Unlocking a Prisoner of Silence

In November 1965 Chicago police arrested Donald Lang, 20, for the murder of a prostitute who had been found in a ghetto alley brutally beaten and stabbed to death. The cops were certain they had their man: the hooker was last seen leaving a nearby tavern with Lang, a Chicago dock worker, and a speedy investigation turned up bloodstained clothing in his apartment. Lang's alibi? He had none. But then he could not talk. Nor could he hear, read, write or use sign language. Lang was a deaf-mute who communicated solely by gestures and rough drawings. Because of this severe disability, he was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and placed in a state psychiatric hospital. Doubting his guilt, the deaf-mute's lawyer pressed for a trial, which the Illinois Supreme Court finally ordered in 1971. By then, however, two key witnesses had died and a third had disappeared. The state was forced to drop the charges. Lang was free.

But not for long. Within five months, the deaf-mute was arrested again and charged with strangling to death another prostitute, whose body was found stuffed in the closet of a $4.49-for-four-hours room in a Chicago hotel. Once more the evidence against Lang was strong: the day before the body was discovered, he and the victim registered at the hotel; Lang left alone. Again police found bloodstains on his clothing. In January 1972 he was tried, convicted and then sentenced to 14 to 25 years. But in February 1975 an Illinois Appellate Court reversed that conviction on grounds that it was "constitutionally impermissible" because it was impossible during the trial to compensate for Lang's inability to communicate. After another hearing, he was declared unfit to stand trial, and again he was sent to a state hospital for safekeeping.

Average Intelligence. Yet a bizarre legal dilemma remained. Lang could not constitutionally be brought to trial nor could he be confined unless proved to be retarded or mentally ill. Yet should he be freed? State prosecutors maintain that Lang, now 32, is retarded and dangerous, "a ticking time bomb" who ought to be stashed away.

Last month the deaf-mute was back in a Cook County courtroom, sitting impassively (occasionally wrinkling his nose at policemen he had seen before) as Circuit Judge Joseph Schneider ruled on his fate. On the basis of medical testimony from doctors and therapists who had observed Lang over a seven-month period, Schneider found that while the accused murderer has "manifested dangerous behavior," he has at least an average intelligence and is not insane. Another promising finding: for the first time since he was arrested in 1965, Lang has seemed ready to learn sign language, quickly picking up 100 basic symbols for words like eat, cigarette, sad and happy.

Sign-language experts, however, reckon that it could take Lang as long as five years to master the abstract concepts necessary to stand trial. To that end, the judge ordered the Department of Mental Health to come up with a special educational program for Lang. Beaming over the judge's decision, Donald Paull, one of Lang's lawyers, flashed a victory sign to his client. But the small, muscular deaf-mute, who has spent almost a decade in one lockup or another, only shook his head, shrugged and frowned. Lang remained in confinement, but this week the court is scheduled to decide when and where his schooling will begin.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.