Texas woman who killed kids acquitted

TYLER, Texas (AP) � A woman who claimed God ordered her to bash in the heads of her sons was acquitted of all charges by reason of insanity Saturday after a jury determined she did not know right from wrong during the killings.

A jury found that Deanna Laney was legally insane May 9 when she killed her two older sons, ages 6 and 8, in the front yard and left the youngest, now 2, maimed in his crib. Laney, 39, would have received an automatic life sentence had she been convicted of capital murder.

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"Now and for the rest of her life, the punishment and torment that's going on in her own head is more significant and more damaging to her than anything the criminal justice system could have done, other than death," Curry said.

Think about how the kids must have felt when they saw their own loving mother brutally kill her own children. I hope the punishment going on inside her head hurts. I hope it hurts like hell.

What, so if you're crazy you can't ride the thunderbolt or get your last needle on the dime of the state? I find that discrimination against sane people.

God told her to.

If she went to prison it would vilolate her religious freedom

[Edited on 4-4-2004 by Amuk]

I don't suppose we shoudl fry up all those schizophrenics on the streets too, huh? She was sick, adn ti was wrong...but she didn't know any better. If you want to kill her for being insane, look to the streets. They're packed with schizophrenics of all varieties. I suppose they too should be killed or imprisoned...

Oh yeah, our asylums are full. That's why they're out on the streets!


America is suffering a mental health epidemic. Want to prevent these sorts fo things? Fix that.

DE

wow thats sad..

a while ago i heard a guy was reading a newspaper and he was pissed at some of the people in his govenment like the mayor for his town and got mad at his judgments and he ate a hostess twinkie the yellow ones i forget the name and he had like a sugar rush and he busted into the mayors office and shot and killed him but he wasnt found guilty because he said it wasnt his faul it was like in some state he couldnt get out of like a trance true story by the way maybe someone on here heard about it. the picture of the kind of twinkie he ate is below.


[Edited on 4-4-2004 by ShadowMan]

the bartender gets in trouble.

you get lung cancer,
The cigarette company gets in trouble

Your baby has a defect
the drug company that made your acne creme gets in trouble.

you get fat
you think, "Why not sue Mcdonalds?

A brick falls from a building and lands on your head:
sue the builder
the architect
the mason
the guy who made the brick
and the owner of the building

Meanwhile,
You shouldnt have been drinkin and driving.
smoking made you feel like youd cough your lung out, eventually didnt you think it may ACTUALLY happen.
Maybe taking drugs like acutane while pregnant wasnt such a good idea,
Everyone knows fast food is full of grease, just look at my steering wheel
And what ever happened to, "watch where your # ing going!

So when you kill your kids, just blame god and you ll get away with it,,,maybe she could sue her church too

Kristine

No, Deus, not all the schizos, psychos, whackos and nutjobs, there'd be not many people left here on the board. Only the ones who do things like club children to death like baby seals.

Yeah, Deus, I know, we have a homeless and crazy proble; we haven't had one of these since Reagan was in office. For eight years of Clinton, he had not one homeless or wandering schizo. Now that Bush is in, we have the problem again. Of course.

I was having a discussion about this with some friends of mine.

Even if you are insane, do you know the difference between right and wrong?

My contention is that no matter how crazy you might be, you still know the difference between right and wrong. ESPECIALLY in the temporary/crime of passion arguement.

Knowing and acting on these ideas are very different.

But being that they KNOW right and wrong even though insane, there really should be no legal defense unless they can prove that your disability caused you to think that you were in danger.

Self defense (or defense of others) is self defense even if your life is not really in danger, but if you THINK it is.

Crazy people know right from wrong. Period.

KJ, the question is WHAT exactly is right in their minds. Schizophrenics (sorry I keep using this example, but it's the one I'm most familiar with) have been known to think things right. For instance, some attempt to eat their own defacations. One case even sawed off his left hand with a penknife and lobbed it halfway across a library. He then refused to have it reattached due to the 'inherent evil' in it. Please, don't tell me that cases such as this are truly, gravely evil. More often than not, these people have no idea what they're doing.

DE

I should clarify.

There are some people who are crazy and it is obvious.

There are some that are not (borderline).

I was really talking about people like the woman mentioned above.

But even so, I think that they know what is right from wrong.

There is a lot of muddy waters in the field of insanity so obviously there is no absolute. There are too many types of insanity to really make any blanket statement.

But should one be made, I think mine would be closest to true.

I am in no way an expert on it though.

Originally posted by KrazyJethro
I should clarify.

There are some people who are crazy and it is obvious.

There are some that are not (borderline).

I was really talking about people like the woman mentioned above.

But even so, I think that they know what is right from wrong.

There is a lot of muddy waters in the field of insanity so obviously there is no absolute. There are too many types of insanity to really make any blanket statement.

But should one be made, I think mine would be closest to true.

I am in no way an expert on it though.

I think that 5 psychiatrist's concluding that this woman was not aware what she did was wrong, speaks for itself.

All five mental health experts consulted in the case, including two for the prosecution and one for the judge, concluded that a severe mental illness caused Laney to have psychotic delusions that rendered her incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings

I think it is highly unlikely that she was faking psychosis so well that ALL of the psychiatrists were fooled.

xxKrisxx, I totally agree...Except for the Brick on the Head part possibly. It depends on the details on that one. If I get a brick in the head, I had better have been walking somewhere I shouldn't and ignoring posted warnings like a construction site or something like that, ya know what I mean. The fact that MANY, MANY times, in a variety of ways, corners are cut and rules ignored simply to Save a Buck. People who sue for B.S. reasons are pathetic, I agree. But so is the jerkoff who decides that correctly nailing the walls and roof of a house together, is less important than catching the game & happy hour at the local bar.

Personally I want to read more about this case before I make up my mind about it. I don't believe in Capital Punishment in either case, but I'd like to know exactly how much of a Uniqe Event this was for this lady. I mean someone can be seriously ill mentally without suddenly having a delusion of God telling them to Bash in their kids heads. It seems to me that this woman, who was found unquestionably to be Insane by multiple Doctors, would have probably shown some sign at some earlier point that could have helped in avoiding this situation. I also wonder exactly why this Crazy B**ch had 3 kids in the first place if she was known to be Insane and how stable was their life up until Mom Bashed their Brains in?

Crazy is also not a 'Justified' excuse for what happened. Sure, it does explain why the events took place. However, the delusional state of mind this woman has which manifest itself as God Commanding a Mother to Beat her children to death, makes her dangerous in the same way it makes some Unhinged psycho dangerous, and both should be removed from society and contained in a manner where they present NO Danger to anyone, except possibly to themselves which is there choice to some degree I guess. So while I don't think she should be 'put to death', I don't see her as anything other than an Unstable Person and Murderer either.

my question is

If you are so crazy you hear God tell you to kill your kids and you do it, does it really matter?

To me the fact that she did not think what she did was wrong is MORE of a reason to kill her or lock her up forever, not just put her in a home for a few weeks.

The REAL problem, at least here in Arkansas is BEFORE it gets to that point.

Here mental health care is almost non-existant and is TOTALLY voulintary. If you think you are sane than you are.

Thats like making a cancer patient diagnois and opperate on himself

Hay, for you people the believe, Maybe God did tell her. He had his only son Killed.

Originally posted by SpittinCobra
Hay, for you people the believe, Maybe God did tell her. He had his only son Killed.

He told Abraham to do the same and people praise him whats the difference?

Originally posted by Amuk[/]

He told Abraham to do the same and people praise him whats the difference?

I agree, What if God told you people to kill, would you? I mean if you really thought God was telling you to, would you?

[Edited on 5-4-2004 by SpittinCobra]