What Do We Do with David?, Part 2
In 1989, teenager David Brom was convicted by a Minnesota jury for the axe murder of his parents and two siblings. The crimes occurred when Brom was 16 years old, at a time when the focus of Minnesota law relating to juvenile offenders made it difficult for prosecutors to move a case from juvenile court to the adult criminal justice system.
The Court of Appeals for Minnesota subsequently issued a landmark ruling that for the first time interpreted a 1980 statute that emphasized “a more punative approach for youths charged with the commission of a crime.” As a result of that ruling Brom’s case was heard by jurors in an adult court.
David was severely depressed at the time he murdered most of his family. A Catholic prep school sophomore, David had twice attempted suicide (the last attempt was just a few months prior to the murders), and friends reported that he talked for six months about killing his family.
When the case went to trial in autumn 1989, as a result of his documented mental illness David presented an insanity defense — an affirmative defense — that added several twists to the normal trial procedure.
For cases involving insanity or diminished capacity defenses (the terms are not interchangeable), Minnesota courts conducted a bifuracted trial that first determined whether or not the defendant was guilty of committing the offense using the basic standard of reasonable doubt. If the jury found that David did commit the murders, then a second phase of the trial began to determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, if he was mentally ill at the time of the offense and therefore not criminally responsible.
Thus, in the first phase of the trial, the onus was on the state to prove guilt, and in the second half, the defense had to establish by a lower standard of proof that David was mentally ill when he commited the crimes.
An insanity defense was particularly risky strategy for David’s case. Not only is it rarely successful, it necessitated that he admit he did kill his family — making the prosecution’s job in the first phase extremely easy. Adopting an insanity argument prevented the defense from claiming that someone else committed the crimes and arguing that the state did not meet the burden of proof to convict David.
Not surprisingly, in October 1989, the jury found that David had killed his family. The case then moved to the second stage.
Because of Minnesota’s adoption of the M’Naghten Rules of measuring sanity, the deck was stacked against David. To truly understand the uphill climb David faced, a (rather lengthy) understanding of the legal-medico conflict over insanity must be explored.
The M’Naghten Rules
The facts of M’Naghten’s Case are not relevant here and there are many, many websites that interested readers can go to read about it. What is important is that in 1843, Daniel M’Naghten was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. That verdict set off a firestorm of protest in England and resulted in an inquiry by the House of Lords which led to the adoption of the M’Naghten Rules.
The Lord Chief Justice and 14 of the 15 other justices defined the legal measurement of insanity:
In all cases that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved…; to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to 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. (Emphasis added)
Prior to the adoption of the “right/wrong” M’Naghten Rules (there were other rules that dealt with specific aspects of criminal responsibility), courts used the standard of “good vs. evil.” Before that, the rule was that the defendant “doth not know what he is doing, no more than…a wild beast.”
In the 140 years between M’Naghten’s Case and the case of the People v. David Francis Brom, the M’Naghten Rule came under increasing criticism both by the medical profession and the judiciary.
The first change came in 1929 when the federal courts adopted an addition to the M’Naghten Rule: the “irresistable impulse” test. In other words, that the defendant’s “reasoning powers were so far dethroned by his diseased mental condition as to deprive him of the will power to resist the insane impulse to perpetrate the deed, though knowing it to be wrong” Smith v. United States (1929)
In 1945, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia pointed out the problem with M’Naghten’s and irresistable impulse rules :
The modern science of psychology…does not conceive that there is a separate little man in the top of one’s head called reason whose function is to guide another unruly little man called instinct, emotion, or impulse in the way he should go. Holloway v. United States (1945).
Less than a decade later, the advances in psychology that made the M’Naghten Rule bad jurisprudence was addressed by the Royal Commission on Forensic Psychology, which wrote that the right/wrong test was “based on an entirely obsolete and misleading conception of the nature of insanity.”
The Commission went on to argue that it was wrong of the court “to abstract particular mental faculties, and to lay it down that unless these particular faculties are destroyed or gravely impaired, an accused person, whatever the nature of his mental disease must be held to be criminally responsible.”
The Durham Rule
Like M’Naghten’s Case, the facts of the case of Monte Durham are not relevant here. Suffice to say that Durham was in and out of mental institutions and frequently when he was released, committed one crime or another. As a result in 1954, the D.C. circuit court in reversing Durham’s latest conviction, created a revised rule that it hoped would ameliorate the problem with a decision that established the Durham Rule:
The rule we now hold…is simply that an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or defect. We use “disease” in the sense of a condition which is capable of either improving or deteriorating. We use “defect” in the sense of a condition which is not considered capable of either improving or deteriorating and which may be either congenital, or the result of injury, or the residual effect of a physical or mental disease. Durham v. United States (1954)
The Durham Rule, however, was only applicable in that Circuit unless adopted by the states. In a subsequent case, the U.S. Supreme Court held “this Court has never articulated a general constitutional doctrine of mens rea, as the development of the doctrine and its adjustment to changing conditions has been thought to be the province of the States.”
What this meant to Brom
Despite the overwhelming scientific rejection of the M’Naghten Rule (even with the addition of the irresistable impulse), and the creation of the Durham Rule by the federal courts, when David Brom went on trial, Minnesota law required, for a defendant to succeed in an insanity defense, that he prove “at the time of committing the alleged criminal act [she or he] was laboring under such defect of reason, from [mental illness or deficiency] as not to know the nature of the act, or that it was wrong.”
Before going into the specifics of Brom’s “mental illness or deficiency,” it is interesting to note that the Royal Commission on Forensic Psychology questioned the irresistable impulse test’s applicability in a hypothetical case remarkably similar to Brom’s:
The sufferer from (melancholia, for example) experiences a change of mood which alters the whole of his existence. He may believe, for instance, that a future of such degradation and misery awaits both him and his family that death for all is a less dreadful alternative. Even the thought that the acts he contemplates are murder and suicide pales into insignificance in contrast with what he otherwise expects. The criminal act, in such circumstances, may be the reverse of impulsive. It may be cooly and carefully prepared; yet it is still the act of a madman. This is merely an illustration; similar states of mind are likely to lie behind the criminal act when murders are committed by persons suffering from schizophrenia or paranoid psychoses due to disease of the brain.
Remember, however, that Minnesota had not adopted either Durham or the 1929 amendment to M’Naghten of the irresistable impulse. Brom was required to meet the high (and outdated) M’Naghten standard.
The People vs. David Francis Brom, or Was Brom Insane?
Now that you, the reader (assuming you’ve made it this far in this lengthy post), are an expert in the insanity defense, here are the facts presented in Brom’s case. Bear in mind that the jurors in Brom’s case very likely knew less about the history and controversy of the Rule of M’Naghten’s than they did about the rules of Monopoly.
The defense suffered its first setback when it came up against a court rule that precluded expert psychiatric testimony in the first phase of the trial when the expert would be asked about premeditation. David’s defense counsel recognized this rule, but attempted to convince the court that the psychiatrist “would testify in essence that if we take things in an obvious but superficial manner, it would appear that the acts of David Brom were thought about intermittently for months prior to their occurrence,” he argued. “However, that ignores complicated questions with respect to the nature of his thought processes, his capacity to act otherwise, and the origins and other contributing factors that led to his preoccupation with suicide and homicide.”
The court denied this request and David’s attorney rested without calling any witnesses. The jury retired and found that he did commit the murders, prompting the court to move to phase two.
Minnesota precedent ruled that psychiatric testimony is irrelevant as to intent because intent must almost always be inferred from the circumstances surrounding a particular crime. Such an inference is the province of the jury.
The fact finder is presented with physical evidence related to a given act and asked to draw on its sensory perceptions, life experiences, and common sense to determine whether that act was indeed intentional.
David presented expert testimony from one psychiatrist who concluded that David did not understand that killing his parents and siblings was wrong when he did so and that, therefore, he was legally insane.
“The death of his parents saved David’s life,” testified Dr. Carl Malmquist, former head of the psychiatric division of Hennepin, County Court Services. “In a strange way, they died in place of him. It made him not have to die.”
Malmquist testified that David’s depression caused him to believe that he was hopelessly trapped in an oppressive family situation.
The state offered expert testimony from four psychiatrists. Of these four witnesses, two concluded that David was not legally insane at the time he committed the murders and two did not offer an opinion as to his legal mental illness.
Years later in an interview with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Malmquist expanded on the difficulty in proving an insanity defense under Minnesota’s standard.
“The diagnosis is only the door opener,” he said. “You then have to demonstrate more specific symptoms, and then take it to a third level: how those symptoms specifically controlled a person’s behavior at the time. That’s what makes [an insanity defense] very difficult even if you have an [irresistible impulse] standard.”
All of the experts in David’s case agreed, however, that he suffered some form of mental illness or impairment.
It took the jury more than 20 hours of deliberation to decide that David’s mental state did not meet the state’s insanity threshold. As a result, he was found criminally responsible for his actions.
Brom was impassive during his sentencing by Olmsted County District Judge Ancy Morse, who said the case was an “extreme and monumental tragedy” caused by a “pathetically sick, depressed mind.”
In her later decision upholding the convictions, Judge Morse called upon the Legislature to revisit its outdated standard.
“Minnesota is ripe and due for change in the mental illness defense, in order to be in touch with current advances and knowledge in psychiatry and psychology,” she wrote.
Brom is serving his minimum 52-year sentence at a prison near St. Cloud, Minnesota.
A biographer, Rev. Terje Hausken, later told the press that David struggles with the aftermath of his crime.
“He knows he did it, but he can’t believe he was capable of it, and neither can I,” Hausken said. “If you met him, you would instantly like him.”
Shameless Self-Promotion
Was Brom Insane?
A lengthy post on the laws of insanity….
Trackback by Mental Health Update — 6/10/2006 @ 2:10 pm
I live in Rochester, and at the time of the murders, there was a large public concensus
that there was no way David acted alone. Yet, realizing that police investigations
are generally not open to the public, the police did not consider an accomplice. I (and others)
strongly feel that this case should be reopened and others should be looked at quite a
bit closer. I have no actual evidence in this matter, but the circumstances aurrounding
the case and the timeline of events don’t fit. As for whether or not he was insane… NO.
Comment by R.McKee — 6/21/2006 @ 4:45 am
I’m not sure how true it is that “the timeline doesn’t fit.” The murders weren’t discovered until the following evening. In terms of how the murders are described, it seems not illogical to think that he could have acted alone, especially since he was apparently on PCP at the time. Re-opening the case, if there is enough evidence to warrant it, would be interesting (albeit it painful for some). If there isn’t evidence beyond amateur theorists and rumors, however, then talk of re-opening it is ridiculous.
Comment by tom — 3/22/2007 @ 6:13 am
So basically McKee is suggesting that all the police in Rochester are incompetent and that he has some information that no one else does? Come on, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. David is the only one that acted in this situation. BTW there is no evidence of PCP in his system.
Comment by John — 4/18/2007 @ 7:31 am
I too was living in Rochester when the murders occurred. I remember that David Brom was the typical easily manipulated “At Risk” youth. He was truant from school, hanging out with the wrong crowd, doing drugs, breaking curfew, he had anti-Christian beliefs, and his parents had trouble controlling him. I also recollect that he and a friend were both supposed to kill their families on the same evening in “cult” fashion. In addition to that, I remember David Brom acting in a very unremorseful manner and smiling several weeks after the murders. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he was on drugs or had an accomplice and I don’t think he was insane. Rochester PD has come a long way since 1988, but back then they were “small town” cops who had probably never processed a crime scene of that caliber so who’s to say they didn’t make any mistakes. Furthermore, how does one person kill four people with an axe and not wake anyone up? It’s been sketchy since day one.
Comment by AJ — 2/4/2008 @ 9:38 am
Sorry AJ but your facts are off. “how does one person kill four people with an axe and not wake anyone up?”
I think the evidence clearly indicates that at least 2 individuals were awake when they were murdered. The mother and sister were not found
in their beds. Even the simplest of minds can come to the conclusion that they probably weren’t sleeping by the stairway.
Not hard to imagine the father being attacked first, mother awakes to a scene too terrible to imagine and flees only to be struck down by an
enraged teenager outside the bedroom……a very sick scenario and I don’t wish to expand any further but using your argument is lame,
unnecessary, uninformed and simply ignorant.
Comment by G — 2/20/2008 @ 1:42 am
Sorry all, Are we forgetting five innocent people directly affected by his poor decision making skills? Four of his family killed and an older brother left with no parents or siblings. I grew up 40 years ago with my family in Rochester, David’s parents were my parent’s best friends. I remember when his older brother and he were born, we played together and had lots of family get-togethers. They were a good family, loving, sharing and kind. As a stupid and angry teen (and what teen isn’t?) this boy did something so horrific that the best you can do is make up a scenario in your mind and call it “insanity”? NO WAY, he was angry, stupid and rash, not insane, there IS a difference. You can’t blame the musicians and music you listen to, when you do something wrong. He has to stand up and take all the blame, not cop-out with insanity. He wasn’t insane, and isn’t today. We are minus a wonderful family of friends because of him.
Comment by Phred — 2/23/2008 @ 6:38 pm
I was the same age as David when this happened, so this tragedy will forever be on my mind. I, too, believe that David did not act alone. If Mom and Diane were found dead at the top of the stairs, they must have been trying to run and escape from the horror that was happening in the house, only to be stopped by “someone” blocking the stairway. I think “someone” helped murder his family and put David up to taking all of the blame because he was a minor. Now, he is sitting pretty while his brother is in jail, taking the blame for the entire crime. I’m not saying David is a victim–NO WAY!!!! I’m just saying, there is no way he could have murdered four family members with an axe alone–with a gun, yes–but NOT an axe. The family members not being attacked would have been able to escape. My heart hurts every time I think of this case. Diane and Rick would more than likely be married with kids now; Bernard and Paulette would be grandparents; and David would probably be a Dad himself now if this tragedy had not happened. Wonder how many times he thinks about that???
Comment by Whatever — 3/1/2008 @ 2:38 am
First off, thanks to markgribben.com and it’s owner for posting this. That WAS a real education in the history of the insanity defense. I did read all the history, regardless of how long it was. This information is empowering.
As for the facts, most cases have results that cause some fringe-thinkers to come up with alternate ideas of what happened or of how cover ups exist. Then there are people that have means of finding facts, and fighting a long uphill battle to reverse court decisions. It has happened before with many cases and many brave and strong people, on both sides of jail bars.
I don’t know what happened there, in Rochester, where many people on this post claim to have been living at the time of the atrocity, but I do know that I agree with the quote at the top of this page, by HG Wells. A whole community does suffer from something like this.
I mean just look at the anger on this page. One poster actually is advocating hate-based eugenics to cleanse the gene pool from ugly people. Haha. That is one person that has never studied evolution, meiosis, mutations, gene flow on a college level. Yet, that poster splurts out hate. Shame on him. Troller.
- Informed
Comment by mark bailey — 8/13/2008 @ 4:16 am
I couldn’t agree more with you, Mark, about the poster and his hate-based remarks.
I’m also glad you took the time to read everything about the insanity defense, and what happened as a result of it being rejected in Dave’s case. You’d really like him if you were to meet him face to face, and undoubtedly from what I’ve read from you…. the sentiment would be mutual.
Comment by R "Chip" T — 8/14/2008 @ 5:55 pm
i was realy young at the time. i was friends with the neighbor girl that lived right across from the broms. i cant remember much of the brom girl, but i remember playing hide and seek with her, running threw the corn fields by there house. i saw brom once playing in the drive way. people like brom should be tortured slowly.
jared s.
Comment by jared samborski — 9/12/2008 @ 7:11 pm
R “chip” T…..
If you happen to read this, could you please contact me @ phildearly@yahoo.com
Regards,
Phil
Comment by phil dearly — 2/1/2009 @ 10:37 pm
R “chip” T: What in the hell is you obession with David????? So the boy was EMOTIONALLY abused by his father…does that give him the right to MURDER his father, mother, sister, and brother? I’m not saying emotionally abusing anyone is fine…but MURDERING is definitely a no-no!
Comment by Anonymous — 3/19/2009 @ 1:00 am
I covered this case closely when I was younger. In college at the time studying psychology and working at St. Peter state hospital I took a special interest in David Brom. I wrote several papers on this case, even went so far as to visit the court house in Rochester to see the pictures taken of the crime scene. I agree with poster #2 (resident of Rochester). This was definitely not a solo crime. There were many unanswered questions that left one to believe this crime was not committed alone. There are many residents (or former residents) of Rochester I spoke to that feel the same. The pictures of the crime scene are public record. Once viewed, logic tells you this was not a crime David committed alone. His mental illness defense (multiple personalities like Justin Time and Jimmy Sanders) were born from David’s creative mind. He was intelligent, not mentally ill in the sense that he didn’t know what he was doing.
Comment by Michelle — 4/7/2009 @ 9:02 pm
I literally just came across all of this tonight and am fairly intrigued by the claims of David’s brother being a “psycho” and the idea of him having an accomplice. I actually should know of someone who worked directly on that case and even though people seem to think of the Rochester PD as incompetent, he is definitely very intelligent and capable. That is not to say this person couldn’t have been wrong or looked past some things because people wanted justice but I am going to ask about this and hopefully get some feedback. Obviously, it doesn’t matter either way but I’m curious to get more info.
Comment by Anonymous — 5/1/2009 @ 2:44 am
This is all very interesting. Michelle I looked up the names of his multiple personalities and found out that Justin Time was also a multiple personality from another murder case. The case was from Colorado and the murderer killed his parents also, I beleive it was 1983. The strangest thing was that the middle names also matched “nicholis”. This remember was 1983 and 1988 (the 2 cases) before the internet. What this means i dont know but its kinda creepy.
Comment by Lee — 7/3/2009 @ 12:04 pm
Hello Michelle,
If you happen to read this; would you please contact me at unpaidinternproductions@gmail.com. I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue further with you.
Regards,
Toney
Comment by Toney — 7/28/2009 @ 10:05 pm
I grew up with Diane. In fact we were born a day apart and were in the nursery together. I spent many days there playing. They were a good family. No family is perfect. I do think he acted alone, to think that Joe would help in doing that to Rick and Diane is too much. To know that David did that to them is hard enough. It will be 22 years ago this week that our lives were forever changed. 8th grade is too young to learn about how ugly the world is. I pray for them often. I too often wonder where everyone would be had this not happened. I will forever miss my friend.
Comment by friend — 2/14/2010 @ 12:54 pm
And David if you ever read this…looking at your picture smiling makes me sick. Your sister loved you. I hope you go to bed every night unable to sleep because of the horror you did.
Comment by friend — 2/14/2010 @ 1:00 pm
Well, it’s been a year since the last post so I don’t know that anybody will read this.
We weren’t really friends, but I went to school with the younger sister, Diane, all the way through sixth grade. The Broms went to my church, and so I often saw them there. One of my older friends was a friend of David, and he had told her (and others) his thoughts of killing his family weeks/months in advance of the actual event. We attended the funeral.
I remember all the media around Satanic influence, evil music, etc etc. I remember the rumors that David was his older brother’s puppet (this was the big conspiracy theory I remember; I don’t recall anything about David having an accomplice the night of the murders). That Joe was a satanist and somehow brainwashed David into doing his dirty work. In any case, I remember hearing that the family was very, very strictly religious, to the point where religious stricture might have been part of the reason David was brewing with such rage and despair.
I don’t know enough about the family to presume I have any insight into what happened with David. I do know that I didn’t have the greatest family life either, and that while our friends/neighbors/etc would describe us as a nice Christian family, my parents’ marriage was deeply flawed and there was one occasion where I was so enraged with my father that I felt there was a good five-minute window where if he’d come up the stairs I’d have made a good go at stabbing him to death (I was in 8th grade). I’ve never attempted suicide, and I’ve never hurt anyone (nor would I), I can’t even say that I would have actually hurt my dad if he’d shown up just then. But I can understand how something like this would come about. And I certainly believe it is possible - likely, even - that David has grown into a wonderful person who regrets this event with all his heart and soul. I don’t begrudge him a smile, and I think humor (like quipping “Don’t axe me”) is a healthy way to deal with one’s own unimaginable grief and regret.
We all have the capacity for great beauty AND great evil, and the world might be a happier place with sympathy and understanding.
Comment by anonymous — 3/2/2011 @ 9:45 pm