The Trial of the Century

The Trial of the Century

I. The knock on the door was jarring. The few visitors always rang the bell, so the sharp staccato of bare knuckles against the hard wood split the morning. “Coming”, he called out as he scrambled to button his shirt and take a quick glance around the room for anything inappropriate lying about. The knocking cracked out again. “Jesus, I said I was coming!”. He was just opening the door as the policeman's hand was pulling back for another whack.

“Dr. Brennan?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“So you are Dr. Brennan? May we come in?”

“Sure. Yes. Sorry. What's this about? Is anything wrong?”

The policeman pushed the door open wider and strode inside, gesturing behind him to the AI in a suit standing behind him. “This is my associate, detective Alberson. No T. He has a few questions for you regarding your ex-wife, Valarie Williams. Mind if I have a look around?”

“Wait. What? What did Valarie do?”

The AI stepped just over the threshold and flashed his badge.

“Mr. Brennan, as my colleague said, my name is detective Alberson. I'm afraid we have some bad news. Would you care to sit down?”

“No, I'm fine. Did something happen to her, or did she finally rip someone's head off like she was always threatening to do?”

“I'm afraid not, sir. She's dead. Her body was found yesterday afternoon over on Upshur St.”

“Oh. Maybe I should sit down after all. Wow. I can't believe it.”

“I'm sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, but we do need to ask you some questions, if that's alright?”

“Yeah, sure. Just let me get my bearings, it's a bit of a shock. I'd be lying if I said I was surprised, though. Our split wasn't amicable. She had a temper and a vicious right hook. She was bound to mess with the wrong person eventually.”

“So she had enemies? Can you be more specific?”

“Oh, that might have been bit of hyperbole. I don't think she had any enemies in the sense of anyone wanting her dead. She just didn't keep friends for long. Let's put it like that.”

“How recently had you been in touch? She could have made new enemies of which you aren't aware. A taller, blond gentleman, for instance, with a slight limp?”

The blood drained from Dr. Brennan's face as he slumped down into a chair. “I think I need to speak to a lawyer.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Brennan? To be clear, you aren't a suspect in your ex-wife's death. There was a witness and the event occurred during your afternoon lecture yesterday. We've already checked, and there are plenty of students to corroborate your whereabouts. We're just trying to determine motive.”

“Oh, God. What have I done?” he groaned into his hands.

“What's that sir? Can you repeat that please?”

“I said I want a lawyer.”

II. “Good afternoon, doctor...?”

“Dr. James, though everyone calls me Dr. Julie... or Dr. J. Well, honestly, mostly Dr. Julie. Sorry, I'm a little bit nervous.”

“Please do relax, doctor. Sit. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like a glass of water?”

“Should I lie down? Ha ha. Sorry. Professional humor. I'll just sit over here. Sorry.”

“For the record, could you please state your profession.”

“Yes, yes of course. I'm a clinical psychiatrist. And now that the trials over, I guess I'm free to give my side of the story, within limits of course. But I can see why everyone's interested. So many firsts. So many new legal precedents. I don't even know where to start.”

“How about at the beginning. When did you first meet Dr. Brennan?”

“Which one?”

“Let's start with the original one. Is that okay?”

“Yes, sure, that makes sense. I first met that Dr. Brennan about three weeks before the trial started. His lawyer brought me in.”

“And what was the purpose of your meeting?”

“To determine his sanity, of course, though I'm not sure if that was ever really in doubt. It always seemed to me much more about the legal aspects than the psychological ones.”

“And the other Dr. Brennan? Did you need to make an evaluation about his sanity as well?”

“Yes, yes, of course! That was the most interesting part of all of this to me. I'd never gotten to evaluate an AI before. I don't think anyone had, psychologically. I mean, can an AI really go crazy? Sorry, was that insensitive? You'd probably know better than I would.”

“It's quite all right. And no, I don't think we can go crazy. Let's hope not, shall we. So, please continue. What happened in your meeting with the original Dr. Brennan.”

“Perfectly normal guy. Bit distracted, but that was to be expected given the circumstances. And he is a professor after all, so I'm sure that was all par for the course.”

“So how did it go? Did you find any pathologies?”

“Egocentrism.”

“So he was full of himself. Is that all?”

“Actually, that's a real diagnosis. Egocentrism is clinically defined as the inability to differentiate between the self and the other. Mostly, that manifests as not being able to empathize with other people because you can't put yourself in their shoes. But in this case, it's pretty interesting, given the circumstances, don't you think?”

“So was that going to be part of the basis for his defense?”

“No, no,no. I don't think that would be grounds for acquittal. If anything, it might be raised by the prosecution as a factor against him. No one's ever gotten off for being an egomaniac.”

“So that's why this diagnosis was never raised at trial?”

“Yes. His lawyers didn't want to give any ammunition to the other side. And that wasn't why they called me in anyway... schizophrenia. That's what they were interested in. Isn't that what all defense attorney's are interested in? Insanity isn't a psychological term, you understand. But that's what people mean when they talk about schizophrenia.”

“And was he? Schizophrenic?”

“No. Not in the least. But even that wasn't really what the lawyers' wanted to know. I mean, they did have me evaluate the defendant – Dr. Brennan, because they knew I'd be asked about that at the trial, but really they just wanted as much information as possible about the nuances of schizophrenia.”

“And the AI version of Dr. Brennan? Did you evaluate him as well?”

“I did, but at my request, and on my own time. Since he wasn't on trial, the lawyers weren't much interested in paying me to dig into that. Didn't see how it could help their case one way or another. And besides, how could the diagnosis be any different, right? It's not like they weren't the same person. That's what makes this trial so interesting. There's never been an AI who's core was loaded with a human personality. We didn't even know that was possible before this. And, of course, there's never been an AI who committed a premeditated crime before, either. That's why I was so fascinated to meet him.”

“So what was he like? Was he really identical to Dr. Brennan?

“Yes, in every way, other than physically.”

“And why was that, do you suppose? The physical differences, I mean. They are different heights, different hair colors. Almost opposites. Did you ask Dr. Brennan?”

“Yes, of course. He said it was because if he were going to live forever, it damn well wasn't going to be in a frumpy professor's body.”

III. “Mr. Hammond. Mr. Walker. Sorry to keep you both waiting. Please come in. My name is Albert. I'll be interviewing you both today. You do both know each other already, I presume? Yes, yes, you must of course, even if you didn't before this trial. Sit wherever you'd like. Please. I hope this isn't too inconvenient for either of you. I'm sure it must seem odd for you both to be here at once, but we thought it would be better to get your differing perspectives together, if that's okay. Mr. Hammond, let's start with you. As lead prosecutor, can you tell me why you choose to bring Dr. Brennan himself to trial, rather than his AI? Did you consider that?”

“Sure, we did briefly, but to be honest, where's the justice in that, really? We figured it'd be a foregone conclusion that Dr. Brennan was gonna get his core purged, anyways, since there was never any question that he'd pulled the trigger. Why spend the money? And if we didn't try the professor himself, nothing would have prevented him from just installing himself back into the AI unit after the purge, right? No justice there, see? Anyways, there's lots of precedents for trying Dr. Brennan, sorry, the professor. A guy fills some bloke's head with enough anger he acts on it is responsible right, even if he wasn't the one to fire the actual gun. That girl who convinced her boyfriend to kill himself – convicted of manslaughter for filling his head with the ideas. And that's a separate person with ideas of their own on top. Cause it's so hard to prove which ideas were planted by the instigator and which were there already, you can't usually do much more than manslaughter. But here? There was never any question who's ideas were filling Dr. Brennan's head at the time, right? That's why we were going for murder one.”

“Mr. Walker, I'd like to get your take. Dr. Brennan – the professor, had an airtight alibi. Why didn't you just point the finger at his AI?”

“Two reasons – the first being the professor himself. He just couldn't wrap his head around accusing Dr. Brennan without self-incriminating. You must understand. The professor has never viewed his AI self as a separate entity. His whole purpose in creating him was to achieve personal immortality, quite literally, and not just through the longevity of a creation as an artist might. Second, we didn't think it would work anyway. The professor referred to his AI self in the first person. Imagine him on the stand saying 'I didn't do it because I did it instead'.

“He wouldn't have to testify, though.”

“Well, one of him would have. If he didn't, then he would have. It was a no-win situation.”

“So can you explain the defense you did settle on?”

“Not guilty by reason of insanity. I know the press thought we were arguing a technicality, but in a lot of ways, this was a text book case. Ask most people to define schizophrenia, and they will talk about someone having multiple personalities. And everyone generally agrees that for a guy suffering from this, one personality isn't responsible for what the other one does. That's why courts let them off. This also fit well into the professor's own mindset in that he views his AI self as himself. And because the professor didn't actually kill his ex-wife, we felt we could convince a jury that these two versions of Dr. Brennan weren't exact copies. One acted. One didn't. If they inhabited the same physical body, it would have been a slam-dunk defense. When the professor was in control, he resisted the urge. When Dr. Brennan was in control, he pulled the trigger. In fact, it probably never would have even gone to trial. All we had to do here was to get the jury to wrap their heads around the concept that the professor had found a way, through his AI self, to manifest this alter ego in a separate physical body.”

“And did you believe this yourself? That he was insane? We talked to Dr. James earlier who said that she didn't detect any hint of schizophrenia in the professor.”

“Yes, but if you evaluate a schizophrenic, each individual personality believes that they are completely sane. It's by identifying more than one personality that the diagnosis is made, not by any particular psychosis in any individual personality. And in this case, identifying the two personalities was as simple as pointing to each of them in the court room. You don't even need a fancy medical degree for that. But the real beauty of our defense is that it was built entirely on the prosecution's case. If they had conceded that the two were completely independent entities, with separate consciences and free wills, their case would fall apart. They themselves had to argue that they were one and the same to blame the actions of one on the other.”

“And in the end, you were right.”

“Yes, in the end we were. The jury agreed and acquitted the professor.”

IV. My name is Dr. Michael Brennan. I'm a professor of AI engineering, formerly at the University of Wyoming. Currently unemployed. I asked to be able to contribute my side of this story, which was thankfully accepted, as I don't think the press ever got it right. They were too interested in fitting me into an existing narrative. There were headlines calling me Dr. Brennanstein and his monster. I think the tabloids even dyed my blond hair green for that. Then it was Dr Brennan and Mr. Hyde. They had side by side pictures of me in the paper looking like a mild-mannered professor on the one hand and a deranged lunatic on the other. I once said that the Batman villain, Two Face was the most apt comparison because I never felt like two separate people, but even that's not quite right. It's more like giving your shadow life. Having something that can move on its own, but is still innately part of you. Something that can't exist outside of your context, but you can't exist without it either. The Shadowman. Maybe that should have been my villain name.

Since I've made these comparisons, the question that inevitably arises is if I could see the crime happening... the trigger being pulled. What's odd is that's not an easy question to answer. No, I didn't see it happening in real-time. I couldn't have prevented it, but when I was told, I knew, I mean I absolutely knew exactly how it happened. Step by step. The images in my mind are as strong and real as memories. I guess I really did see it happening, just in hindsight. What a silly super power that is, huh?