Psychiatry in Court in 1989 - the Jim Bakker Episode

As I write this, the court hearing for Paris Hilton may or may not be getting underway, but I'm thinking back to the last millennium and another celebrity psychiatry episode. I had forgotten the details, so I had to look them [1] [2] up to refresh my memory.

Jim Bakker was committed to a mental institution in handcuffs and leg shackles...after a psychiatrist and his defense lawyer reported that he was hallucinating and cowering in a fetal position under a couch in the lawyer's office.

Federal District Judge Robert Potter suspended Mr. Bakker's fraud trial and ordered that he be taken to the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, 140 miles northeast of Charlotte, for psychiatric evaluation.

''Please don't do this to me,'' said Mr. Bakker, sobbing and disheveled, as Federal marshals led him from his lawyer's office to the courthouse for processing of the commitment order. He curled in a fetal position in the back seat of the marshals' car....

The fourth day of Mr. Bakker's trial opened with the psychiatrist, Dr. Basil Jackson of Milwaukee, testifying outside the jury's presence that he had found the defendant this morning ''lying in the corner of his attorney's office with his head under a couch, hiding.''

Dr. Jackson, who has been treating Mr. Bakker for nine months, said the defendant had hallucinations after Wednesday's session of the trial....

Dr. Jackson said Mr. Bakker's condition worsened overnight, even after he was given an anti-depressant sedative. He said his initial diagnosis was that the defendant was ''actively hallucinating'' and that he suffered from ''acute depression'' and had episodes where he could not ''adequately judge and relate to reality.''...

The following week...

A Federal judge ruled...that Jim Bakker was competent to stand trial after a psychiatrist testified that ''a panic attack'' and not any permanently debilitating mental disorder or psychosis gripped the former television evangelist....

''Our evaluation did not find Mr. Bakker suffering from severe mental disease or defect,'' said the psychiatrist, Dr. Sally Johnson. ''What we did see was that he was involved in a life circumstance and problem that has serious implications for him and the stress of that brought him to our doorstep.''...

Dr. Johnson is chief of psychiatry at the Butner Federal Correctional Institute, where Mr. Bakker was committed for psychiatric testing....

After the psychiatrist's testimony at a two-hour hearing this morning, Judge Potter asked Mr. Bakker, who was brought to court in leg irons and handcuffs, to rise. The judge asked Mr. Bakker whether he understood what was going on and whether he felt he could assist his lawyers. To each question, the 49-year-old defendant answered ''yes sir.''

Asked if he could go on, Mr. Bakker added in subdued tones:

''I'm very tired but I believe I can do that.''

jimbakker

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