Until 2019, when he attempted to kill one of his students, Michael Barisone was a leading rider and trainer in the horse-handling sport of dressage. He has never seriously contested the idea that, on August 7, 2019, he shot Lauren Kanarek twice. But still, he positions himself as a victim. In 2022, Barisone was tried in New Jersey for attempted murder. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. “This was a remarkable verdict,” Ian Parker writes. “Fewer than one per cent of Americans charged with felonies plead insanity, and the great majority of those who do have previously been hospitalized with a serious psychiatric condition. Barisone had no history of serious mental illness, and by the end of 2023 he had no such illness, according both to his own account and to the State of New Jersey.” “This rare court-sanctioned narrative—sanity, criminal insanity, quick reversion to sanity—might seem like tremendous luck, given that he faced a decade or two in prison,” Parker continues. “But this isn’t how Barisone has experienced his freedom. It wasn’t surprising to hear him mourn what he’d lost since shooting someone in the chest twice. But it was striking to hear how fiercely he resented having lost anything at all.” In this week’s issue, Parker reports on the case: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/Vw…