NYC Man Pursues Insanity Defense In Doctor Slaying

JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — David Tarloff lives in a deeply troubled inner world.

He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and hospitalized more than a dozen times before hacking a Manhattan psychologist to death with a meat cleaver. He has called himself the Messiah and was known to wander his apartment building half-clothed asking neighbors for money.

The 41-year-old Tarloff sat glassy-eyed in a courtroom last month after psychiatrists said he was mentally fit to stand trial on murder charges, though still prone to delusions.

His lawyer is pursuing a rare insanity defense in a case that highlights how the legal system tends to hold even severely mentally ill people accountable for answering criminal charges.

"Underlying our criminal justice system, there's this sense of personal accountability and responsibility. ... We're hesitant to relieve people of responsibility," said Richard E. Redding, a professor at Orange, Calif.-based Chapman University School of Law who has written on mental disorders and the law.

It wasn't clear that Tarloff — who sometimes refused to speak to his lawyer — ever would be considered competent for trial in the February 2008 slaying of Kathryn Faughey. He was sent to a state hospital a year ago for indefinite treatment before psychiatrists declared him fit for trial this fall. He is due for three days of further psychiatric examinations this week.