SEATTLE, Washington – “The spirit of God took control of me.”

That’s what Naveed Haq told defense expert witness and psychiatrist Dr. James Missett about the shooting at the Jewish Federation, during one of their conversations: “It was his belief his trigger finger was being moved, because he couldn’t stop,” said Missett.

While Haq felt distant and surreal during the event, he did notice his aim was “incredibly accurate”- another sign of divine sponsorship in his effort to make a point.

Haq’s defense team is claiming he was insane when he shot and killed one person and wounded five others on July 26, 2006.

–In Session staff

SEATTLE, Washington -- Naveed Haq was taking a prescription drug known to induce homicidal ideas on rare occasions. The disclosure came Thursday as attorneys for the 32-year-old presented their insanity defense for Haq’s actions on July 28, 2006. Haq is accused of fatally shooting one woman and wounding five others at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Defense expert Dr. Robert Julien testified Haq, who has a history of mental illness, was prescribed Effexor in July 2005 to help control his depression. The drug, however, is an anti-depressant that is not government-approved for treating bipolar depression – a condition Haq had been diagnosed as having since 1996.

“The incident may well not have occurred had lithium or other diagnosis and treatment with anti-psychotic drugs been continued,” Julien said. Haq was taken off lithium earlier in July 2005 because he complained of tremors, a common side affect of the mood stabilizing drug. Julien, an anesthesiologist and psychopharmacologist, studies how drugs affect the brain and behaviors.

Another doctor testified Haq recognized he had mood disorders beginning in the seventh grade – a sign of bipolar disorder and not schizoaffective disorder. Dr. James Missett explained that bipolar disorders are most likely to present themselves as depression in teenagers. Haq had told Missett he would experience crying or rage for no reason, saying “I would wake up and ask myself what kind of day am I going to have today?”

Dr. James Missett said the symptoms persisted and increased as Haq grew older but that Haq did not tell anyone until he was in dental school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was subsequently diagnosed as bipolar. According to Missett, medical reports indicate Haq complained he heard voices that would tell him to do violent things, and had hallucinations of people whose bodies would appear to fade and glow. Significant, Missett said, because Haq also later reported “his perception of his own body glowing at the Jewish Federation.”

–In Session staff

SEATTLE, Washington – Jurors in the trial of Naveed Haq learned more details Wednesday about the defendant’s mental state in the years, days before, and possibly during the time he opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Under direct examination by defense attorney Wes Richards, Dr. James Missett, a forensic psychiatrist, testified the severity of Haq’s mental illness “is extraordinarily severe, about as severe as I’ve seen in anybody.”

Missett spent most of the day linking characteristics of bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder with Haq’s history of mental illness. Missett previously testified Haq was unable to tell right from wrong when he killed one woman and wounded five others at the Jewish Federation on July 28, 2006 because he suffers from a bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Haq’s lawyers contend Haq was insane and had a diminished capacity at the time of the shootings.

According to medical records, the 32-year-old first began experiencing mental health problems when he was in high school and was diagnosed as having a bipolar disorder in 1996 while in dental school. Over the next 10 years, Haq experienced delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, depression, mood swings and tried to take his own life. He was treated with various drugs but thought lithium best helped him control his behaviors and moods.

Missett told jurors the severity of Haq’s symptoms increased dramatically in July 2005 after he had been taken off of lithium.

Jurors also heard from a man who first met Haq through a mutual friend in 2004. Like the previous witnesses who had interacted with Haq before July 28, 2006, Kelly Turner portrayed Haq as an unstable individual.

Kelly described Haq as someone who could not keep a job and recalled Haq walking out of a telemarketing job selling ballpoint pens on his first day on the job. “He thought the sales manager was watching him, looking funny at him, standing behind him, and talking about him behind his back.” Turner said Haq also seemed to have “little man syndrome” because he tended to overreact to situations by shouting loudly and using vulgarities.

–In Session staff

SEATTLE, Washington — A psychiatrist who met with Naveed Haq four times since October 2006 testified at the Seattle trial Tuesday that he suffers from bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Dr. James Missett, an expert hired by the defense, said Haq has been mentally ill for at least a decade and was mentally ill in the time leading up to the shootings at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Haq is charged with killing one woman and wounding five others in a shooting at the Jewish Federation there. He faces life in prison if convicted of murder, kidnapping and malicious harrassment charges, Washington’s hate crime law. Haq is mounting an insanity defense.

Earlier in the day, Naveed Haq’s father said he spent the evening of July 27, 2006, one day before the shootings, with his son. Other than noticing that Naveed did not eat much at dinner, Mian Haq said he did not notice anything unusual about his son’s behavior or speech. He said Naveed “was in a good mood” and appeared to have more energy compared to days earlier when he “seemed really down” and “sluggish.”

Mian Haq also recalled trying to dissuade the defendant both that night and the next morning from going to Seattle. The elder Haq said he told his son he didn’t think it was a good idea because, among other things, every time Naveed would go, something bad would happen. “Either he would get a ticket or something would get stolen.”

Haq said he first learned his son was involved in the shooting at the Jewish Federation after friends told him that police had detained a Pakistani man in his 30s. Subsequently, another friend called to tell him the suspect was named Naveed Afzal Haq. “I thought there is only one Naveed Afzal Haq,” he said.

-In Session staff

SEATTLE, Washington – The leader of the men’s group at Word of Faith testified Monday at the trial of Naveed Haq. Albert Montelongo said Naveed Haq attended the one thousand-strong non-denominational church in Kennewick, WA for four or five months starting in late 2005. Haq found Christianity to be a loving religion, said Montelongo, and was baptized in the church.

One of the defendant’s treating psychiatrists told jurors the drug lithium is “the cornerstone for treatment of the whole bipolar spectrum.” (The defense, of course, points to the fact that Naveed Haq was taken off this medication as one of the contributing factors to his actions on July 28, 2006.) “If you take the lithium away,” said the doctor, “then things will start to unravel very quickly.”

Haq’s father testified earlier in the day his son made a request the evening before the rampage; “I want to be admitted voluntarily,” Mian Haq said his son told him. “I am going to have a relapse.”

Haq, a 30-year-old Muslim American, is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others in an attack at the Jewish Federation.

–In Session staff

SEATTLE, Washington – We got rare glimpses of emotion from the defendant Thursday, as he smiled at his brother’s account of Haq’s ideas for how to appeal to women, and chuckled at a joke by his father – before returning to the distant, despondent appearance Haq has had throughout the trial, sitting perfectly still, and blinking slowly.

Haq’s mother also showed a new side, as the demure woman became angry at Erin Ehlert’s questions, and was allowed to have her say, uninterrupted. “He’s a very compassionate, sensitive person,” said the mother. “I can not believe in my heart that he did the things you are telling me.”

As for Haq’s religious affiliation, several witnesses testified Haq saw the religion of Islam as too restrictive, even making a show of eating in front of his fasting family members during Ramadan. Instead, he turned to a Christian church with a “more welcoming” reception and spontaneous worship. But, those who know Haq suspected this, too, was a fleeting interest for his troubled mind.

“If this is what gives you peace and consolation, fine,” his father told him. “But you have a habit; you start a thing and after a month it will fizzle out.”

– In Session staff 

SEATTLE, Washington – Naveed Haq’s mother sat before jurors Wednesday at the Jewish Center shooting trial, speaking in a soft voice about her son’s battle with mental illness. Watch

She detailed his paranoia and inability to hold a job, hallucinations that he’d time-traveled back to the 80s and had seizures and loss of memory.
And, she told jurors, there were constant hot showers. Naveed told her he “couldn’t feel his body,” so he’d stand under scalding hot water until his body was red, sometimes four or five times each day.

During a recess, shooting victim Cheryl Stumbo clasped the the woman’s hand.

– In Session staff

NEW YORK – Naveed Haq did a terrible thing. And he admits pulling the trigger again and again. But he says he’s not guilty by reason of insanity.

Jami Floyd has the last word on the insanity defense.

There is a huge chasm between our everyday understanding of crazy and the legal definition of insanity. The legal standard is almost insurmountable.

Ninety percent of those who raise the insanity defense are diagnosed as mentally ill, but the defense works in only 26 percent of cases. The legal test in most states, including Washington state, is just too narrow. I know prosecutors say it needs to be narrow to prevent abuse. Heck, five states have abolished the insanity defense altogether. Watch the latest trial update

Talk about crazy. The prisons are full of people who belong in mental health facilities. It doesn’t serve justice. Instead of intolerance for the mentally ill, we should reform the law of insanity which in many states dates back to the pre colonial period.

Isn’t it time to take into account all that we now know about mental illness that we didn’t know hundreds of years ago? I think it is.

And that’s the Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SEATTLE, Washington — The lead detective on the Jewish Center shooting case, David Duty of the Seattle Police Department, testified Tuesday that Naveed Haq’s parents tried to keep weapons out of their son’s hands. They stashed the weapons in a bedroom closet at their home to keep them out of his reach.

Also, said Duty, Haq apparently wrote a khutba — a Muslin sermon — on how attitudes toward mental illness have developed from belief in possession by evil to the recognition of a brain disease.

Haq wrote, “There is no shame in getting help if you need it.”

Judge Paris Kallas also issued a ruling allowing the state to end its case the way prosecutors had hoped — with 911 calls by three women caught in the attack. Carol Goldman, who testified earlier she was likely in shock at the time, sounded remarkably composed as she nursed a leg wound hiding under her desk until SWAT officers arrived.

– In Session staff

SEATTLE, Washington — We heard from the first defense witness today as one of Naveed Haq’s treating physicians took the stand to testify to her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder and the half-dozen medications Haq was on during his time in dental school.

This witness, Dr. Alexandra McLean, had traveled from the East Coast was taken out of order; the prosecution has not yet rested. She testified Haq thought in 1998 that he could read minds but that she couldn’t testify to what his mental state was after the year 2000. Watch her testimony

Haq, a 30-year-old Muslim American, is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others. His state of mind is key to the case because he is mounting an insanity defense.

Cross-examination of prosecution witness Detective Timothy Luckie also gave the defense a chance to score a point or two, as Haq’s online activity was portrayed as an exercise in civil awareness – including available city council seats, global warming, and Project Vote Smart.

Detective Alan Cruise also testified as one of the final prosecution witnesses, adding another layer to the image of Haq’s life before the incident. Jurors saw pictures of an apartment lacking even basic furniture; a pillow on the floor, a lonely movie poster on a wall — and the packaging of a Ruger pistol and Ka-Bar knife Haq eventually would leave at the Jewish Federation offices.

– In Session staff