A Colorado man accused of trying to assassinate President Clinton lied to doctors about hallucinating and hearing imaginary voices in an attempt to avoid punishment, a psychiatrist says.
Francisco Martin Duran is not insane but suffers from an antisocial personality disorder - a condition that would not allow him to escape legal responsibility for his actions, said Dr. Raymond Patterson, a former director of the District of Columbia's mental hospital."He has difficulty relating to others," Patterson testified Tuesday at Duran's trial in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "He has a long-term chronic maladaptation to life."
Duran, 26, of Colorado Springs, Colo., is charged with attempting to assassinate the president, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. He is accused of pulling a semiautomatic rifle from under his trench coat and shooting at the front of the White House on Oct. 29, 1994.
Prosecutors contend Duran is an anarchist who sought to kill Clinton out of hatred for the government.
Duran's attorneys are asserting an insanity defense, arguing that their client was too mentally ill to realize that what he did was wrong.
Two psychiatrists and a psychologist have testified on Duran's behalf, telling jurors they believe he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, a biological disease that usually produces visual and auditory hallucinations.
But Patterson disagreed, saying he found inconsistencies in Duran's descriptions of a multicolored alien being who told him about a malevolent "mist" that hovered over the White House.
According to therapists testifying for the defense, Duran began shooting when he thought he saw the "mist" to prevent it from taking control of Clinton's mind and leading him to destroy the world.
Duran also is charged with assaulting federal officers, damaging federal property, using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime and interstate transportation of firearms.