Mary Winkler’s attorney Memphian Steve Farese is certainly sweeping the legal horizon for ways to defend his client, a woman who has already admitted to shooting her husband. He has little choice. Those familiar with the investigation have indicated the following,

Last night, state medical examiner Dr. Bruce Levy told CNN’s Larry King that Matthew Winkler was killed by a single shotgun wound to his back,

And,

They have said they don’t think infidelity was a factor

A shot in the back would seem to diminish the imminent threat defense, although she could argue he was in the process of going after the children or some other immediately sinister maneuver. Ruling out infidelity rules out another a big motive.

Perhaps that’s why her lawyers are leaking the following information to the press,

Farese and co-counsel Leslie Ballin, also of Memphis, said they are concerned about the mental state of their client, as well as her state of mind when her husband, Matthew Winkler, was slain last week. Law enforcement officers say she has confessed to the crime.

“Her condition is pretty fragile right now. We’re concerned about it,” .

It’s not surprising that anyone with her background would be near catatonic at this point. But it sounds as if they’re sowing the field with a dimished capacity seed, or perhaps temporary insanity.

We can’t pretend to know her mental state from afar, but some might be skeptical that a person exhibiting a diminished mental capacity would be able to round up kids and drive to Orange Beach, then go for breakfast at the Waffle House. We’ll have to wait for the trial to learn the details. If they are preparing for some form of mental disorder defense, it might well be an attempt to get the charges reduced from first degree murder to something less.

Everyone intuitively understands that psychological illnesses can and do cause irrational actions. But it’s also intuitive that sane persons can reach states of mental aggravation powerful enough to trigger physical responses. If we’re going to say that folks who cross that line are ‘temporarily insane’ that’s fine–it certainly fits–but it shouldn’t always acquit. After all, such things used to be called ‘lapses of judgment’.

Mick Adds: This case has stirred up plenty of emotion with members of my church. Matthew Winkler was a Church of Christ minister, like his father in Nashville, and some of my friends and family are quite familiar with them. Several CoC bloggers are upset with a program on CNN in which the host called our church a “cult.” See Matthew Tapie, Dr. Mark Elrod, Clarke Comments, and Travis Stanley for reactions. A pretty fair and objective background on the Church of Christ is available at Wikipedia. Locally, members of this “cult” include the mayors of two Memphis suburbs, Bartlett and Arlington, and at least a handful of well-known ‘06 candidates for local races.