r. Lawrence Z. Freedman, a pioneering forensic psychiatrist whose research and writings delved into the causes of violence, particularly assassinations, terrorism and mass murder, died on Oct. 6 at his home in Chicago. He was 85.
The cause was a stroke, his son Thomas said.
Dr. Freedman, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, gained attention for his work on insanity and the law, and for his investigations into killers' psychological backgrounds, which he used to build profiles of would-be presidential assassins for the Secret Service.
Assassins, he said in a 1977 interview with The Associated Press, are generally "acting out private miseries," but differ strikingly from other killers. One difference he pointed to was the experience of religious conversion. Someone who commits "personal violence" - against a spouse or a colleague - often experiences such a conversion in prison, Dr. Freedman said, but not so the assassin or the terrorist.
"They go to their death believing that they are doing God's work, or society's work," he said. "I believe that is because the conversion comes before the killing occurs."
Dr. Freedman's interest in psychiatry and the law led to his involvement with some of the most notorious criminals of recent times. In 1980, he testified for the defense in the murder trial of John Wayne Gacy, who was later executed for the murders of 33 men and boys. Dr. Freedman said Mr. Gacy could describe the killing of a teenager "as though he was describing taking a drink of water." He called Mr. Gacy "one of the most complex personalities I have ever studied."
In the 1950's and early 60's, Dr. Freedman focused on setting a legal standard for insanity as a member of the Model Penal Code's Criminal Law Advisory Committee. The code was an effort to create a model statute for states to use in setting criminal codes, and many states later adopted parts of it.
Prof. William K. Carroll, a clinical psychologist and professor of law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, said Dr. Freedman was a pioneer in introducing research from the behavioral sciences like psychology into legal policy.
"He was a broad philosopher of values rather than a technician," said Professor Carroll, who as a staff lawyer with the federal defender's office in Chicago in the 1970's collaborated with Dr. Freedman on cases involving questions about the mental status of the defendant.
Professor Carroll said Dr. Freedman believed that "the role of the mental health professional should be simply to explain to the jury as best the expert can the actual working of the person's mind at the time of the offense, without offering his own judgment on the legal issue of whether society should hold the person criminally responsible for the act."
Dr. Freedman, who graduated with a medical degree from Tufts University in 1944, taught at Yale from 1946 to 1960, where he held a joint appointment to the law and medical schools. Together with Prof. Harold D. Lasswell, a political scientist, he founded Yale's study unit in psychiatry and law and was chairman of the unit from 1953 to 1960. In 1961, he moved to the University of Chicago.
He was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence and developed "a psychological profile of potential assassins" for the Secret Service after President John F. Kennedy's death.
His marriage to Dorothy Freedman ended in divorce.
In addition to his son Thomas L., of Washington, Dr. Freedman is survived by his sons Bart J., of Bainbridge Island, Wash.; Matthew E., of Queens; and Dr. Joshua E., of Santa Monica, Calif.; and a daughter, Johanna J. Freedman, of Redmond, Wash.
