things are accepted by one culture or another that would appear crazy or extreme to those outside the culture, Wootton argued. Asked for an example, he mentioned the multitude of visions and other supernatural experiences Joseph Smith had had throughout his lifetime. “Some outsiders,” Wootton observed, “might see that as being delusional.”

  If one were to compare Ron's revelations and belief in spirits to “material from LDS doctrine,” Dr. Wootton continued, “you'd find that his statements were not as extreme as some people might think.” Wootton explained to the court that spirits were a frequent topic of conversation among ordinary Mormons: “We talk about spirits being on ‘the other side.' It's not unusual to talk about what is ‘beyond the veil' and what is on ‘the other side' in the spirit world.”

  Wootton acknowledged that Ron “has a tendency to take things of a religious nature and carry them to a real extreme. However, I would add that I know dozens and dozens of people who do the same thing and never commit any crime. So it's not unusual to find people who take some religious ideas or other ideas to an extreme.”

  The final expert to testify for the prosecution was Stephen Golding, a forensic psychologist who in 1980 coauthored a much-praised book about the legal parameters of mental competency and helped develop the leading methodology for determining fitness to stand trial. Challenging Dr. Golding during his cross-examination, Mike Esplin pointed out that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (commonly referred to as DSM-IV)* stated that “false beliefs,” by definition, are delusions. Because everyone seemed to agree that Ron Lafferty's beliefs were not based on fact, and were therefore false, Esplin demanded to know why Golding refused to characterize Ron Lafferty as delusional.

  “You can't take a word in a diagnostic manual and lift it out of context,” Golding answered. “Almost every religious belief system that I know of is made up ninety percent of things that are articles of faith and cannot be reduced to fact. So by using your definition they would all be false—they would all be delusional.” Whether Ron's beliefs were true or false, he explained, was irrelevant in determining whether he was mentally competent. One had to consider other criteria.

  “Mr. Lafferty's approach to the world,” said Dr. Golding, “is no different than other kinds of political or religious zealots in this country, in Iran, in Montana, in a variety of places.”

  When Esplin continued to press Golding, arguing that Ron's brand of religious zealotry was so excessive that it must be considered a symptom of psychological instability, Golding stated, “I do not believe that zealots are mentally ill, per se.” He explained that there were “zealots of all stripes and colors” in the world—political, religious, and otherwise: “A zealot is simply someone who has an extreme, fervently held belief” and is willing to go “to great lengths to impose those beliefs, act on those beliefs. . . . For example, the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. Hamas means ‘zeal.' ” Golding reiterated, “I guess my actual point, to try and say it again, is the existence of an extreme religious, personal, or political belief system is not, per se, an indication of mental illness.”

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nbsp; As part of the prosecution's efforts to portray Ron as fanatical but utterly sane, at one point Assistant Attorney General Michael Wims asked Dr. Noel Gardner to compare Ron to schizophrenics he had examined. Gardner was adamant that Ron bore little resemblance to such seriously ill individuals. “You can't interview Mr. Lafferty without sensing the vibrancy and intensity of his affect,” he testified. “This is a man who enjoys a good joke.” Gardner recalled that Ron laughed a lot, and “laughter is always something that is a shared experience. . . . One thing I can tell you in working with hundreds of schizophrenics over my lifetime, is schizophrenics don't have shared humor with people around them. Most of the time they are quite humorless. Once in a while, they'll have their own idiosyncratic humor, laughing with themselves at things that have nothing to do with their environment. But a rather sensitive marker of psychosis is whether people have enough of the same shared reality to not only understand the facts of one's reality, but the subtle and social meaning and significance that is irony.”

  Dr. Gardner made it very clear that Ron Lafferty “is a man who enjoys and seeks out engagement with other people. Schizophrenics by nature do not seek out relationships; they're isolated, lonely, very self-contained.”

  Gardner pointed out, “Mr. Lafferty had stacks of books in his cell. Show me a schizophrenic at the State Hospital who actually has the books and actually reads them. You know why? They can't stay focused. Their thoughts keep getting distracted. You don't find schizophrenics that can read the books, and then discuss the details about the content of the book. Mr. Lafferty can do that wonderfully. He can show you where he accepted this idea, rejected that idea, . . . the way all of us do.”