Defense witness in Brian David Mitchell competency case goes on offensive

One of the expert witnesses for Brian David Mitchell's defense team on Thursday passionately defended her 2004 examination of the man accused of kidnapping and raping Elizabeth Smart.

Jennifer Skeem, a forensic psychologist from California who grew up in Utah, took the stand in federal court during the ninth day of a hearing to determine if Mitchell is competent to stand trial. At times, her testimony seemed less about issues relating to Mitchell's competency and more about what she believed was "character assassination" in previous comments by the government's expert witnesses to discredit her evaluation of Mitchell.

"I'm not a hired gun who intentionally collaborated with an unethical defense team," Skeem said.

Last week, Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist, showed a timeline of events in 2004 leading up to when Mitchell's defense team asked for a new competency review. He criticized notes taken by Skeem and questioned her reasoning for calling Mitchell "situationally competent" in her first report and then incompetent in her second report a short time later. He pointed to a motion from defense attorneys who indicated one of the reasons they wanted a new hearing was because of a decline in Mitchell's "ability to manifest appropriate courtroom behavior."

He said the motion was filed before Mitchell ever displayed inappropriate behavior by repeatedly singing in court.

Skeem said Welner should have focused on the entire petition rather than just one sentence and said he missed its overall meaning.

Skeem said even leading up to her interview with Mitchell, he was "all over the map" with his legal reasoning. At the rate he was going, she believed he would not be able to assist his attorneys in the courtroom. At one point, she said, Mitchell wanted to plead guilty to all the charges against him, believing he would be delivered by God out of jail shortly.

"Dr. Welner gave an interpretation of a small excerpt of my notes," she said. "I'd be happy to review all my notes and what they mean and don't mean."

Skeem also addressed a point raised by Dr. Noel Gardner, the government's other expert witness, that Mitchell would only grant an interview at that time to Skeem, whom he described as a young, attractive female.

"I've never been so offended by something you would think is so flattering," Skeem fired back, adding that she was not a "wide-eyed young miss" that Mitchell was able to "efficiently mislead."

Skeem said she believed Welner had developed his "very strong" opinion of Mitchell before reading her notes, and that some of the testimony given earlier in the hearing trying to discredit her report "bordered on unprofessional."

Skeem said that she currently did not have an opinion on Mitchell's competency because she was not retained by the federal defense team to perform an evaluation. She said she would defer to Dr. Richart DeMier's opinion.

DeMier evaluated Mitchell for 45 days at a federal prison in Missouri in 2008 and determined Mitchell suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He said he believes Mitchell has a factual understanding of the legal proceedings but does not have a rational understanding and is mentally incompetent to stand trial for Smart's kidnapping.

"I think his delusional beliefs, they are not possible," DeMier said. "I think that it is a bizarre belief that he has been ordained and appointed by God … to battle the Antichrist."

It was not a belief of the end of days that makes Mitchell's beliefs delusional, but rather "his insertion of himself personally into that belief that he's a savior," DeMier said. "There's a lack of a rational understanding of what's going on."