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Childlike Level. Bailey let West talk on and on, a tactic that angered Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bancroft. Carter agreed with Bancroft, telling Bailey to stick to questions and answers. But in time Carter grew irritated with Bancroft's protests and said: "If you say he [Bailey] doesn't have the right to object I'll tell you to go soak your head." (Albert Johnson, Bailey's assistant, later gave Bancroft a bottle of shampoo.)
West said that Patty's IQ had dropped to 109 from a score of 129-130 on school tests, which had placed her, the psychiatrist said, in the top 5% of the nation in intelligence. Standard psychological tests revealed a person with a "childlike level of functioning," one with a "lack of self-esteem and shattered pride." The stories she made up were "sad, hopeless, with nostalgia about the past." Describing human characters in one test, she tended to use such words as "dutiful and compliant"—a common response, West told the jurors, among former prisoners of war. (One sharp judgment made by Patty: asked to finish a sentence that began "Most men," she added, "are assholes.")
West said that Patty was recovering, that her IQ was back up to 129 and that "she understands better now what's been happening to her." But West also testified that Patty still trembles at the mention of the Harrises, and that her pulse rate increases by 50% and she grows pale and sweaty when she remembers the closets.
Prosecutor Bancroft, 38, a husky, tenacious man, tried the psychiatrist's temper during cross-examination but failed to shake his testimony or to attack his credentials successfully. Oddly, the prosecution did not bring up one bizarre episode in West's career: killing an elephant with an overdose of LSD. West was trying to find out why elephants have periods of madness. Bancroft also tried to no avail to show that West was habitually soft on defendants. West did add one interesting point: after Jack Ruby was convicted for killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the psychiatrist was called in to examine him. West said he found Ruby to be mentally ill and recommended treatment.
Bancroft had little more success in trying to show that West was an ally of the Hearsts. West did admit that he had sent the parents a sympathetic letter before the arrest advising them that their daughter "might turn out to be in a condition to be helped and possibly defended." West added that he wrote the letter "as one parent to another. I got no reply and didn't expect one."
His voice heavy with sarcasm, Bancroft tried to show that West had jumped to some conclusions while examining Patty. The prosecutor recalled that West testified that the defendant had been deprived of sleep—a classic brainwashing technique—although his report stated that she had been awakened at night only once. How did West decide that Patty had really lost sleep, Bancroft wanted to know. "An educated guess," responded the psychiatrist. "So," Bancroft shot back, "you made an 'educated guess' on one of the most important parts of the deprivation concept."