Public Defender’s Office

The Public Defender’s Office becomes the defense’s institutional center in William Stanley Milligan’s case: a place where an emerging psychiatric explanation had to be protected, tested against competing accounts, and translated into courtroom strategy. Through Judy Stevenson and Gary Schweickart, the book depicts public defense as both legal advocacy and demanding human labor, extending from early concern about Milligan’s behavior to the aftermath of his trial and transfer to treatment.

Role and Representation

The office enters the story as a point of contact for people trying to make sense of Milligan’s conduct and the case against him. After interviewing him at Franklin County Jail, Dorothy Turner worried that a promise she had made to David not to disclose the secret might conflict with the need to inform the defense attorneys. She later called the Public Defender’s Office and asked to speak with Judy Stevenson. Turner did not explain the matter directly over the phone; instead, she advised Stevenson to read Sybil. The referral set in motion Stevenson’s reconsideration of Milligan’s changing behavior, which she had previously attributed to depression, alongside accounts of his strength and ability to escape restraint.

Gary Schweickart is presented as Milligan’s lawyer and as a central participant in the defense. When he approached Tommy, Tommy rejected the idea that Schweickart was his lawyer. Schweickart answered by framing his role as helping Stevenson keep Milligan out of jail, whoever Tommy might be. The exchange captures a practical difficulty for the defense: its client’s changing identities complicated the ordinary assumption that lawyer and client shared a stable account of who was speaking and what had happened.

Confidentiality and Case Preparation

For much of the proceedings, Milligan’s multiple-personality diagnosis remained undisclosed to the public. Knowledge of it was limited to those treating him, the prosecutors, and the judge. The public defenders wanted to preserve that confidentiality because a media eruption, they believed, could make it harder both to treat Milligan and to bring his case to trial. Prosecutor Bernie Yavitch agreed that keeping the diagnosis private was ethically appropriate in the absence of testimony about it. The Columbus Citizen-Journal nevertheless broke the story on September 27, turning a controlled legal and clinical issue into public news.

The office’s work also involved testing the accounts underlying the charges rather than simply accepting the explanation offered by any one participant. During a discussion of trial strategy, Arthur proposed that Ragen plead guilty to three robberies but not to rape. Arthur invoked Adalana’s account, according to which the women had cooperated, had not been injured, had opportunities to leave, and received some money back. Stevenson disputed that account by noting that the women described events differently. The exchange exposed a central problem for the defense: internal accounts of the offenses could not be treated as interchangeable with the complainants’ testimony.

Trial Strategy and Outcome

On September 19, Stevenson filed a motion to amend the plea to not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. The move placed the diagnosis at the center of the legal defense, though its public disclosure followed soon afterward through the newspaper. As the case approached trial, Schweickart told the prosecutor and another attorney that he intended to waive a jury trial on Milligan’s behalf and ask Judge Jay Flowers to hear the case. The prosecution reacted with concern, recognizing that the case was no longer as secure as it had appeared.

The court’s decision rested on stipulated medical evidence. Judge Flowers dismissed the first rape count, citing the absence of corroborating evidence and of a similar pattern of conduct. Addressing the insanity defense, he said the doctors’ evidence established that Milligan was mentally ill at the time of the charged acts, could not distinguish right from wrong, and could not refrain from them. After the ruling, Stevenson accompanied Milligan toward the holding cell to avoid the crowd. Schweickart then told him that they had to go to the Probate Court of Franklin County and that they should face the reporters and television cameras rather than leave by a back route. The defense’s success therefore brought an immediate public-facing obligation as well as a legal result.

After the Verdict and the Cost of the Case

After the trial, Dr. David Caul emphasized to Milligan that the verdict meant the hospital did not regard him as a criminal and that his future progress would depend on working toward recovery. The defense team’s role had helped carry the case to that outcome, but it did not make Milligan’s treatment or later institutional circumstances the office’s responsibility. Schweickart visited him at Athens Mental Health Center with the head of the office, asking about the writer Milligan had chosen and the attorney handling his civil affairs. Schweickart also turned over a list of publishers, potential writers, and a producer who had expressed interest in the story. The book distinguishes this assistance with the story’s commercial possibilities from the separate civil representation handled by Milligan’s Athens attorney.

The case exacted a substantial personal and professional cost. Schweickart described fourteen months of all-consuming work and left Athens knowing that Milligan was now in other hands. The time devoted to the case had contributed to the breakdown of Schweickart’s marriage; public hostility toward his defense of Milligan continued, and one of his children had been attacked at school because of it. Stevenson also reflected that concern about neglecting other clients had made her and Schweickart work harder, while their homes and families bore the cost. In this account, the Public Defender’s Office is not depicted through a formal organizational chart or a broad institutional policy. It is made visible through the lawyers’ decisions, the limits of their responsibility, and the personal consequences of sustaining an unusually complicated defense.