midnight_air (midnight_air) wrote in asperger, @ 2007-08-29 19:44:00 |
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Current mood: | worried |
Astronaut has AS?
Hi all!
My local paper had a little snippet this morning about Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who is facing assault and abduction charges for stalking her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend. Apparently her attorney has filed a notice to use temporary insanity as a defense, and describes his client as suffering from a variety of behavioral disorders, including depression, OCD, insomnia, and "brief psychotic disorder with marked stressors." Also mentioned in this notice of intent is that Nowak has Asperger Syndrome.
I haven't researched this any further but I am concerned. Is it the attorney's intent to use AS as a mitigating factor to defend his client's criminal behavior? And given the high-profile nature of this case, would the success of an insanity defense based even in part on AS result in further stigmatization of those affected, or even in mandated intervention? I hope that I'm being alarmist about this, and if anyone has heard anything else about this notice I would love to get more detail.