In October 2012, U.S. Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz shot and killed unarmed Mexican teenager José Antonio Elena Rodríguez through a border fence while responding to an incident in Nogales, Arizona. According to an autopsy, Rodriguez was struck ten times in the back with gunshot wounds to the head and arteries.
Prosecutors questioned why Swartz would remember details like throwing up and injuries to other officers yet fail to recall shooting at a subject. The defense called Laurence Miller, a Florida-based clinical psychologist in private practice, to help account for the discrepancy.
Miller will testify that Van Dyke feared for his life when he shot Laquan McDonald, and that this mortal terror helps explain the discrepancies between his and other police reports and the videotape of the shooting. Specifically, he claims that Van Dyke’s account could be the product of a brain under immense neuropsychological stress rather than a deliberate, self-serving attempt to obscure the facts of the case.
The jury’s still out on Miller’s claims. According to Jordan Grafman, a neurology and cognition professor at Northwestern University, there is some data that suggests persistent stress can affect a person’s memory, but much more testing is needed before any further conclusions can be drawn.
“This application of neuroscience and cognitive science is starting to tippy-toe into the court room,” Grafman added, “but the research is not quite there yet.”
