Casey Anthony - Dr. William Weitz Interview 66s6k

Nancy Grace Interview with Dr. William Weitz GRACE: Well, ing me right now, I`m hearing in my ear, is Dr. William Weitz, a clinical psychologist that examined tot mom Casey Anthony behind bars. He, along with the rest of us, taking your calls. He examined her, as I recall, was this as a part, Dr. Weitz -- thank you for being with us, to determine whether she was competent to stand trial? DR. WILLIAM WEITZ, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Thank you for having me. No, Nancy. Actually, my engagement with the defense team actually began in December of `09. It was way before the competency issue came up later of course during the trial. Obviously competency and sanity were some issues that we addressed but it was not specifically the competency issue that came up towards the end of the trial. GRACE: So the defense hired you to examine her to determine whether she had any kind of a mental illness, insanity, incompetence, and I`m throwing around the term insanity, but under the law, of course, Dr. Weitz, it means whether you knew right from wrong at the time of the incident. It doesn`t mean that you`re stark, raving mad, dancing around without your clothes on and a lamp shade on your head, it means did you know right from wrong at the moment of the incident. Dr. Weitz, has an excellent reputation. Dr. Weitz, did you learn that tot mom was not mentally ill? WEITZ: Well, the evaluation that we did, and, Nancy, I want to stress we did not only clinical interview and interaction, but we reviewed significant educational and developmental history information, police reports, we looked at family records, we looked at videotapes and pictures. So we tried to -- and psychometric testing. So we tried to accumulate the best information available to render some professional opinions. And, yes, with respect specifically to the two issues of mental defect or disease, it was my professional opinion that Miss Anthony did not demonstrate any evidence of either a psychotic/thought disorder, nor a mood disorder. So there was no mental disease or defect. Additionally, with respect to the second area of personality disorders, while there were many indices and behaviors that she exhibited which characterized some of them, there was, in my professional opinion, no one personality disorder that she met the formal criteria. GRACE: With me, Dr. William Weitz, clinical psychologist who went behind bars to interview and examine tot mom Casey Anthony. When you say some of her behaviors were consistent with mental illness, but not one in particular, what behavior -- to what behavior are you referring? WEITZ: Yes, I`m talking mostly about now, Nancy, the personality disorder, certainly not psychosis or mood disorder, but we`re talking about the personality disorders. Let`s be clear. Many of the mental health experts have been yelling psychopath, sociopath. GRACE: Mm-hmm. WEITZ: And there are a variety of mental health personality disorders that have qualities that consist of

things like the lying, the clear lying, the deceitfulness, the stealing of money, the misrepresentation, the misstatements, the things that Mr. Baez and his opening statement, closing, talked about strange, unusual behaviors. Certainly those components exist within Miss Anthony, and they were recognized. And we strongly considered those factors when we looked at whether or not she met a personality disorder classification. However, in my mind specifically when it came to anti-social personality or sociopathy, there was a specific provision that ruled out her being diagnosed with that disorder. GRACE: So, Dr. Weitz, you`re saying that some of her symptoms of potential mental illness, which you ruled out a mental illness, are lying and stealing? WEITZ: No. They`re not -- I recognize those were qualities of her behavior. The components of mental illness, those are some of the issues, though, that concerned us. I say it would be the equivalent to Dr. Vass`s shocking statement, the thing that shocked her about Casey Anthony was the distance, the dissonance between her situation in jail, in court, and the emotional affect, the attitude, the reactions, the affect that she displayed which were totally inconsistent with one another. That was the area of concern. That was. GRACE: And what was the affect? WEITZ: Casual, sometimes cheerful, inappropriately, calm, clearly no signs of any things like depression, irritability, fear. And, by the way, Nancy, those were -- although I`m talking about my own professional opinion, those were initially some of the concerns of the initial psychiatrist that interviewed Miss Anthony when she was initially jailed. There was serious concern among the mental health professionals about the inconsistency of her affect, about her mood, about her reactions, and the real situations that she was in. GRACE: Right. So even with the knowledge, and this is, you know, likely before Caylee`s body was found, she was found to be inappropriately calm and cheerful, interesting. Dr. William Weitz is with us, he interviewed tot mom, examined her for hours on end behind jailhouse walls. Everyone, we`ll be right back, taking your calls outside the Orange County Courthouse.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1107/08/ng.01.html