Zoloft on trial as teen faces murder charges

[Guest guest]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/health/10773613.htm?1c

Posted on Sun, Jan. 30, 2005

Zoloft on trial as teen faces murder charges

Outcome could impact drug's use with youths

NICHOLE MONROE BELL

Staff Writer

More on WCNC

Tonight on WCNC-TV at 6 and 11: How some lawyers are trying to put Pfizer,

the maker of Zoloft, on trial.

The boy stood over the bed, lifted the shotgun and squeezed. Once. Twice.

With two blasts, Joe Pittman, 66, and Joy Pittman, 62, were dead. They were

killed as they slept, police say, by their 12-year-old grandson.

What leads a child to kill two of the people he loves the most -- an

antidepressant drug or a malicious mind?

That is the question at the core of the Pittman murder trial,

which begins Monday in ton. Pittman, now 15, is charged as an adult

in the November 2001 Chester County, S.C., slayings and could face a maximum

sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Pittman's lawyers and family will argue that the boy was depressed and had a

reaction to the antidepressant Zoloft. But prosecutors describe the boy as a

troubled child with a violent past.

The trial, which will be covered by CNN, Court TV and other news outlets,

comes at the height of an international debate about the safety of

antidepressant use in children and adolescents.

Experts say the case is one of the first times the antidepressant defense

has been used for a child defendant. The defense has rarely succeeded when

used for adults.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered in October that Zoloft and

similar antidepressants carry boldface warnings saying the drugs increase

the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some children.

Critics of the drugs, and Pittman's lawyers, say the drugs can also turn a

child into a killer.

Cohen, a professor at New York's Fordham Law School who teaches about

psychology in criminal law, said a not-guilty verdict in the Pittman case

would likely have major implications for drugmakers who could take a blow to

sales and become the target of more civil liability lawsuits. Two of

Pittman's lawyers are civil attorneys who have sued New York-based Pfizer,

the maker of Zoloft.

" I think this is a perfect parallel to what's going on with the public

debate on whether these drugs are safe, " Cohen said. " If you get a jury

saying the kid wasn't responsible because of the drug, that's going to have

a devastating effect. ... It's going to be a magnet for legal work. "

Zoloft is the No. 1 prescribed antidepressant in the U.S. market, and the

drug's worldwide revenues in the fourth quarter of 2004 were $959 million,

according to Pfizer. Physicians have written about 250 million Zoloft

prescriptions since the drug hit the market in 1992 for a variety of

psychiatric disorders, according to Pfizer.

Pfizer officials say they are watching the Pittman case closely.

" We're concerned it may get people who've really benefited to become

hesitant to take the drug, " Pfizer spokesman Haskins said. " Our

biggest concern is our patients. ... We're certain (Zoloft) didn't cause

this kid to kill his grandparents. "

Pittman was prescribed Zoloft to manage mild depression after he moved from

Florida in 2001 to stay with his grandparents. The boy's mother had

abandoned him, and he was having trouble getting along with his father,

doctors have testified. A week before the killings, a doctor doubled the

boy's dosage to 200 milligrams a day. The day of the killings, he got into a

fight with a younger child on the school bus and his grandparents

disciplined him, according to testimony at pretrial hearings.

The maximum recommended dosage for Zoloft in depressed adults is 200 mg. The

drug has not been been FDA approved to treat depression in children, but

many doctors prescribe it for that purpose.

The defense team is arguing that Pittman suffered from " involuntary

intoxication " of Zoloft, meaning the drug put him in a mental state in which

he was unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

After the shootings, Pittman wrote a letter to the FDA, saying a voice in

his head drove him to kill.

" I snapped. I took everything out on my grandparents who I loved so much, "

the boy wrote in the letter, which his father read at a February 2004

hearing in Washington. " Through the whole thing, it was like watching your

favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can't do

anything to stop it. All you can do is just watch it in fright. "

Such defenses have rarely succeeded in the past because the research was

unavailable and there weren't enough experts willing to testify for the

defense, said Southard, a former New York prosecutor who works in

private practice as a defense lawyer. He thinks the failure rate will

change, however.

" I think it's a viable defense, " said Southard, who has appeared as a guest

analyst on Fox News Live and Court TV for the murder trial.

" It's going to be used more and more frequently because of the media

attention and the increased number of people being put on the drugs. "

In April, a Santa Cruz, Calif., jury acquitted a 28-year-old man of

attempted murder and assault after his lawyers argued that an adverse

reaction to Zoloft caused him to hit a longtime friend in the head with a

weapon in 2002, according to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Prosecutors argued that the drug wasn't in the man's system when he was

arrested, the newspaper reported.

The prosecutors in the Pittman trial will make a similar argument. They say

Pittman knew what he was doing and tried to conceal the crime by setting the

house on fire, then fled in the family car with his dog. When deputies found

him, he told them a man had killed his grandparents and kidnapped him.

Experts say the jury's willingness to accept Pittman's defense will hang, in

part, on his behavior before and after the slayings.

Prosecutors say that before the slayings, Pittman was a runaway who once

stabbed a bull with a dart and fired a BB gun into a house. Defense lawyers

say the boy was nonviolent despite his difficult family life and bouts with

mild depression.

To succeed, Pittman's lawyers will also need to bridge the gap between the

clinical studies on Zoloft and Pittman's actions, experts said. Although a

growing body of research questions whether the drugs can increase the risk

of suicide in adolescents, experts say there is no research showing the drug

puts children at risk of committing a homicide.

" Before when you first started hearing this (defense), juries dismissed this

without a thought, " Southard said. " Now, they're more open to the defense.

They've heard some of the negative publicity about these drugs. "

Nichole Monroe Bell: (803) 327-8511; nbell@....

The Pittman Trial

.. More than a dozen news agencies, including CNN and Court TV, are covering

the trial. Court TV has said it plans live coverage but doesn't know when it

will start.

.. Prosecutors are asking a judge to impose a gag order in the case. If

approved, a gag order would prevent lawyers from talking to the media about

the case during the trial.

.. The slayings occurred in Chester County, but Judge Pieper of

ton has moved the case there because of concerns Pittman couldn't get

a fair trial in Chester.

Other Criminal Cases

.. In December, a 17-year-old upstate New York boy was sentenced to 20 years

in prison for a shooting at his high school. The boy, who was 16 at the

time, had a history of mental illness and was taking the anti-anxiety drug

Xanax, according to the Times Union newspaper. The boy's lawyer told the

paper that he believed the drug influenced the boy's actions, but they

couldn't find any experts to support the defense.

.. Earlier this month, an Illinois appeals court upheld one man's 73-year

prison sentence for seriously wounding his wife and killing her boyfriend in

2002 while taking Zoloft. According to The Pantagraph newspaper in

Bloomington, Ill., Hari argued medication caused him to hallucinate

and not realize the wrongfulness of his actions. But evidence at trial

showed Hari was clearheaded enough to hide in the basement waiting for the

victims to come home, shoot several times, conceal the murder weapon under a

bridge and chat normally with police after his arrest, the newspaper

reported.

.. In Florida, a state court is hearing the case of a Ponte Vedra Beach woman

who is pleading insanity in the shooting deaths of her 4-year-old twin sons

in 2001. Demeniuk had the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft, the

anti-anxiety drug Xanax and high levels of alcohol in her blood when the

boys were shot, The Associated Press reported.

Staff Researcher bourne contributed to this story.

[Guest guest]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/health/10773613.htm?1c

Posted on Sun, Jan. 30, 2005

Zoloft on trial as teen faces murder charges

Outcome could impact drug's use with youths

NICHOLE MONROE BELL

Staff Writer

More on WCNC

Tonight on WCNC-TV at 6 and 11: How some lawyers are trying to put Pfizer,

the maker of Zoloft, on trial.

The boy stood over the bed, lifted the shotgun and squeezed. Once. Twice.

With two blasts, Joe Pittman, 66, and Joy Pittman, 62, were dead. They were

killed as they slept, police say, by their 12-year-old grandson.

What leads a child to kill two of the people he loves the most -- an

antidepressant drug or a malicious mind?

That is the question at the core of the Pittman murder trial,

which begins Monday in ton. Pittman, now 15, is charged as an adult

in the November 2001 Chester County, S.C., slayings and could face a maximum

sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Pittman's lawyers and family will argue that the boy was depressed and had a

reaction to the antidepressant Zoloft. But prosecutors describe the boy as a

troubled child with a violent past.

The trial, which will be covered by CNN, Court TV and other news outlets,

comes at the height of an international debate about the safety of

antidepressant use in children and adolescents.

Experts say the case is one of the first times the antidepressant defense

has been used for a child defendant. The defense has rarely succeeded when

used for adults.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered in October that Zoloft and

similar antidepressants carry boldface warnings saying the drugs increase

the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some children.

Critics of the drugs, and Pittman's lawyers, say the drugs can also turn a

child into a killer.

Cohen, a professor at New York's Fordham Law School who teaches about

psychology in criminal law, said a not-guilty verdict in the Pittman case

would likely have major implications for drugmakers who could take a blow to

sales and become the target of more civil liability lawsuits. Two of

Pittman's lawyers are civil attorneys who have sued New York-based Pfizer,

the maker of Zoloft.

" I think this is a perfect parallel to what's going on with the public

debate on whether these drugs are safe, " Cohen said. " If you get a jury

saying the kid wasn't responsible because of the drug, that's going to have

a devastating effect. ... It's going to be a magnet for legal work. "

Zoloft is the No. 1 prescribed antidepressant in the U.S. market, and the

drug's worldwide revenues in the fourth quarter of 2004 were $959 million,

according to Pfizer. Physicians have written about 250 million Zoloft

prescriptions since the drug hit the market in 1992 for a variety of

psychiatric disorders, according to Pfizer.

Pfizer officials say they are watching the Pittman case closely.

" We're concerned it may get people who've really benefited to become

hesitant to take the drug, " Pfizer spokesman Haskins said. " Our

biggest concern is our patients. ... We're certain (Zoloft) didn't cause

this kid to kill his grandparents. "

Pittman was prescribed Zoloft to manage mild depression after he moved from

Florida in 2001 to stay with his grandparents. The boy's mother had

abandoned him, and he was having trouble getting along with his father,

doctors have testified. A week before the killings, a doctor doubled the

boy's dosage to 200 milligrams a day. The day of the killings, he got into a

fight with a younger child on the school bus and his grandparents

disciplined him, according to testimony at pretrial hearings.

The maximum recommended dosage for Zoloft in depressed adults is 200 mg. The

drug has not been been FDA approved to treat depression in children, but

many doctors prescribe it for that purpose.

The defense team is arguing that Pittman suffered from " involuntary

intoxication " of Zoloft, meaning the drug put him in a mental state in which

he was unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

After the shootings, Pittman wrote a letter to the FDA, saying a voice in

his head drove him to kill.

" I snapped. I took everything out on my grandparents who I loved so much, "

the boy wrote in the letter, which his father read at a February 2004

hearing in Washington. " Through the whole thing, it was like watching your

favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can't do

anything to stop it. All you can do is just watch it in fright. "

Such defenses have rarely succeeded in the past because the research was

unavailable and there weren't enough experts willing to testify for the

defense, said Southard, a former New York prosecutor who works in

private practice as a defense lawyer. He thinks the failure rate will

change, however.

" I think it's a viable defense, " said Southard, who has appeared as a guest

analyst on Fox News Live and Court TV for the murder trial.

" It's going to be used more and more frequently because of the media

attention and the increased number of people being put on the drugs. "

In April, a Santa Cruz, Calif., jury acquitted a 28-year-old man of

attempted murder and assault after his lawyers argued that an adverse

reaction to Zoloft caused him to hit a longtime friend in the head with a

weapon in 2002, according to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Prosecutors argued that the drug wasn't in the man's system when he was

arrested, the newspaper reported.

The prosecutors in the Pittman trial will make a similar argument. They say

Pittman knew what he was doing and tried to conceal the crime by setting the

house on fire, then fled in the family car with his dog. When deputies found

him, he told them a man had killed his grandparents and kidnapped him.

Experts say the jury's willingness to accept Pittman's defense will hang, in

part, on his behavior before and after the slayings.

Prosecutors say that before the slayings, Pittman was a runaway who once

stabbed a bull with a dart and fired a BB gun into a house. Defense lawyers

say the boy was nonviolent despite his difficult family life and bouts with

mild depression.

To succeed, Pittman's lawyers will also need to bridge the gap between the

clinical studies on Zoloft and Pittman's actions, experts said. Although a

growing body of research questions whether the drugs can increase the risk

of suicide in adolescents, experts say there is no research showing the drug

puts children at risk of committing a homicide.

" Before when you first started hearing this (defense), juries dismissed this

without a thought, " Southard said. " Now, they're more open to the defense.

They've heard some of the negative publicity about these drugs. "

Nichole Monroe Bell: (803) 327-8511; nbell@....

The Pittman Trial

.. More than a dozen news agencies, including CNN and Court TV, are covering

the trial. Court TV has said it plans live coverage but doesn't know when it

will start.

.. Prosecutors are asking a judge to impose a gag order in the case. If

approved, a gag order would prevent lawyers from talking to the media about

the case during the trial.

.. The slayings occurred in Chester County, but Judge Pieper of

ton has moved the case there because of concerns Pittman couldn't get

a fair trial in Chester.

Other Criminal Cases

.. In December, a 17-year-old upstate New York boy was sentenced to 20 years

in prison for a shooting at his high school. The boy, who was 16 at the

time, had a history of mental illness and was taking the anti-anxiety drug

Xanax, according to the Times Union newspaper. The boy's lawyer told the

paper that he believed the drug influenced the boy's actions, but they

couldn't find any experts to support the defense.

.. Earlier this month, an Illinois appeals court upheld one man's 73-year

prison sentence for seriously wounding his wife and killing her boyfriend in

2002 while taking Zoloft. According to The Pantagraph newspaper in

Bloomington, Ill., Hari argued medication caused him to hallucinate

and not realize the wrongfulness of his actions. But evidence at trial

showed Hari was clearheaded enough to hide in the basement waiting for the

victims to come home, shoot several times, conceal the murder weapon under a

bridge and chat normally with police after his arrest, the newspaper

reported.

.. In Florida, a state court is hearing the case of a Ponte Vedra Beach woman

who is pleading insanity in the shooting deaths of her 4-year-old twin sons

in 2001. Demeniuk had the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft, the

anti-anxiety drug Xanax and high levels of alcohol in her blood when the

boys were shot, The Associated Press reported.

Staff Researcher bourne contributed to this story.