We were stunned and appalled when Lloyd Billingsley, a journalist and would-be author of a book on Daniel Marsh, wrote an overly-sensational column that likened Daniel Marsh to a “superpredator” and suggested a “Maupin’s Law” to prevent such convicted juveniles from being eligible for parole.
In part we were stunned because he alluded to support from the victim’s family, but the victim’s family, namely Mary Northup and Robert Northup, both in the press and at the Vanguard Event last year where they received an award on behalf of their father, was very careful to note that Oliver Northup and his wife Claudia Maupin would not have been approving of a revenge scenario.
The level of pain was evident last November, a full six months after the tragedy, and it must have been very difficult for Robert Northup to write the response he did. But we are glad he did, because it restores our faith.
He writes that the evidence revealed during the murder trial provides us all with many “teachable moments.” And he wants to believe that this double homicide “might somehow result in something more than just a horrible tragedy.”
He writes, “The guest opinion piece by Lloyd Billingsley, published Tuesday, suggests that one of those lessons was to show the need for ‘Maupin’s Law.’ The purpose of the suggested law would be to ensure maximum punishment for juveniles, with no special compassion offered on the basis of their young age.”
Mr. Northup responds, “I knew Claudia well enough to say with certainty that she would be horrified to have her name and legacy associated with such a thing.”
Instead, he focused on our biggest global concern – the “systemic failure at many levels.” He believes, “This was an entirely preventable tragedy. If we truly want to honor Claudia Maupin, an angel who walked this Earth, I would hope that ‘Maupin’s Law’ would accomplish more than revenge. If such a law facilitated the prevention of similar tragedies in the future, something positive might be derived from this horrible nightmare.”
Instead, he proposes Maupin’s Law, version 2.0, which “would make it easier to share the information with appropriate authorities when someone makes explicit threats of homicide.”
He notes, “One of the more disturbing revelations that arose during the trial was to learn that mental health professionals are legally prevented from breaching confidentiality regarding threats of homicide, at least until a dangerously high threshold has been exceeded.
“Daniel Marsh’s repeated expressions of his intention to kill someone did not meet the threshold, as he did not provide the names of any specific persons to be murdered. And he couldn’t have, because he didn’t even know the names of his victims until after he ‘made the news.’ ”
Mr. Northup continues, “We will never know if such a law would have been enough to stop Daniel Marsh before it was already too late,” he continues. “However, we do know that multiple people whose job is to assist with mental health issues heard this teenager make explicit announcements about his intention to commit murder.”
Robert Northup writes, “The kind of ‘Maupin’s Law’ that truly honors her legacy might have at least made it legal for them to share this information with each other, and with the police.”
“There are millions of American teenagers who suffer from depression, and who feel so awful about life that they often contemplate suicide,” he continued. “On the other hand, I would like to believe that there aren’t more than a few hundred such teenagers who constantly obsess on homicidal thoughts, study serial killers as role models, and who would experience extreme joy from torturing and mutilating an actual human being.”
Mr. Northup notes, “It could be argued that our mental health system failed on multiple levels in the case of Daniel Marsh. But it was through no fault of their own that therapists, counselors, etc., had their hands tied by laws governing confidentiality.
“If we are going to attach the name of someone as wonderful as Claudia Maupin to any new law, I would hope it is a law that helps to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the first place, and not simply a way to make it possible to punish juveniles as severely as possible after they have already murdered someone,” he concludes.
We agree with Robert Northup that this was a preventable tragedy. Lloyd Billingsley damaged our sensibilities by seeming to want to profit off this tragedy and sensationalize it.
Mr. Billingsley clearly misrepresented the views and wishes of the family as he wrote, “Northup, 87, was a lawyer and staunch death-penalty opponent who would have been the first to defend the teen. Marsh took Northup’s life, and Maupin’s, but under current law Marsh not only preserves his own life but someday could be paroled and walk free again. That strikes some friends and relatives of the victims as an injustice.”
Mr. Billingsley continued, “They wonder if juveniles tried as adults and duly convicted of first-degree murder should also be subject to adult penalties such as life without possibility of parole.” He added, “A ‘Maupin’s Law’ along those lines could draw a measure of reform from one of the worse violent crimes in California history.”
Back in 2013, Mary Northup said, “My dad would say, ‘At 16, they should know better, but they can’t think clearly… If this person did it, they need to make compensation, or get better if this is someone who needs mental health help.
“But I’m not into revenge, and I don’t think my father would be into revenge,” she added.
Mr. Billingsley had his own agenda to profit off Daniel Marsh as a monster and a “superpredator,” and to suggest rolling back a law signed just two years ago by Governor Brown that banned life without parole for juveniles.
Back in June of 2013, we wrote in a commentary following the arrest of Daniel Marsh: “If this young man indeed ends up being the killer, this is a failure of our system. This time it is our failure, our system, our schools that perhaps did not read the warning signs in the right way and find help for a kid who may have been ready to snap.
“We have a culture of bullying and depression, and we still do not do enough to help those troubled kids when there is still a chance,” we wrote at the time. “We are still, in many ways, a community in deep denial about a group of our young people who do not make it through the system unscathed. So yes, we did not want this to be one of our own, but now that we realize it might well be, we need to wake up and start dealing with real problems.”
Dr. Steve Nowicki, who specializes in pediatric developmental behavior, illustrates the problem here when he writes, “Reading this testimony has me furious. This is one case in which there are three victims. This testimony illustrates the need for our community to take pediatric mental health, childhood trauma and child development extremely seriously.
“The Black Box Warning is most important in the first weeks of starting any SSRI as it can cause ‘activation’ which may appear as irritability, increased energy and even the energy to attempt a suicide already contemplated as a result of major depression. It is clear that depression is the root of suicide and SSRIs are quite effective in treating depression. The irritability can persist and that prompts a change in medication, a reevaluation of the diagnosis and intensification of therapy.
“The real issue is the lack of coordination and the obvious lack of patient ownership that should be the cornerstone of a good physician,” he continues. “It is unrealistic to think that we should rely on a school psychologist in this situation and there should have been more immediate response by his psychiatrist.”
Robert Northup restores our faith. During a time of immense hardship, he reached out again to correct the record. This horrible tragedy has left a void in our community and we need to heal.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
““If we are going to attach the name of someone as wonderful as Claudia Maupin to any new law, I would hope it is a law that helps to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the first place, and not simply a way to make it possible to punish juveniles as severely as possible after they have already murdered someone,” he concludes.”
What a wonderful perspective.
What I would hope that we could do as a community to honor Claudia Maupin and Chip Northrup would not necessarily be a law, but rather an increased awareness that it is incumbent upon all of us to never assume that dangerous or threatening comments that we are hearing are mere fantasies, or that what we are seeing is just
“kid stuff” or harmless behavior. If we see something that we feel is “not right” such as episodes of unresponsiveness or obsessive behaviors we should take it upon ourselves to go that one step further and escalate the observation to an individual who can help such as the individual themselves, or a parent, or a medical professional or trusted authority. Taking responsibility for acting on our concerns should be something that we enable all members of our society to do as a normal part of their participation in our community. If this takes changing the law, we should do so. If it entails heightened awareness, we should focus on information, training and making the community aware of available resources for help. If those community resources need strengthening, we should focus efforts on providing increased help. There are many opportunities for improvement here. I do not see revenge taken on obviously ill children or adolescents as one of them.
when you read comments like the ones coming from mr. northup, i think it puts in context all of the hate.
as an aside, i was really taken aback by the front page photo on the davis enterprise showing some family members celebrating – that’s not only insensitive by them, it’s really troubling for the newspaper.
DP
I had not seen the photo. This is my reaction.
I find this photo very disturbing. Much of this case has hinged around the lack of compassion demonstrated by Mr. Marsh for his victims. What I see is a lack of compassion for one very ill young man and his family who are doubtless grieving just as this family is grieving their loss.
What “hate”?
“that’s not only insensitive by them, it’s really troubling for the newspaper.”
I have no problem with them celebrating or the newspaper showing the photo. They’ve been through a lot and finally getting some justice for the “insensitive” killing of their family members is their just deserve.
I too was taken aback by the photo. What was there to celebrate? Did the verdict bring the victims back to life? Did the verdict illuminate a plan for restoring mental health to Daniel Marsh?
Barack Palin has suggested in his comment above that some sort of healing/closure can happen through such celebrations. I’ve never understood that. Putting someone away from society is simply a “salve” that covers over the damage. It doesn’t “heal” anything.
With that said, I’m not criticizing the people in the picture for the feelings that they have/had. Each of us process grief in different ways. My criticism is of the Enterprise for broadcasting that personal moment … and in the process trivializing it by assuming that the the population at large can actually walk in the shoes of the four people in the photograph.
Come on Matt, you wrote “What was there to celebrate?”
The Enterprise did nothing wrong, it’s just reporting on what happened, it’s called the news. It’s not some big conspiracy to “trivialize” the moment or assume that the population can walk in their shoes.
Barack, the expression that “discretion is the better part of valor” has survived in our society for hundreds of years for a good reason. I never said the Enterprise was “conspiring.” I never said that what the Enterprise did was “wrong.” You are reading too much into what I have said. I said that the Enterprise was indiscreet and served no useful purpose by publishing the picture. I stand by that assessment.
Newspapers cater to audiences. They look for opportunities to connect to their readers. In this case I think they made a decision that there was a “connection” with that picture on the part of their readers. I believe that that decision was a miscalculation on their part.
Matt
“You are reading too much into what I have said.”
Maybe so, but I also think you’re reading too much into that photo.
How am I reading too much into the photo Barack? The Enterprise chose to run it because they felt it would connect with their audience. I happen to disgree with their assessment.
Matt
I agree with everything that you have said.
Maybe the verdict represented some closure for them. Who knows what they’re really feeling and unless you’ve been in their shoes who has the right to now judge them? I’ve seen a few attacks on the Vanguard about the family members and feel that anyone doing that is way out of line.
I agree. The trial was over, they’re happy about that. I am amazed by some of the attitudes I’m seeing here.
Don, the issue is not the four people’s feelings. It is the public sharing of those feelings. I suspect that if the Enterprise had asked them if they wanted that picture above the fold on the front page of the newspaper, they would have said no.
i think matt captured my view pretty well. everyone responds differently but in a way that’s a private moment and not one that the community needed to see.
i see there is a letter in the enterprise on this as well: “The tragedy continues as a mentally ill boy is sentenced to 52 years to life in state prison. I can sympathize with the family and friends being relieved that he is being held responsible. But the picture in the paper emphasizing the celebration of his fate seems inappropriate.”
I would not begin to criticize the family members for any feelings that they may be having. What I stated was my discomfort in the choice of the Enterprise to print the picture in much the same way that I disliked the portrayal of Daniel when he was first arrested. This is no different from me asking David to pull titles or pictures that I consider too explicit, accusatorial or overly provocative. On the rare occasions this has happened, he has been very receptive of my concerns.
This is an overreaction to a photo. A photo is a snapshot in time and tells us nothing about what is in people’s heads. This particular photo could be more about the feeling of relief that the trial is over. Nobody has a right to interpret what is in a person’s mind or heart from a snapshot.
Understood Dave … and agreed with respect to telling us nothing. The act of publishing it begs the question of what is in a person’s mind and/or heart. I personally wish the Enterprise had not “invited” me to go there.
Dave Hart
What you have said is true. It is equally true that every one has a right to their own feelings about the images that they see displayed in public.
These victim’s families knew them better than I; thus I would never presume to speak for them.
However, I will say this. The amount of crime prevented by incarcerating criminals is immeasurable. How many murders have been prevented by housing Charles Manson for the rest of his life? One? A hundred? We will never know, thank God. I think “superpredator” describes Daniel Marsh perfectly and no amount of counseling or medication will fix what he is; a killer. Had the doctors been able to share the information they had, I would imagine the outcome would have been the same. This is not the ‘Minority Report’, some things you just cannot forecast.
while you raise a point about incarceration, one of the interesting things about the manson case is that he’s not an LWOP, he has parole hearings. my objection is less to the need to incarcerate as opposed to the ability to allow the system down the line make the call.
DP wrote:
> while you raise a point about incarceration, one of the interesting
> things about the manson case is that he’s not an LWOP,
Just like he was the last time they let him out of prison to kill more people…
> my objection is less to the need to incarcerate as opposed to the
> ability to allow the system down the line make the call.
The problem is the “system” can easily be gamed by people who know that “pretending” to find religion will often get them out early (so they can continue to rob and kill).
I’m willing to do a cost benefit analysis and save some money on prisons to let a guy out who will probably steal from a Woodland grocery store or rob (and even burn down) a Davis house again, but I want to keep people like Marsh and Manson locked up forever not to “punish” them but “protect” the rest of us…
“The problem is the “system” can easily be gamed by people who know that “pretending” to find religion will often get them out early (so they can continue to rob and kill).”
what percentage of people are granted parole?
theotherside
“The amount of crime prevented by incarcerating criminals is immeasurable”
I agree and would like to expand upon your comment.
The amount of crime prevented by incarcerating criminals and by hospitalizing the seriously mentally ill who are violent and a threat to themselves and others in locked psychiatric units is immeasurable.
It is incorrect to believe that all individuals confined in a locked psychiatric ward will someday be free in the community. These units are quite secure as I can assure you from direct experience. Hospitalization does not mean that the individual will ever by free, but does represent a better chance for appropriate treatment than does a prison setting.
I strongly agree with Robert Northrup’s op-ed. What he is calling for in his “Maupin’s Law 2.0” is in line with Laura’s Law. A big problem in our system, which he has identified, is the mistakenly high bar for a mental health therapist to report a client who may be dangerous. Daniel Marsh told his therapist he fantasized about murdering people. Yet that was insufficient, under the present standard of confidentiality, to require, or even allow, his therapist to inform law enforcement or the courts.
What should be done, in my view, and I infer in the view of Robert Northrup, is, when a mental health patient expresses very violent fantasies, like killing people or in some other way gravely endangering them, even if the targets are unclear, the therapist should be required to report this fact to a special agent of the District Attorney and the case needs to be taken ASAP before a judge. The judge then could order an independent evaluation and see what, if any, treatment options are best.
Had this been done in the Marsh case, it’s possible (though of course not certain) that Mr. Northrup and Ms. Maupin would be alive today, and Daniel Marsh would be facing a far better future.
report this fact to a special agent of the District Attorney
My idea is that one deputy DA would be specially trained to handle these cases and over time would have relationships with most of the mental health professionals in the county. Alternatively, it may be better to have such a special agent work under the Public Guardian, insofar as any court intervention would be taken on behalf of the best interests of a mental health patient and the PG’s office might be best served to serve the client.
i’m in agreement with you. clearly the system needs to identify people with these problems. now where i may differ is how to deal with them. i don’t think a district attorney’s office is the appropriate early intervention (which is what you’re calling for) agency. i think you need to get it into the hands of the mental health professionals not someone who could use the information to later prosecute.
But you are making the case that Daniel Marsh was a mental health patient, and not just someone that developed a lust for murder.
Are all people that develop a lust for murder mental health patients? I think that is a very slippery slope.
Are all ISIS fighters mental health patients?
Frankly, what we do know now about Daniel Marsh is that he was a mental health patient. (I don’t know exactly what his diagnosis was.) And we now know that he told his psychiatrist that he fantasized about killing and torturing people, as well as suicidal thoughts.
Regardless of any slippery slope after the fact of the crime, we need to think about what we do beforehand when a mental health professional has information of this sort. Currently, unless he names a specific victim or he says he is just about to go and kill, psychologists and psychiatrists are not allowed to break a client’s confidence.
What I believe in cases like this is that it is in the best interests of the client and of his possible future victims to bring this possible threat before a court–as noted above, I am not sure the best way to do that. The court, using the advice of its appointed mental health professionals, needs to assess the situation and decide what needs to be done. In most cases, the answer is probably nothing more than continued visits with his therapist. However, in some cases, restraint or some kind of forced treatment may be best. The court would have to balance the civil rights of the patient with the public’s rights to be protected.
Again, this is basically how Laura’s Law works. I think the focus of Laura’s Law is on delusional psychotics with a history of violence who have some degree of anosognosia and for that reason will not take needed psychotropic medications. But that does not really fit a Daniel Marsh. I don’t think he was delusional or psychotic. I am not sure, especially given his age, how much insight he had into his own problems. Thus, in a case like Marsh’s, where the main reason to think he might be a danger to himself or others is expressing a desire to kill people or to kill himself, a court should at the very least be authorized to consider treatment options in order to prevent a tragedy.
We also know these doctors NEVER discussed Dan’s case nor his reactions to the medications between each other. They admitted they had not even read the other doctors notes of treatment. Their egocentric actions are beyond ABSURD. They never told Dan, the patient about the negative effects the drugs he was given thus he would be aware of what these “contraindicated” reactions would be. These same doctors admitted they had not told their patient Dan about the BLACK BOX LABEL OF WARNING & further that this warming is the last step to removing the drug from the market as it being to dangerous for ANYONE under 25 yrs of age to take. It was acknowledged by these doctors they never warned him or discussed these reactions as possibly caused by these medication. They refused to acknowledge that these were reactions from the medications until they were under oath.
I find it amazing that no one in this blog refers to the utter and total failure of the treatment of this boy. A 10 yr old when they put him on medications with a WARNING label, never telling this WARNING to the patient or the parents. It appears they proceeded as if it were vitamin C. With NO regard or concern of their patients health. Just another ##.
KonaOhana
“I find it amazing that no one in this blog refers to the utter and total failure of the treatment of this boy”
Actually, there have been many references on this blog to treatment failure. I know because I have made some of them myself. If I am understanding correctly is that you do not feel that people share your untempered belief that these medications should be banned. This I do not believe. My own son at virtually the same age as Mr. Marsh had his life saved in my opinion by the combination of intensive therapy, two hospitalizations and an SSRI. What was part of a lifesaving treatment plan failed Mr. Marsh.
A failure such as this does not mean that no adolescents cannot be helped as my sons case illustrates.
I understand that you have very strong feelings in this regard but incomplete agreement is not synonymous with ignoring the issue.
Rich–this sounds like a good idea, with one caveat that could be pretty important: if a patient knows that he’ll be reported to law enforcement for communicating certain thoughts to a mental health professional; he may be more likely to remain mum about such thoughts (even mentally ill people generally don’t like incarceration, I believe!)
Its the same classic conundrum for a murderer and the confessional; if priests are required to report those people who have committed or are contemplating murder; then the murderer is less likely to come to confession.
Rich, if we moved the bar for reporting “very violent fantasies, like killing people or in some other way gravely endangering them, even if the targets are unclear…” there would be so many reports to this DA you envision that they would be overloaded very quickly. Let me use suicide as an example. A large, representative study of the U.S. was done in the 1990’s (and replicated in the early 2000’s) that asked (among many questions) whether the participants (ages 18-55 I believe) had had serious suicidal thoughts at some point in their life, and how many had gone on to make a plan, and how many had made an attempt. Fully 13.5% said they had serious suicidal thoughts. Translating to the U.S. population as a whole, that would be 45,500,000 people. OK – let’s say that suicidal thinking is about ten times more common than the kinds of thoughts you are proposing trigger a call to the DA. That would be 4,500,000 calls nationally to DA’s around the country. Let’s back up a step. What if the person had not only thoughts but a plan. For suicide 3.9% said they had a plan – that would be more than 13 million people to report – but if we take a tenth of that for homicidal thoughts with plan only, that is more than 1.3 million people. That is still, I suggest, a lot more than the system could handle. What you are essentially asking is to criminalize thoughts. When DA’s and judges get involved people’s civil rights too often go out the window. You are also suggesting a course of action that I believe would put a chill on people’s willingness to participate fully in therapy. And you are basing this all on one case. How many thousands of young people have had similar thoughts to what Daniel had and NOT acted on them? How many therapists have been able to help or get more help for teens and adults who have had troubling thoughts like Daniel’s. As one of the treating professionals said on the stand, they were much more worried about suicide than homicide. Asking therapists to anticipate or predict such a horrible event as what happened between Daniel and the Northrups is like trying to predict what the weather will be on September 30, 2015.
I’m sorry, this is just going backwards.
David and/or Don,
I am not sure anyone else agrees with me, but I don’t prefer the way the comments are now appearing last first and first last. this is especially confusing when others reply in a chain. It simply makes more intuitive sense to me to have the comments appear in chronological order, first first and latest last.
I agree
me too
me three.
And this might be the only topic where all four of us agree.
When the change was made I was thinking that the only people who would like it were the people who read books from back to front…
It would also me nice to use a smaller font so we can see 10+ “recent comments” on the main page…
me too…i had been hoping for a way to toggle back and forth between chronological order with sub-threads …and complete chrono order (so newest comments would all be at bottom for quick review – altho that view would not put sub-comments with their correct antecedent, and the “recent comments” on the side probably takes care of that issue anyway)
…but this puts us starting at the bottom, scrolling upward – but jumping when we have to go to the start of a thread …
i am glad you said something, Rich …i figured this was something many people asked for …
Rich, Frankly, Barack, DP and Highbeam, thank you for the feedback. That setting has been changed back to the original. We are exploring more user control of the way that comments appear within articles, but as yet haven’t gotten an answer that will improve things.
thanks, Matt! it’s like magic!
Matt wrote:
> That setting has been changed back to the original.
> We are exploring more user control of the way that
> comments appear within articles
Many blogs and news sites let readers toggle between oldest to newest (and even highest rated after a “thumbs up” feature is added) so it should not be something hard for a developer to add.
Agreed SoD. Having the ability to “like” articles and/or comments shouldn’t be hard to implement as well. We are working on it.
To help us along, please share the names/URLs of some of the sites that do that. Being pointed in a direction always help speed the investigation process.
Agreed. It’s too difficult to tell where conversations are going and who responded when. I hope the Vanguard can improve this system.
mental health professionals are legally prevented from breaching confidentiality regarding threats of homicide
I am guessing that we could line up all the people demanding that Marsh was found insane and those same people would voice opposition to breaking this absurd patient-doctor confidentiality rule.
With all due respect to the victims and the victim’s family, although their views are important and demand consideration, a murder like this is a topic for the general population. It was them that were harmed, but it could have been any family. They were just unlucky… having loved ones at the wrong place at the wrong time. The perspective should be that we are all equal in potential harm, and hence we all have a horse in this tragic race.
Mr. Marsh is very intelligent. He knew right from wrong. He knew what he was planning to do and did was profoundly wrong by orders of magnitude. He did not just make a singularity mistake, he planned and executed a plan to murder. And in doing so he lost his right to demand to be treated as a victim.
It is absolutely aggravating to read all this empathy for a killer while also reading about new laws and legislation to give more power to the meek and weak to prevent them getting their feelings hurt… utopia will just not allow any jerkiness and the punishments for even de minimis occurrences are significant and harsh. But apparently go murder someone and you will be encircled with the loving hugging arms of those same thought and word police.
Absurd is the word.
I don’t know if Marsh attended church, but I would venture a guess that the number of tragic incidences like this correlate with the secularization of American society.
Here we have even more absurdity.
The same thought and word police that reject religion because of hurt feelings cause an pop culture negative branding of institutions that could have easily provided a salvation for Daniel Marsh. Did he know that God loved him? Did he have a congregation that would reach out to him and befriend him?
If family is broken, where is the replacement loving institution for a child? Fix that and maybe we prevent the next Danial Marsh from becoming a murderer. But once he murders, he is no longer a child needing salvation. He is only a murderer.
Completely absurd. Completely.
Don wrote:
> Completely absurd. Completely.
I’m no bible thumper, but since I have known a lot of people over the years (of different faiths) that have been part of groups that have reached out to girls, boys, men and women in the juvenile justice system, county jails and prison systems I can tell you that a very small percentage of the girls, boys, men and women locked up in America have been active church goers prior to getting locked up…
I’m no bible thumper either, but I have attended enough church and have enough experience with strong and positive Christian principles and congregations to see that Don does not. And without this experience he does not have the credentials to be so dismissive. But of course it is common with him to be dismissive when the argument conflicts with his worldview.
Frankly said: ” I don’t know what the secular equivalent is… maybe just finding help on the Internet?”
Umm….maybe other outlets for positive community involvement? I’m not sure why you’re insisting that religion is the only way someone can be restrained from committing violent or other crimes.
There are plenty of other activities that can keep people busy, reinforce their ties to the community, and allow them to learn something about ethics and responsibility. To name just a few: volunteering (tons of opportunities around here that are not religious-based), participating in artistic endeavors (musical theatre programs, acting, art classes), sports, etc. (I’m gearing this toward young people, since the topic was Daniel Marsh).
I am quite familiar with Christian principles and congregations. And it seems we have been told now that Daniel Marsh attended church. So you can go ahead and retract pretty much everything you said today.
I won’t hold my breath.