Mental patient asks for jury to set him free

CHESTER, Ill. -- Mental patient Rodney Yoder told a Randolph County jury Wednesday that, if he's freed after 12 years, they will be releasing him from a "psychiatric death sentence."

"They told me I'd spend the balance of my natural life here," he said during the third day of his commitment hearing. "But I want to spend time with my son, mend my relationship with my daughter."

He also said he wanted to marry his fiancee, Millie Strom, with whom he recently reconciled after a brief breakup. Strom was married to the late blues legend John Lee Hooker and is a member of the anti-psychiatry movement.

Asked if he would hurt someone, Yoder was forceful: "No. No."

Disorders diagnosed

Yoder, 44, has been held involuntarily at Chester Mental Health Center since 1991 after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and, later, delusion disorder. He said he wants to spend the rest of his days protesting mental illness, an affliction he says doesn't exist and has destroyed his life.

"Life here has been dismally oppressive," said Yoder, who testified for more than two hours. "I was taunted by other inmates and dehumanized and tortured day in and day out."

Prosecutors are expected to cross examine Yoder today, trying to prove he will hurt himself or others if he is released. Yoder pleaded guilty in the past of beating a former girlfriend and his ex-wife.

Two defense witnesses, including Strom, are expected to testify before the jury deliberates.

Yoder's case has garnered national attention, including an article in Time magazine, an ABC news report and an upcoming documentary.

After being billed as "psychiatry on trial," the focus of the commitment hearing shifted away from the nonexistence of mental illness early Wednesday. Circuit Judge William Schuwerk said he would not allow such testimony because it was "outside the general beliefs of the scientific community."

During his testimony, Yoder again maintained that he has been held because he won a lawsuit against prison warden Stephen Hardy, who later became administrator of Chester Mental Health Center. Yoder spent three years in an Illinois prison for beating his ex-wife and was taken to Chester when his prison sentence was completed.

Yoder produced a document prepared by prison psychiatrists a month before he was taken to Chester that said he was not dangerous.

He also complained of violence against him by guards at Chester. His attorney, Randy Kretchmar, asked Yoder if the guards -- called security therapy aids -- had ever performed any physical therapy.

"Sure, leather-restraint therapy, choke-hold therapy, black-eye therapy, all sorts of physical therapy," Yoder said.

He spoke briefly about his beliefs about mental illness, which the judge allowed because Yoder wasn't qualified as an expert.

"I don't believe in it," Yoder said. "It's a strategy. It's calling someone a bad name, but it doesn't remotely have anything to do with science or medicine."

Yoder's 17-year-old son, Loren, traveled from Indiana to testify on his father's behalf.

"I wish he was out," he said. "I wish I could spend more time with him."

During a break in the hearing, Loren Yoder told a reporter his life had been miserable without his father.

"Financially, emotionally, all of it, it was rough," he said. "He's not crazy. There's no way he is. If he is, I am."

The jury is being asked to determine two things: whether Yoder has mental illness and whether or not he can reasonably be expected to hurt himself or someone else if he is released.

smoyers@semissourian.com

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