How do you feel about the "mentally unfit" defense in court?

Case study: Jared Lee Loughner killed 6 people in cold blood and wounded 13. Included in those dead one federal judge, one congresewoman, a nine year old, and multiple elderly. It was done in broad daylight, he was arrested, and has not faced trial for over 11 months, this Jan 8 will be one year. The FBI says they have undeniable proof yet trial has been delayed because

HE SMIRKED IN COURT!

That's it. You can say his mugshot was scary and I'll agree with you, but how was that his doing? The police are in charge of that.

"but, he said some crazy stuff on ats and myspace."

Is that even admissible in a court of law? How can it be definitively proven to be him? And what if Gabrielle Giffords myspace was submitted to court showing she had two friends, one of them Jared Loughner!

"but, the stuff he said made no sense."

I agree, but so what? Allow me to explain. I'm on ats right now: the ding bat sleeps with tuesday. There, that makes no sense, now can I commit a crime and not face trial ever because I said something crazy on the internet?

"but his crime shows he was crazy."

So in other words, murder is punished with the death penalty but six murders must mean the individual is crazy so he gets a lighter sentence, how is that sane?

"well, at least he is rotting away in jail."

He's watching tv and eating junk food, is that adequate punishment for someone who killed 6 people?

"they have to cure his insanity by giving him antipsychotic drugs before he can stand trial."

Is that medically possible? And how does drugging someone make them mentally fit for trial? Is Loughner crazy or is the justice system crazy?

This is not just about the arizona shooting, this is about the crazy defense in general. It is very easy to make yourself seem crazy to get out of a trial. All Loughner had to do was smirk. If you mumble to yourself and make cow noises that would probably do it. And what about the fact that society is so conditioned to feel certain ways that if you said jfk was killed by the cia the judge would probably think you were insane, or if you said the government is hiding alien technology that would make most jurors think you were crazy, or if you thought a secret banking cabal ran the country the prosecutor would think you were crazy. So basically, it's not that hard to fake mental psychosis.

All I have left to say is, the trial has not yet happened and I dont think it ever will until they want to make it a political sideshow. Your thoughts?

Jared Lee Loughner passes his days alone in a cell at a Missouri prison facility in therapy sessions with psychologists, watching TV, looking at photos of his pets and snacking on junk food.

m.yahoo.com...

reply to post by filosophia

yet trial has been delayed because
HE SMIRKED IN COURT!

It's more than the overly simplified "he smirked".

As I posted in your other near identical thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

"A person has to be able to understand what's happening and be able to participate with his lawyer in his own defense," said Dr. Anthony Lehman, chair of psychiatry at University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The court-ordered psychiatric evaluation concluded that Loughner suffers from delusions and hallucinations -- symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, an illness that can distort a person's perception of reality.
"In people judged to have this type of psychotic illness, it's really that they have an inability to recognize a shared human reality,"

abcnews.go.com...

I work in mental health and deal with people who have done a crime and have been deemed to unwell to go to court.
I don't know the case nor the person but it has always struck me that to commit murder you have to be insane, no person in their right mind would kill someone.
But the person has left 6 familys without their loved ones so he should be punished (Anti Death penalty here)
You have to figure out why he did it and he will be watched 24/7 and interviewed and allsorts done to him to either get him well enough to stand trial or to declare him insane.
It's a real tricky one because mentally unwell people do not know what they are doing sometimes and because they are ill what do we blame the person or the illness?
He will never be let out again (I hope) and maybe we can learn from him and hopefully we can stop things like this happening.
I know one person who because of his illness attacked a little old lady, (Voices told him she was the Devil) and he was only a young lad and I helped him get better....He is a cracking lad and is much better now in his mental wellbeing but the thing what will stay with him for the rest of his life is the guilt of attacking that old lady, he still blames himself when it was his illness which made him do it.
Like I said tricky one this and look forward to reading other posts.

reply to post by Chamberf=6


So your feelings are a person can watch tv and eat junk food if they kill six people so long as a psychiatrist deems them mentally unfit? I expected nothing less from you.

And can you elaborate on how the psychiatrist deemed him to have delusions and hallucinacions?


P.S. '___' causes those symptoms, the choice drug of mkultra, thanks for helping to prove it was an inside job.

reply to post by filosophia


One would think it was through several interviews/evaluations performed by several different professionals, as well as studying past behaviors and writings.

In other words, the same thing they do for any other person considered "mentally unfit" for trial.


'___' may cause hallucinations in some, not in others. But from his history, he would have to have been tripping 24/7 for years, and still be doing so somehow in the psych ward -- something I greatly doubt.

reply to post by filosophia


There is evil in this world. I teach my kids fear but I also teach them empathy and goodness. Something tells me Jared L. lacked love and goodness in his life. That's all I have to say about that.

reply to post by filosophia


It seems to me that Jared does have mental health problems....but it also seems to me that he is getting better. From what I understand in reading the article you provided....they are trying to help Jared and improve his mental health....so that he can be strong enough to stand trial. I think that now they are waiting for his suicidal tendencies to subside.

I believe that he needs to go to trial and that his sentence should be...life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Maybe in time Jared will man-up and know and admit that what he did was wrong. Maybe in time he will come to understand the reasons why he did such a horrible thing. Maybe in time he will be able to make peace with himself and his (Higher Power). Maybe in time he will be forgiven and forgive himself.

The same defense should also be allowed for being who are drunk, no?

reply to post by boymonkey74


Sure, there are mentally unstable people out there, but can those mentally unstable people fire 30 rounds and hit 19 targets? Maybe if he was like the autistic kid from the wizard, so basically someone like that is so dangerous they will never see the light of day again. I guess that sort of redefines the whole concept of a speedy trial if the insane is deemed too unfit for trial. Oh well, it's just a constitutional amendment, no biggie.

Thanks for the reply I appreciate it.

reply to post by Ixtab


No.

Getting drunk is something one chooses to do themselves and is temporary.

Mental illness is not.

Big difference.

reply to post by filosophia


Well, if he really is schizophrenic, as some articles claim, it is possible to have the illness so severely that one does completely break with reality. Completely. And if that does happen, and you do something terrible, I do think there should be a different standard of law because schizophrenia is an actual medical illness. I don't know a lot about the psychiatrists they have in Arizona, but I imagine they are as highly trained as our Canadian P. Doc's, and so can only assume that such a diagnosis was not made lightly.

It's more than just acting strange for one interview. A patient's history is examined, criminal records examined, if possible, other people he knows are interviewed. It does sound like he had been raising red flags for some time, even getting kicked out of the college he attended for his erratic behaviour.

I hadn't thought about it before, but I imagine you're right, psychosis probably could be mimicked, and if you were good at it, then probably psychiatrists could be deceived. It would be really hard to do, though. And, if that's what he's been doing, he's been doing it for years. The question, then, would be, if he was in his right mind, why did he want to kill all of those people?

Originally posted by filosophia
reply to post by boymonkey74

 

Sure, there are mentally unstable people out there, but can those mentally unstable people fire 30 rounds and hit 19 targets? Maybe if he was like the autistic kid from the wizard, so basically someone like that is so dangerous they will never see the light of day again. I guess that sort of redefines the whole concept of a speedy trial if the insane is deemed too unfit for trial. Oh well, it's just a constitutional amendment, no biggie.

Thanks for the reply I appreciate it.

Yes of course he could fire and hit that many, If he has delusions they can actually help him focus to the job at hand. Just because he is mentally unwell doesn't mean he is going to be all shaky and stuff.
You probely meet people everyday who are mentally unwell but you may not see any symptoms at all.

reply to post by filosophia


He might not even really get that he did it. According to some articles the guy screams that the stereo in his room is giving his messages and that waves are invading his mind. The guy is obviously insane. He needs to be locked up in an asylum.

reply to post by Chamberf=6


My point is when you are drunk you are not entirely in control of your actions. Ok i chose to get drunk, but I didnt choose to strip naked steal a police car and ram raid my local off license, I didnt choose any of that and one cannot reasonably assume getting drunk will lead to anything untoward, however if it did, much like a mental illness you have virtualy zero control over what may happen.

Originally posted by Chamberf=6
reply to post by filosophia

 

One would think it was through several interviews/evaluations performed by several different professionals, as well as studying past behaviors and writings.

Have you read the evaluations or just going off how you assume a fair system would work?

'___' may cause hallucinations in some, not in others.

1. Is this a professional medical opinion?
2. How do you assume a drug which caused millions of people to hallucinate in the 60's wouldn't affect Loughner?

But from his history, he would have to have been tripping 24/7

What history are you referring to? Is this a specific medical report you are citing? Did they release his pysch records online?

This guy was the poster boy for the Criminally Insane the way Manson was for everything WRONG with the Hippie culture. If he doesn't fit the bill for being certifiably wacko, I don't know what more he has to do. Would slobbering all over himself in court be sufficient for some? The videos this guy made of himself going around local schools after hours and other such home movies show a very, deeply ILL man.

Have said that, I think he should be executed after his guilt is established properly in court (even the red handed guilty deserve to hear it in a court room). There is temporarily insane, like the husband who finds the love of his life inflagrante' with his best friend and just goes homicidal for a moment in time....and then there are the Freddy Kruger type DEEP insane. I think our Arizona shooter here falls just a bit short of Freddy fame...but not by enough to matter for what should happen to him.

It isn't even blood lust on this. It's being realistic. If someone if so ill, they will always be a dire threat to normal people..why should they be warehoused for decades at our expense just because we don't have the moral conviction to just carry out the death sentence we've given them? Old age or Old sparky.....death is death and they aren't leaving psych prison wards alive. Why play games about it?

Originally posted by antonia
reply to post by filosophia

 

He might not even really get that he did it. According to some articles the guy screams that the stereo in his room is giving his messages and that waves are invading his mind. The guy is obviously insane. He needs to be locked up in an asylum.

So if you were a juror, all I would have to do is scream loudly and say the radio is invading my brain, and you would assume I'm crazy? Do you see my point in how easy it is to fake mental psychosis?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I almost could agree with you, Wrabbit, but for one thing. He does seem to be getting better on his meds. It is possible that with meds, he could be a very safe, even productive individual, That's the trick, though, isn't it? Keeping him on them. Easy to do when he's in jail, now that it seems that they have a court order to force them on him. But if he ever were to be released, what would happen then? I have no idea of the laws in Arizona around forcing people to take meds, but hey, I've got time. Might go look into that now.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Can you post one loughner video that actually shows his face? The college video the individual is filming and does not show his face and in the flag burning video the individually purposefully hides his face, so that is no proof it was him.