An Illinois judge found Corie Walsh too dangerous to release after prosecutors alleged the Frankfort mother posed a threat to her husband and three surviving children after she was charged with murdering her 2-year-old son, Barrett.
But forensic psychiatrists say “dangerousness” is not a permanent label. Instead, it is a forward-looking assessment that can change as a person’s mental condition improves through treatment.
Walsh, 40, remains held without pretrial release after a Will County judge denied her request to leave custody during a detention hearing earlier this month.
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The judge also ordered that Walsh immediately receive psychiatric medication after her attorneys said she had gone days without treatment despite a hospital recommendation that she receive around-the-clock psychiatric care.
Prosecutors argued Walsh should remain behind bars because, beyond the allegations surrounding Barrett’s death, she allegedly threatened to kill her husband after her arrest. The judge agreed, finding Walsh posed too great a danger to release before trial.
The ruling raised a broader question that extends beyond Walsh’s case: What does it actually mean when a judge determines someone is too dangerous to release?
Under Illinois law, judges deciding whether a defendant should remain jailed before trial evaluate the person’s current risk to others rather than punish past conduct.
Dr. Stephen Dinwiddie, a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University with four decades of forensic psychiatry experience, said psychiatrists approach dangerousness the same way – as a forward-looking assessment rather than a permanent label.
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“Obviously we’re talking more about what we’re afraid they’re going to do tomorrow,” he said. “Part of that prediction is based on what they did yesterday … what they did in the past … and what they have said they intend to do.”
Unlike a criminal verdict, which looks backward at what allegedly happened, dangerousness is designed to evaluate the risk a person may pose going forward, Dinwiddie said.
“It’s pretty squishy,” he said. “Dangerous to whom? Imminently or long-term? Dangerous in a physical way or something else?”
In civil commitment proceedings, judges often decide whether someone should receive treatment over their objections because they present a short-term danger to themselves or others.
Dinwiddie said the rationale is simple: “If we don’t act, something bad is going to happen within a matter of days, if not sooner.”
Dinwiddie said treatment can dramatically change how psychiatrists evaluate a person’s future risk.
“If they’ve behaved in a violent fashion while ill in the past and now they’re ill, obviously that’s important information and obviously that’s something to worry about,” he said. “The intervention obviously is to try to get at that particular symptom of illness and get it under control.”
That can have legal significance because Illinois judges may reconsider detention if circumstances materially change, although any decision to release a defendant before trial remains up to the court.
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That does not mean Walsh will be released before trial. It means a judge’s dangerousness finding is not necessarily permanent.
“I think most of us believe that our interventions can prevent tragedies,” Dinwiddie said.
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He cautioned that psychosis alone does not make someone dangerous.
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“I think one misconception is they’re just different. They’re not like us,” Dinwiddie said. “The tragic fact is they are like us and severe mental illness can affect family members. It can affect anybody.”
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Another common misconception, he said, is that people experiencing psychosis cannot think logically.
“Within that delusional system, people can act in a very organized, very logical, very purposeful way,” he said.
He described that concept as “rationality within irrationality,” explaining that someone can carry out a series of organized actions while acting on profoundly delusional beliefs.
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Dinwiddie also emphasized that psychosis is not a matter of choice.
“The fact that somebody has evidence of a psychotic process … that is not a matter of choice,” he said. “Nobody would wish that upon themselves.”
Walsh is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in Barrett’s death. Prosecutors allege she believed the toddler was the devil and also threatened to kill her husband and the couple’s three surviving children after her arrest.
Walsh has not entered a plea, and the case remains pending.
