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Q: If I have bad genes, and I go out and do bad things, violent things because of my genes, doesn't that then make me not as responsible as somebody who doesn't have those genes?

Blinder: Does having an unfortunate set of genes thereby relieve the individual of responsibility for their acts? It clearly doesn't. Those who determine whether or not you're responsible, (i.e. society, the courts) don't care a fig for what your genetic structure is. If you do the crime, you pay the time. I don't know of many individuals who look at me--and I've examined 300 killers-- and say, "Well, you know, doc, you should find me nonresponsible because I happen to know, given my mother and my father, that I inherited a terrible set of genes." People don't think that.

Q: Are you then saying that you can overcome whatever your genes hand out?

Blinder: Certainly, if you compensate for your genetic endowment, you can sometimes do better than someone who had a luckier set. The tortoise, according to that myth, did, in fact, win the race and not the hare, because the tortoise compensated for his lack of speed by his diligence and discipline. So I don't think your genetic endowment gets you off the hook.

Q: People across America, when this case first broke and there was news of this 6-year-old almost beating a baby to death, were, I guess, shocked and horrified by it. Should they have been? Are there, in fact, more 6-year-olds like this kid out there, and is this that unusual or not?

Blinder: I've been working in this field for many years. I'm almost beyond shocked. I'm very melancholy about the extent to which our citizens will go to injure other citizens, but I must say that when I learned that this particular examinee was only 6 years old, and the heinousness and gratuitousness of this crime, I was shocked, and I was mortified and saddened. That said, I fear, it is not an isolated case, that what this young sociopath in the making harbors may be found in the breasts of many young people and that we're going to see more cases like this.

Q: And are we prepared for cases like this? Can we handle cases like this?

Blinder: I don't think our society is equipped to handle the misfits and the criminals amongst us. Just building more prisons clearly is not a solution, because they often come out and commit worse crimes afterwards. Are you going to lock them up forever? Well, certainly that's being contemplated. But are we going to have 20% of our populace behind bars? And people say, "Yeah. I don't want to have them in my neighborhood." But then ask them to pay taxes to build these prisons and they say, "No." And they don't want the prisons in their neighborhood. So, no. I think we would like the problem to go away. And people are impatient with the fact that it's not going away, that it's getting worse. But currently society is not equipped to address, no less remedy, the problem.

Q: You said this was a rare opportunity to examine someone so young?

Blinder: I was able to make the diagnosis here because I had seen so many sociopaths over the years. I can almost smell them. But more scientifically, I know what the criteria are. Usually I never have--I have never had the opportunity to apply those criteria to someone so young. Most of the people who have come to me through the criminal courts, who are charged with a felony are 17, 18, 19. So I don't get to see 6-year-olds. I am not a child psychiatrist, and I don't think many child psychiatrists treat youngsters like this. This was a rare opportunity to have ... Now I'm going to start this whole thing over again.

Q: No problem.

Blinder: The question was, am I not struck by the unusual opportunity to do an assessment and see this condition in its formative stages and why is that so unusual? I've seen a lot of felons, some 300 killers and hundreds of others who have committed lesser offense, and the way the criminal justice system works is by the time somebody gets to me they're 16, 17 or 18, or older. I've never examined anyone this young, and certainly no one in my criminal experience this young has ever committed this kind of a crime. So by the time they come under my microscope, their syndrome is set in cement. It's been well developed and reinforced over many years. What is unusual here is that someone so young committed so colorful a crime that a forensic psychiatrist was brought in. So I got in on the ground floor, and ordinarily I don't get in on the act until we're on the fourth floor, sometimes we're on the roof and the whole house is burning. So it was a rare opportunity to see someone who, just by happenstance, came to the attention of people like me.

Q: In your report you state "sociopaths go through life leaving a trail of broken rules, contracts, hearts and skulls." Is that your prognosis for this 6-year-old? Are we looking forward to that?

Blinder: If my diagnosis is correct, then when this child grows up, he will lead the life of a sociopath, of an adult sociopath, which means that as he winds his way through life, he will leave a pathway of broken hearts, broken contracts, broken rules, broken laws and perhaps broken skulls. That's what sociopaths do. That's their job.

Q: Not all sociopaths, though, necessarily. I mean, some go on to become CEOs and leaders of our society, do they not?

Blinder: Well, now you're raising the question of the truly successful sociopath. And if the sociopath is bright enough that he can rise above his impulsivity, or perhaps come up with mental techniques to inhibit, dampen down some of his more immediate criminal impulses, if he can mediate, or compensate for them in some way, then he can go far. He can become the CEO of a corporation that pollutes the environment. He can become the head of a political party that vitiates the constitution and our laws about campaign financing, that will go after a whole race of his citizens because they are of the wrong religion, or authorize the break in of the headquarters of his opponents and become very successful. Sure.