Park Elliot Dietz (born August 13, 1948) is a forensic psychiatrist who has consulted or testified in many of the highest-profile US criminal cases, including those of spousal killer Betty Broderick, mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner, and serial killers Joel Rifkin, Arthur Shawcross, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Kaczynski, Richard Kuklinski, the D.C. sniper attacks, and William Bonin.
[3][4] He came to national prominence in 1982 during his five days of testimony as the prosecution's expert witness in the trial of John Hinckley Jr., for his attempted assassination of President Reagan on March 30, 1981.
His mother, Marjorie Dietz, who had trained as a nurse and did hospital volunteer work including activities at a local mental institution.
[6] Dietz graduated from Camp Hill High School in 1966 and that same year enrolled at Cornell University to major in Psychology and Biology.
In addition to academic positions, Dr. Dietz has held hospital and administrative appointments; served on institutional committees, national public policy task forces, editorial boards for peer-reviewed scientific journals, and as a technical advisor for numerous TV series and films.
[25][26] Additionally, Dr. Dietz has authored many works on workplace violence,[27][28] the stalking of high profile individuals,[29][30][31] and forensic psychiatry as a discipline.
[34] Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Adelman, the chief prosecutor, argued that Hinckley may have been emotionally unstable at the time of the shooting, but that he was not so mentally disturbed that he could not understand what he did when he shot Reagan.
Hinckley had, according to the Dietz-authored report, "a pattern of unstable relationships; an identity disturbance ... chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom ... inability to sustain consistent work behavior ... lack of self-confidence.
[34] Hinckley's mental health state was clear enough that he knew the type of bullet that would do the most damage, Dietz told the jury, plus the step-by-step movements needed to get close to Reagan on March 30.
[36] After eight weeks of testimony, the jury on June 21, 1982, found Hinckley not guilty on all 13 counts by reason of insanity,[37] a verdict that so shocked the nation that Senator Arlen Specter held a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee to question the jurors and both the American Psychiatric Association and American Bar Association appointed task forces to work on a revised test of insanity to clarify federal law.
[38] The trial catapulted Dietz into the national spotlight: attorneys took special note of his unique knowledge of deviant behavior, with the FBI also seeking his expertise.
His concurrent teaching at the University of Virginia from 1982 to 1988 ended with Dietz moving to Southern California to start his forensic consulting firm.
The two men watched some of Dahmer's cinematic favorites including Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, The Exorcist III, plus gay pornography.
"They're full of strong emotions, considerable anger, and an elaborate, closely reasoned system of belief about the adverse impact of technology on society", Dietz said.
"[44][45] Dietz attracted considerable controversy following his testimony in the 2002 trial of Andrea Yates, a woman convicted of drowning her five children in a bathtub.
[49] As the Waco siege went on, on April 16, 1993, FBI Director William Sessions tried to convince Attorney General Janet Reno to approve an assault on the complex, but she requested more documentation.
After Dietz prepared a written opinion stating that further negotiations were not likely to resolve the crisis, and that Koresh would likely continue abusing the children, that Attorney General Reno, who was known as a child advocate, approved the assault on April 17, 1993.
At the University of Virginia law school library's special collection department, the inventory of Dietz's papers includes 16 boxes dedicated solely to his work on the commission, covering a broad range of sexuality issues from nude sunbathing to bondage publications and Playboy magazine cartoons plus one box bearing a title with the now-antiquated phrase, "dial-a-porn".
"[53] Dietz's extensive commission statement outlined eight areas in which pornography creates, or helps foster, "a medical and public health problem".