Jack Ruby Trial: 1964 - Psychomotor Epilepsy

The defense set out to prove that Jack Ruby had a troubled mind. Attorney Belli first called Little Lynn, a 19-year-old stripper, who said Ruby "had a very quick temper. He'd fly off the handle." Another stripper, Penny Dollar, told of Ruby's fighting with a taxi driver, beating his head on the sidewalk, then stopping suddenly and asking, "Did I do this?"

Next came testimony from the experts. Dr. Roy Schafer, associate clinical professor of psychiatry and psychology at Yale University, had performed psychological tests on Ruby. "I determined that he did have organic brain damage," Schafer said. "The most likely specific nature of it was psychom6tor epilepsy." He added that Ruby suffered from "mood swings" and "impulsiveness."

Would Ruby be subject to states of rage? asked Belli. "Yup," said Schafer. What might set him off? "Very strong emotional stimulation … states of fatigue … certain kinds of light stimulation, a certain kind of flickering light."

Dr. Martin L. Towler, neurologist at the University of Texas in Galveston and a court-appointed expert who had examined Ruby, testified to the defendant's history of head injuries and probable "psychomotor variant epilepsy." During a seizure, asked Belli, "Will he know what he is doing?"

"No," replied the witness. "He is behaving as an automaton. Most patients will be amnesic."

Dr. Manfred S. Guttmacher, chief medical officer of the Supreme Court of Baltimore and an expert on criminal psychology, testified, "I don't think he was capable of knowing right from wrong or understood the nature and consequences of his act. I think he was struggling to keep his sanity… I think he had an unusual degree of involvement in the whole tragedy … [there was] disruption of his ego, a very short-lived psychotic episode in which the hostile part of his makeup, which is very strong, became focused on this one individual. Homicide was the result."