William Stanley Milligan—Gary Schweickart

Gary Schweickart’s relationship with William Stanley Milligan began under the pressure of a major criminal case and changed when Schweickart’s own skepticism was tested in the jail interview room. As Milligan’s supervising public defender, Schweickart first approached him as a client who needed protection from questioning; he later came to believe that Milligan’s condition could not be understood as an ordinary defense problem. Their connection was shaped by a difficult legal distinction: whether Milligan could help with his defense in the present, and whether mental illness had affected his responsibility at the time of the charged acts.

A high-profile arrest and the duty to protect

When Schweickart received word that police had booked the Campus Rapist and transferred him to Franklin County Jail, the case already carried intense public attention. Milligan was being held on half a million dollars’ bond, and reports warned that the police might pressure him for a statement. Schweickart was alone in the Public Defender’s Office when the call came, but he recognized that this was no routine felony arrest. He expected the police investigation to continue and feared that the attention surrounding the case could make Milligan especially vulnerable to questioning.

Schweickart decided to go to the jail himself. His immediate aim was limited: introduce himself as Milligan’s public defender and warn him not to speak to anyone but his attorney. He arrived as two police officers brought Milligan through the sally port and turned him over to the jail sergeant, then asked permission to speak with the prisoner. At this early stage, the relationship was defined by the practical responsibilities of representation: establish contact, safeguard the client’s rights, and respond to the pressure created by a case that had become a public event.

From legal representation to psychiatric inquiry

Schweickart’s involvement deepened as questions arose about Milligan’s ability to participate in his defense. Although Milligan sent a letter firing Schweickart and Judy Stevenson, the two lawyers continued visiting him in prison daily. The Public Defender’s Office paid for a psychological evaluation, and clinical psychologist Willis C. Driscoll tested Milligan on January 8 and 13, 1978. Driscoll reported an IQ score of 68, while cautioning that depression had lowered the result, and diagnosed acute schizophrenia. His assessment described severe difficulty distinguishing self from environment, voices that Milligan experienced as tormenting him, and an inability at that time to understand events or counsel in his own defense. He strongly recommended hospitalization for further examination and possible treatment.

On January 19, Stevenson and Schweickart brought Driscoll’s report to Judge Jay C. Flowers to support the claim that Milligan could not assist in his defense. The judge ordered the forensic psychiatry unit at Southwest Community Mental Health Center to examine Milligan. Schweickart and Stevenson worried about the arrangement because they believed the center usually sided with the prosecution. Schweickart therefore insisted that information Milligan disclosed during the examination be privileged and unavailable for use against him. Prosecutors resisted, and the dispute brought the lawyers close to being held in contempt. The compromise allowed prosecutors to question Milligan about incriminating statements to the court-appointed psychologists only if he later took the stand in his own defense. The defense accepted that limitation and allowed the examination to proceed.

The dispute shows Schweickart’s role extending beyond the choice of a psychiatric explanation: he sought to make evaluation possible without surrendering the client’s protection against self-incrimination. Driscoll’s report offered clinical evidence relevant to Milligan’s present capacity, but it did not itself decide the legal question. Schweickart’s motion asked the court to consider whether Milligan could assist in his defense, a question distinct from whether he was responsible for the alleged acts.

Witnessing the personalities

Stevenson later told Schweickart that her meetings with Dorothy Turner and Milligan had convinced her that Milligan presented distinct personalities. Schweickart reacted with disbelief. He acknowledged that Milligan was mentally disturbed but regarded the multiple-personality explanation as a possible con, and worried that the prosecutor and judge would reject it. Stevenson urged him to see the situation himself rather than accept it on her report.

The following day, Schweickart accompanied Stevenson to Franklin County Jail expecting to remain for about half an hour. His certainty that he could expose a fraud gave way to curiosity as he encountered successive personalities. Among them, he saw the frightened David change into the shy Danny, who recalled meeting Schweickart on the day Milligan had been arrested. The visit lasted five hours. By the time he left, Schweickart was convinced that he had met different people in the interview room, although he remained unsure how the defense could persuade the prosecutor and judge.

That encounter was a turning point in the relationship. Stevenson’s account had initially appeared to Schweickart to be an implausible legal strategy; witnessing the changes transformed it into evidence he felt compelled to take seriously. His response was not to claim certainty about how the personalities had arisen, but to recognize the gap between what he had expected to see and what he believed he had observed. The defense’s task consequently expanded from presenting Driscoll’s findings to asking the court to confront a condition Schweickart had first encountered firsthand.

Courtroom outcome and the limits of the defense role

At Milligan’s trial, Judge Flowers dismissed the first rape count, citing the absence of corroborating evidence and of a similar modus operandi. On counts two through ten, the court considered stipulated medical evidence. Flowers found that the doctors testified Milligan was mentally ill when the acts occurred, could not distinguish right from wrong, and could not refrain from the acts. With no contrary evidence before him, the judge found Milligan not guilty by reason of insanity on those counts.

The ruling gave legal effect to the defense’s psychiatric case, but it did not erase the distinction between the dismissed count and the remaining counts, or between diagnosis and legal judgment. The dismissal rested on evidentiary shortcomings; the insanity verdict on the other counts rested on stipulated medical testimony concerning Milligan’s mental state at the time. Schweickart’s work had taken shape across both legal and clinical questions: first protecting a client facing a high-profile prosecution, then pressing for an assessment of his present ability to participate, and ultimately helping bring psychiatric evidence into the adjudication of criminal responsibility. The evidence presented here establishes the importance of that advocacy, while leaving Milligan’s subsequent treatment and institutional circumstances to a different part of his story.