Well, that’s what I meant. Hinckley and Yates were so out of touch with reality and so delusional, they couldn’t distinguish right from wrong (or fantasy from reality). Dahmer, while a socio/psychopath (I can never remember which term is now considered proper), knew it was wrong to kill and just didn’t give two shits.
KellyM, according to your reasoning, you’re accountable for the Illinois penal system.
Why did you allow so many corrupt and falsifyied statements to be used to put innocent men onto death row?
Why did it take extraordinary action by one man to put a stop to that?
Obviously, everyone in Illinois has some grave problems with the idea of the presumption of innocence.
Makes as much sense as your condemnation of Texas.
Is there (in Law) a difference in not understanding that the act was criminal or likely to have negative consequences, and not understanding that the act was morally wrong? I guess I’m not explaining this well, but using details of this particular act from this thread:
Yates believed she was doing the right thing for her children by ensuring they went to heaven. However, the fact she carried this out when no other adult was present appears to indicate that she was aware that others would find this unacceptable. The “others” given her presumed isolation being her husband and mother, who I assume she trusted? Since she then called the authorities indicated she understood there would be consquences to her actions. So even if she was convinced that morally she was right, it appears that she was aware that this was not legal.
I’ve not read a detailed account to the evidence presented at the trial, so there may well be facts that I’m unaware of that indicate she was unaware of the legal aspects. However, if we assume what my conjecture in the above paragraph is supported by the available facts, what is the legal situation? A sane person who breaks a law would be found guilty whether or not the are aware of the law and whether or not they agree with the law. Is the arguement for not guilty by reason of insanity based on an assumption that they are unaware that the act is illegal, that they are unaware that the act is immoral, or that their insanity means they thay cannot be punished for disregarding the law based on the fact that they are unaware that the act is immoral?
Here’s hoping someone can make sense of that. I’m not suggesting Yates should be found guilty, BTW. I’m simply curious with regard to the rationale on an insanity plea.
Yes. If you’re incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong, you can be found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Having an understanding of right and wrong, but simply being ignorant of the law, is not a defense.
Maybe. Or maybe her situation was more stressful when she was left alone with the children (very likely), and that increased stress fueled her psychosis?
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She may have been more lucid at some point after commission of the crimes. My understanding of psychosis is that sufferers often have times when they are more lucid, and times when they are more psychotic.
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I think it is legally possible to be found incapable of understanding right from wrong even if you knew something was a crime. I don’t have cites right now, but I will try to find some.
The standard is knowing the difference between basic “right and wrong” values; i.e., killing someone is wrong. Knowing whether or not there’s a law covering the action probably has varying weight, depending on the particulars of any given case. But knowing there’s a law on the books is not part of the basic test for legal insanity.
If Andrea Yates said, “Yeah, I know there’s a law on the books in Texas that says killing your kids is a crime, but those are the laws of man. God came to me and said to do it, and God is always right, and disobeying God is a mortal sin, and delivering my children to His arms in heaven is of course a good thing, and what God wanted, and God is never wrong,” that would be a textbook example, I believe, of knowing there’s a law against it but still not knowing the basic difference between right and wrong. Thus, she would be legally insane. (Mind you, this is an example, and I believe the particulars of that case are somewhat different and significantly more complicated.)
No, according to someone’s (deliberate?) misinterpretation of my reasoning, I am responsible for Illinois’ penal system.
I think Texas should answer for the problems in its criminal justice system, just as I think Illinois should answer for the problems in its criminal justice system (and I am pressuring my state government officials to do so, both when I vote and when I write or talk to them). That doesn’t mean that I think any particular Texan is obliged to do so – with the possible exception of Rick “Good Hair” Perry, who (as governor of Texas) is the obvious choice to be answering for those problems.
So, unless Good Hair is a member of the Boards, I don’t really expect a response here. Never did. Don’t know why anyone thinks I did.
How have I misunderstood your reasoning, here?
Thesis: Texas and, by implication, all Texans can be summed up and judged by one trial, and anecdotal statements.
Antithesis: Illinois recently commuted all death penalty cases because of systemic abuses of the criminal justice system. Not simply one trial, or case, but many cases going on for years.
Synthesis: People from Illinois may be summed up and judged by the condition of their criminal justice system.
Given your thesis, and the facts represented by my antithesis, I don’t see how my synthesis is an unreasonable extrapolation of what you’ve said earlier. You let your mouth get ahead of you, and now you’re upset to be tarred with your own brush.
And an aside: Do you really expect me, or anyone else, to believe that the only place where such abuses occured was in high-profile death penalty cases? I suspect it is perfectly fair to believe that such abuses in the death penalty caseload are indicative of systemic abuses all through the Illinois criminal system.
The italicized portion is where you jumped off the tracks.
Am I to assume that it is typical of Texans to be unable to differentiate disapproval of their government for disapproval of the citizenry? (Although, to be fair, this seems to be a national trend…)
I don’t take exception to your argument, KellyM. Texas has plenty of problems. It’s inevitable with a state constitution as convoluted as ours. What I took exception to was your original statement:
You failed to clarify your statement. I really don’t care if you like my state or not–in fact I have a healthy respect for other points of view. Your blanket statement, however, just came off sounding bigoted.
Sorry–I didn’t word that clearly. You did eventually clarify your statement quite adequately. Just not right when you wrote it. Hence my earlier irritation. Okay. Done now.
When I read about the mistrial, my first thoughts were: “I thought I’d seen that episode, too”.
Really, I thought I recalled a Law & Order episode in which a mother killed her children because of post-partum depression. I clearly recalled being startled by the similarity to the Andrea Yates case.
Obviously, the show’s producers are a little better at the episode guide than I am. Maybe there was a reference to postpartum depression in one of the episodes, but it wasn’t the featured theme of the show.
Does anyone else remember an L&O episode, or another police procedural show, that had this plot ?
Wow, it’s like notja-vu.