UBC: Whalen & Martin, Defending Donald Harvey

Defending Donald Harvey: The Case of America's Most Notorious Angel-of-Death Serial Killer by William Whalen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



In its own way, this is one of the strangest books I've ever read.

William Whalen was a defense attorney, appointed by the court to defend Donald Harvey, a nursing assistant accused of murdering one of his patients in what could very plausibly be called a mercy killing. Except that when Whalen asked Harvey if he'd killed other people, Harvey said yes. When asked how many, he said he didn't know. When asked to give an estimate of the top limit, the number he knew he hadn't killed more than, he said seventy.

Whalen was now the defense attorney for a serial killer--and the police didn't know it.

I don't know that I agree with all of Whalen's choices, but I admire him very much. He made the best, most ethical decision he could under the circumstances, and he stuck with it. He found a way to use the revelation of the full extent of Harvey's crimes to save Harvey from the death penalty and he ensured that he would never have the opportunity to kill again.

I use the word "opportunity" advisedly, because Harvey was one of the most opportunistic murderers I've yet read about, matched only by Marcel Petiot, the subject of Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris. Both of them killed based simply on who was available to them, age, sex, race, class, all matters of complete indifference. And Harvey, very clearly from the evidence presented in this book, had a kind of weird disconnect, a short circuit, where he skipped straight from I'm annoyed with you to poisoning. Boyfriend behaving like an asshole? Sprinkle arsenic in his food. Boyfriend's friend trying to break up your relationship? Give her hepatitis--you work in a hospital, you've got access to all kinds of nasty shit. Nosy neighbor asking too many questions? Give her your poisoned leftovers. So he not only killed on the job, he killed (and poisoned without killing) on an almost random basis at home. And he didn't get caught and didn't get caught and didn't get caught, mostly because poisoning! is just not what people think of, even when they're exhibiting all the symptoms of arsenic poisoning (Harvey is not the only serial killer who's used this to his advantage). And the hospitals where he worked were so much more concerned about their image and their vulnerability to lawsuits that they essentially taught him he could kill with impunity. The hospital where he was working when he got unlucky, and the cyanide-poisoned corpse of his last victim happened to cross paths with a forensic pathologist who was an expert on cyanide, comes off particularly badly, since their reaction to staff coming forward with concerns was to tell them to shut up if they wanted to keep their jobs.

This book is fascinating for the inside view it gives of the defense side of criminal law, and for Whalen's very careful portrayal of Harvey. (Harvey cooperated fully and read and commented on the manuscript.) Whalen is very protective of Harvey and fond of him in a weird way, but he never forgets that although Harvey is charming, and is certainly very attached to Whalen, he's not capable of friendship. He's manipulative and a liar and willing to do whatever is necessary to get what he wants. (Whalen is lawyer-careful and accurate about noting inconsistencies in what Harvey says about himself.) Harvey also apparently functions extremely well within the closed world of the prison--that "productive member of society" tagline that gets trotted out. Harvey is a productive member of the limited and artificial world of the penitentiary, even though he could never be trusted outside.

He gets superb performance evaluations.



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