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State v. Payne11/20/2002
drinks and, then, becomes suddenly violent and angry," and testified that intermittent explosive disorder is characterized by a "sudden loss of control and an explosive violent behavior that seems to have been triggered by little or nothing at all." He explained the relationship between low serotonin and violent behavior as follows:
Low serotonin, in itself, does not cause violence. Low serotonin only indicates your capacity for dealing with your anger, . . . your biological capacity to control yourself. But it doesn't actually -- Serotonin does not produce violence. I mean, many people have low serotonin and they are depressed all of the time. And many people have low serotonin and they can't stop gambling. But it depends on a person's early childhood experiences and a lot of other factors. But with low serotonin, once the impulsive behavior has been -- has been released, the low serotonin indicates your -- your ability to take it back or control it. And many people who have low serotonin are virtually incapable of controlling their impulsive behavior.
Although he agreed that cocaine was a stimulant, he testified that scientific studies have not shown a link between serotonin levels and cocaine use. Therefore, he could not say whether chronic cocaine use by an individual with low serotonin would exacerbate the lack of inhibition.
Dr. Rossby testified that he determined the defendant's serotonin level was low by performing a statistical comparison of his average serotonin level to the average levels of thirty-four controls - men who were diagnosed by Vanderbilt psychiatrists to be "normal"; i.e., with no mental illnesses and no family history of mental illnesses. The defendant's average serotonin level was 78.5 nanomoles. The thirty-four controls had average serotonin levels ranging from a low of 87.5 nanomoles to a high of 250 nanomoles, with the average or mean at 142.1 nanomoles. Using statistical tests and the data from the controls, he concluded that 89% of the males in the total population have higher serotonin levels than the defendant. The defendant's serotonin level, in fact, was "among the lowest" he had seen. Since the studies indicate that a man's serotonin level will remain stable throughout his life until he reaches the age of about 50 or 60, when serotonin levels tend to rise, he could assume that the defendant's serotonin level at the time he conducted his tests, in 1999, was reflective of his serotonin level at the time of the shooting, in 1996. Dr. Rossby testified that his opinion, "given the level of [the defendant's] serotonin and given the scientific literature and all of the studies," was that the defendant's "capacity to control impulse once it has occurred is virtually non-existent."
On cross-examination, Dr. Rossby acknowledged that in order for serotonin to be related to a crime, the crime would have to be impulsive. He further acknowledged that the Finnish researchers who conducted the watershed study on the subject, a study to which he had referred numerous times during his testimony, had not included crimes in which the perpetrator had had a potential monetary motive, or had known his victim, in the group of crimes they considered impulsive. He said, however, that those criteria were merely used by the original researchers as "a convenience . . . to try to roughly separate the prisoners into two (2) groups so they could study the differences"; under the current scientific knowledge, a crime could be considered impulsive even if committed for potential monetary gain, or against someone known to the perpetrator.
The twenty-five-year-old defendant also testified in his own defense. He said that at the time of the incident he wa
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