Not quite, but you raise an interesting point, 1depd.

The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/fo...9/crm00634.htm was passed over outrage that John Hinkley Jr. seemed to "get away" with attempting to assassinate President Reagan. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/project...eyinsanity.htm

The problem, in my mind, is that this legislation was passed by Congress as a "reaction", to the trial result, without real input from the psychiatric profession. Since mental illness is a disease, I don't see how the effects of it can be "legislated", any more than cancer, tuberculosis, or appendicitis can be legislated. The real difficulty is that disease is determined by symptoms. And unlike diseases that produce a rash, or swelling or pain, mental illness simply produces anti-social behavior in some cases. So, my view is that a mental health professional, or a team of mental health professionals should be called on to determine "not guilty by reason of insanity" rather than a jury of lay-persons and a judge.

I'm not a mental health professional, but I would argue that sane persons, such as you and I, would not go on a shooting rampage where we kill 20 children, or set a fire as a trap so that we would be able to kill responding firemen. If these ARE, in fact the acts of sane individuals, then I think there is no hope for society.

And, I agree that if you are guilty of some transgression, then you must suffer the consequences. That is what I mean by "responsibility". And if you are mentally unstable and a threat to society, then a suitable consequence is indefinite institutional confinement and treatment.

The argument that someone should be executed for an insane act is equivalent to saying that someone should be executed for having a deadly communicable disease, such as Ebola. Yes, that IS a way to remove the threat, but do we want to go down that road?

I'm reminded of something my Great Aunt (a nurse) told me about China, when she and her physician husband worked there in a medical mission. She said, "China has no AIDS problem - they cure it with a bullet to the head, then they charge the family for the bullet."

Make no mistake, I recognize that there ARE "cold blooded killers" who are not insane. There are "hot blooded" killers who are not insane. There are "accidental killers" who are not insane. All of these should be properly tried and punished via the legal system. They are responsible for their acts. But, should we punish someone because he has a disease, one that he could not avoid?

- Jack

 

It's a cause and effect argument. In court to use the mental issue defense the defense has to prove the person was mentally ill. At one time the defense would argue that a person had to be mentally ill to commit the heinous crime they committed, because of the gruesomeness or horror of the crime. In effect they are using the fact that the person committed the crime as the only evidence of the persons mental illness. It is a circular argument, which is by definition a false argument. They are mentally ill because the committed this crime and they committed the crime because they are mentally ill. No other evidence is required. In reality the person, if in fact they were mentally ill, would show other symptoms of the illness. So the argument could be made that the crime and all of these other symptoms, means the person is mentally ill.

 

Exactly! It means that a person who is mentally ill should never appear in court to be charged for a crime. A state of mental illness is not something a court should decide, any more than a court should decide a condition of heart disease, or even a degenerative state like dementia.

- Jack

 

When a person commits a crime and is going to blame it on a mental illness then absolutely they need to go to court and prove they are mentally ill. If a court does not have the ability to decide if a person is mentally ill, then they have to treat all suspects as either mentally culpable or all suspects as not mentally culpable. Neither is a good idea. The courts have to have the ability to decide if a person does or does not have the mentally capacity to have committed the crime.

 

I for one have never understood why "mentally ill" meant you didn't get the same sentence as a sane person....please explain that to me? That is the result of way too many cooks in the judicial kitchen....

 

You would have to understand a bit about mental illness to understand. I can only give an example of an incident I went on to give a reason. We were called to a woman screaming on the phone, but there was little other information. When we arrived it turned out the woman was suffering from delusions. She believed she was seeing demons. She even believed one of the responding patrolmen was a demon (he had to leave). I didn't see anything she did, but I had no doubt she believed she was seeing them. She would lash out, cower, wince and try to get away from any demon she saw. We had to convince her that the car had been protected by a blessing so the demons couldn't enter. We explained this was done due to all of the negativity we had in it. It was enough to calm her down, so she could be transported to a hospital. I could see where it wouldn't be very much of a stretch for her to believe someone was a demon and lash out and kill them. She had no intention of killing a person only a demon. In her mind she wasn't killing a person and she wouldn't knowingly kill a person, but she could kill a person thinking they were a demon.

 

And that kids is why we don't use drugs...

 

At what point does logic out-weight compassion?

 

In my opinion, compassion is for preachers and individual people to give. The justice system is not the place for compassion. Since the justice system is the representation of society it should do what society demands and that is provide a safe place to work, live, and play.

 

Ryan, it sounds like you've never had anyone you've been close to become mentally ill. If your "logic" is to simply do away with them, then I hope, for your sake, that you never DO find yourself in this situation.

- Jack

 

Here we are with the compassion piece again....never said "do away with them" so please don't put words in my mouth.

 

Jack, once the facts start to come out about the NY shooting it appears that no "laws" would have stopped this nut. Also as the head of the NRA said; "a bad guy with a gun was stopped by a good guy with a gun".

Since this guy obviously had no regard for any laws, what would be the MAGIC law that would have stopped him or the Conn. shooter? Even you would have to agree that taking legal guns from legal people would not have helped in any way.

Please anyone who thinks that more laws, that probably will not be enforced, tell me what the super special wording would be that will fix situations like this. Then we can all get back to riding our unicorns that fart rainbows!

 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new...map/index.html

I can understand the backlash after the recent shootings but now the "good guys with guns" are under assault, give me break........this discourages gun registration.

 

Regarding current law, I totally agree with you on this, given the situation that developed. But, didn't he kill himself, much like the Connecticut shooter? So, in both cases, the bad guy stopped himself and you, or the head of the NRA (or both) don't quite have the facts right.

Now, for the "magic" part. A total revision to the way we identify and treat people with mental illness, especially the kind where the individual is a threat to society. The way things are right now, those individuals are generally recognized by numerous people around them, but the laws are such that nothing can be done until they actually hurt someone. Even then, they are treated as "criminals", which means they can be sent to jail for a period and then released, probably in worse shape than when they were imprisoned. If they were treated as mentally ill and a threat, they could be institutionalized and treated indefinitely.

The important distinction is they would be receiving constructive"care", and not the negative reinforcement that ordinary imprisonment supplies.

Would this solution be perfect? Of course not. Is arming everyone with a gun perfect? Of course not. But, would a change in the way we deal with mental illness be a step in the right direction? We won't know unless we try.

And please, I have never advocated disarming law-abiding citizens.

- Jack

 

Did you listen to what La Pierre said, or just the 'good guys bad guys' sound bite?

La Pierre pointed out that when the bad guys kill themselves, they do so after a good guy shows up with a gun. Happened in Connecticut. Has happened before, will happen again.

That is one of the benefits of the 'good guys with guns' scenario.

Yet you insist 'the bad guy stopped himself', as if the good guys with guns had nothing to do with it.

While it may not be obvious to you, it is obvious to La Pierre and many of us that the sooner the good guy shows up with a gun, the sooner the bad guy will stop, by his own hand or that of another.