A psychiatrist testified Tuesday that Abdullah El-Amin Shareef's deadly road rampage on the morning of April 14, 2004, "was the result of an extreme condition of psychosis."
Raleigh psychiatrist Dr. George Corvin also testified that Shareef's mental condition that day was not initiated by underlying substance abuse - a position that the prosecution is trying to present.
Corvin was on the witness stand for a second day in the capital murder trial. He has interviewed Shareef numerous times in the six years since Shareef's rampage, which killed one man and injured four.
Shareef, 31, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murder and attempted murder.
Though Shareef has a history of drug abuse, Corvin told the jury that marijuana use was not the source of Shareef's behavior on that day. "It was an associated fact," he said, "but not the cause of it."
Corvin said "his acts were bad, as bad as it gets." But, he said, it was his medical opinion that Shareef acted as he did because of his psychosis.
Shareef has been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.
"Personally, I would never release him from the hospital," Corvin said.
Under cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Cal Colyer, Corvin said he could never be 100 percent certain that the defendant has no recollection of what he did April 14, 2004. Shareef has come to accept what he did, Corvin said, but that's probably more indicative of acceptance than recall of one's actions.
"I don't know with absolute certainty," Corvin told Colyer, "and if I said I did, it would be false."
Colyer questioned how early Shareef had come up with a plan to plead not guilty by reason of insanity in his trial. He asked Corvin if he had discussed that plea with Shareef.
From Dorothea Dix Hospital records, Colyer noted that Shareef was quizzing a hospital employee on pleading not guilty by reason of insanity as early as May 19, 2004.
Corvin said they had never discussed the plea. But he told the jury that Dorothea Dix has a compensatory restoration program that Shareef may have attended that included the topic.
"At some point, they mentioned it to him," Corvin said. "One thing I know, I didn't mention it to him."
