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Former monk says mental illness behind behavior

Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN) - 9/16/2014

Sept. 16--A Trappist monk has traded the monastery for a Knox County courtroom, where he will try to convince jurors he should be spared a child molestation conviction because he was mentally ill.

Alan D. Ross, 60, is standing trial this week in Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword's courtroom on a charge of aggravated sexual battery.

Court records allege Ross repeatedly forced a 7-year-old girl to touch him in a sexual manner from June 2002 to June 2005.

The girl, now 17, did not report the alleged abuse until years later. According to statements made in court Monday during the trial's jury selection process, Ross was living at a South Carolina monastery when authorities confronted him.

Ross confessed to the crime, according to defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson.

"Mr. Ross has admitted the conduct," Johnson told potential jurors Monday.

The crux of the legal fight between Johnson and Assistant District Attorney General Kit Rodgers is whether Ross was too mentally ill to recognize his alleged molestation was wrong.

Ross, via Johnson, is not claiming he is innocent by reason of insanity. Instead, according to statements Johnson made Monday, Ross will seek to show he was suffering from bipolar disorder and the molestation occurred during "manic" episodes of that mental illness.

Jury selection showed, however, a key hurdle for the defense team and an unusual issue -- should Ross get a legal pass for behavior he says was caused by his mental illness when he refused to take medications designed to control it?

Johnson spent hours Monday probing potential jurors' attitudes on that issue. Some jurors pushed back against the notion of blaming a mental illness Ross chose not to treat.

"I know if I don't take my medication when I'm supposed to, that's my risk," one woman told Johnson.

The woman said her brother suffered the same bipolar disorder and repeatedly ran afoul of the law after refusing his medication. Each time, she said, her brother was warned of the consequences of failing to take his medication but chose to ignore it.

She did not survive the final selection process.

A jury of eight women and four men were seated late Monday afternoon to decide the case. Opening statements will begin today.

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(c)2014 Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.)

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