Assistant United States Attorney US Department of Justice Idaho
Joseph Duncan was recently paroled from prison when he carefully selected a mountainside Idaho home to begin around-the-clock surveillance before murdering multiple family members and kidnapping two children. He successfully set up a heavily forested survivalist lair to commit non-State torture, recurrent sadistic sexual assaults, and production of severe sadistic child sexual abuse material. This case study will provide compelling details of the numerous crimes committed by Duncan followed by a most difficult prosecution complicated by the actions of the offender as he tried to establish an insanity defense. The victimization will be carefully reviewed from a medical perspective and the prosecutor will provide the dramatic details regarding a defendant whose pro se representation was an attempt to convince the jury of an altered mental capacity ruling.
Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate an understanding of the definition of non-State torture within the context of multiple examples of severe child maltreatment
Assess strategies employed by a previously incarcerated defendant to support a possible insanity defense within the scenario of a capital punishment crime
Describe the victim impact and long-term physical, behavioral and psychiatric outcomes of survivors of child non-State torture
