Alan Goldsberry

Alan Goldsberry is Billy Milligan’s lawyer in a legal struggle that repeatedly turns on whether Milligan can participate in his own defense and what kind of psychiatric confinement the state may impose. Goldsberry’s role is practical and persistent: he brings expert evidence before the courts, objects when Milligan is not given a chance to respond, and appeals decisions that he considers legally unsound or unconstitutional. The record presents him not as a solution to Milligan’s predicament, but as the advocate working within a process whose rulings can determine where Milligan is held and whether earlier criminal pleas remain in force.

Representation Amid Uncertainty

Goldsberry appears during a period when Milligan fears both renewed imprisonment and a future spent in mental hospitals. At a meeting with the writer, Milligan’s manner seems arrogant, manipulative, and demanding; he says he has been taught to expect the worst and hope for the best, but now expects to be sent back to prison. When Goldsberry arrives, the writer senses that Allen is speaking through Milligan, explaining why he wants to make a will that leaves everything to his sister. The account distinguishes the lawyer’s arrival from the explanation: it is Milligan, as the writer understands him in that moment, who recalls how his sister gave a school bully her last twenty-five cents to prevent the bully from hitting him. The memory makes the legal crisis personal, linking the question of Milligan’s future to a remembered act of protection within his family.

The anxiety has concrete stakes. Milligan worries about an upcoming hearing in Lancaster and imagines the consequences of an adverse ruling: a lifetime in hospitals and prisons. He is also distressed by hospital bills of more than one hundred dollars a day and fears that the state will leave him without money. The following weekend, Danny and Tommy paint a mural at his sister’s home while Allen worries about the hearing. Goldsberry’s work takes place against this combination of legal uncertainty, financial pressure, and divided identity, although the account does not assign those fears to the lawyer himself.

Expert Evidence and the Guilty Plea

Goldsberry and Thompson take Milligan to the Fairfield County courthouse in Lancaster after preparing depositions from four psychiatrists—George Harding, Cornelia Wilbur, Stella Karolin, and David Caul—and psychologist Dorothy Turner. Their evidence supports the view that Milligan was mentally ill and had multiple personalities when the roadside-rest assaults and Gray Drug Store robbery were committed in December 1974 and January 1975. The clinicians also state that he probably could not then assist his attorney, George Kellner, in his defense. Goldsberry’s presentation therefore addresses two related questions: Milligan’s mental condition at the time of the offenses and his capacity to take part in the proceedings against him.

After Milligan is transferred, Judge S. Farrell Jackson denies his motion to withdraw his guilty pleas for the Gray Drug Store robbery. The ruling says Milligan has not shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he was insane on March 27, 1975, unable to assist in his defense, or unable to understand his guilty plea. Goldsberry appeals to the Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals. He argues that Judge Jackson improperly weighed the evidence by setting the opinions of four qualified psychiatrists and a psychologist against the solitary opinion of Dr. Brown. His objection focuses not simply on the existence of expert disagreement, but on how the court treated that disagreement when deciding whether Milligan could withdraw his plea.

Challenging Transfer and Denial of Process

Goldsberry also contests the state’s attempt to transfer Milligan to Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. When the transfer motion comes before Judge Roger J. Jones, Goldsberry asks for time to consult his client. He argues that Milligan has a right to know about the motion and to be advised that he may request an immediate hearing under the cited statute. Because Milligan has not received that notice, Goldsberry requests a hearing at which his client can be present. The judge disagrees, and the state proceeds with its only witness, the chief of security and safety at Athens Mental Health Center.

Goldsberry separately files a motion in Lima, charging that Milligan was transferred to a more restrictive facility without due process and had not been given an opportunity to confer with his attorney. These objections make communication and participation central to his representation: in Goldsberry’s account, a transfer cannot be treated as a purely administrative decision when Milligan has not been informed or allowed to consult counsel. The passages establish that he raises these claims; they do not establish that the court accepts them.

Appeals and the Limits of Advocacy

At a later hearing, Milligan is permitted to testify in his own behalf for the first time in his life. Wearing handcuffs, he struggles to place his left hand on the Bible and raise his right hand, then takes the oath and sits facing the judge. This moment marks a change in his formal participation in the proceedings, though it does not by itself resolve the legal dispute or establish what Goldsberry’s specific role was in securing permission for the testimony.

On May 20, 1981, Judge Flowers orders continued treatment at Dayton Forensic Hospital, finding the facility the least restrictive alternative consistent with treatment and public safety. The decision relies on a letter and testimony that Milligan lacks accepted moral restraints and shows familiarity with criminal subculture, and it also treats Dr. Caul’s unwillingness to accept court-imposed limitations as a reason Athens Mental Health Center is inadequate. Goldsberry immediately appeals to the Tenth District Court of Appeals. He challenges the constitutionality of Senate Bill 297, known as the Milligan law, arguing that it denies equal protection and due process and that applying it retroactively to Milligan violates the Ohio Constitution’s protection against retroactive laws.

Across these proceedings, Goldsberry’s advocacy moves between psychiatric evidence, procedural rights, and constitutional challenge. He contests the handling of expert disagreement, the manner of Milligan’s transfer, the denial of a chance to consult counsel, and the legal framework governing continued treatment. The available account records these efforts and the adverse rulings that prompted them, but not the final outcome of the appeals. His significance lies in keeping those distinct questions before the courts while Milligan’s freedom, treatment, and ability to participate remain unsettled.