This just breaks my heart:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115769,00.html
She killed her 6 and 8 year old boys by stoning them to death.
Why? And how could she attribute her actions to a message from God? The prosecution isn’t seeking the death penalty.
I have 6 and 8 year old boys, and I say throw the insanity defense out the damn window.
If you have a compelling argument for why this women should not be put to death, post it. Because I can’t think of one given her actions.
Oops! I did look beforehand - missed that one since the title didn’t cue me in to the story. Thanks.
One compelling reason?
Okay: the insanity defense.
Don’t like it? Tough? God forbid you ever fall victim to some sort of psychiatric illness that causes dimenta, hallucianations, etc.
Here’s three:
She hasn’t been found guilty yet.
She appears to be madder than a sack o’cats.
The prosecution isn’t seeking the death penalty.
If I fall victim to some sort of psychiatric illness that causes me to brutally murder my own children, then I’m better off dead.
The whole point of being legally insane is that one cannot tell right from wrong.
If she was legally insane, she honestly thought she was doing the right thing, because she was following the will of God.
Very, very sick, but definitely not evil.
There is no reason to believe that she did it out of malice, or understood what she was actually doing.
Not in favour of the death penalty in any case, but certainly not when someone is so obviously ill.
I’m not usually one to argue from religious grounds, but I’ve always been a particular fan of the 6th commandment.
You’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head - thank you. Is this a particular reason why being mentally ill excuses you from committing this sort of act? She fucking held the hands of her 8-boy down with her knees as she beat his head in with a rock. I know the prosecution isn’t seeking the death penalty - why question is WHY.
Is there anything WORSE a human being could possibly do than brutally take the death of their own small children?
Genocide?
Well, yeah - that.
As a mother of 6 & 8 year old boys, though, this story disturbs me.
As a single guy with no kids, it disturbs the hell out of me, too. But, even if I supported the death penalty, it shouldn’t be applied her. She was sick. She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t know what she was doing. Executing her for this crime would be like executing someone who had an epileptic siezure while driving and crashed into a schoolbus. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but the terrible result of an illness beyond her control. She’s as deserving of pity as her children. More, maybe, because they only suffered for a few moments, and she’s going to be suffering for this for the rest of her life.
I appreciate your viewpoint, but oh my god I wish you could stand my shoes as a mother, reading about her actions. When I heard about it, I wanted to leave work and run home to hug my boys.
Will she really suffer for the rest of her life? I doubt it. She’ll be given a life sentence, and we’ll pay to feed her until she dies of old age. Hopefully, by then she won’t be so convinced that God really wanted her to stone her boys to death.
It is, absolutely, an emotional case. But emotion makes for poor justice. Besides which, I don’t think there’s anything the state could do to her that would cause her more suffering than her own conscience.
Horrible, horrible deeds. Nightmarish.
Even so, if ever the insanity defense is to have any meaning at all, it needs to be applied to this case. From the testimony put forth by all the experts, from both defense and prosecution, she’s textbook insane, by both the medical and legal definitions.
If she’s found guilty, then we need to accept that what is being dispensed is vengeance, not justice. A just society would protect her from herself and others, treat her, try to heal her. And then if she was successfully made sane, help her deal with the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that she will suffer as she comes to grips with what she’s done.
What Qadgop and Miller said.
No sane mother kills her children. She is as sick as the definition of sick can be. What is the point of retributive justice here?
Let’s try to heal this poor woman, and give her some respite from the nightmares that will surely plague her 'til the rest of her days.
My first inclination is that she can’t be healed - anyone who could do such a thing doesn’t deserve pity. Name one woman who killed their children and ever admitted that their act was evil. Not one. If you’re sane enough to bear 3 children , you shouldn’t be forgiven for this. I say - let’s stop forgiving parents who kill their own children just because they have mental problems.
What the fucking fuck??
Let’s stop forgiving people who have psychiatric problems for the deeds that they do? How about we stop forgiving cancer patients for being whingers about their plight or how about we condemn epileptic folks for the damage they do to the furniture when they have a grand mal seizure?
Oh, fuck off Blonde, you are obviously just a waste of oxygen.
Are you a doctor?
Have you ever been mentally ill?
I don’t see the relevance of that.
Sane enough to bear children? What the hell does sanity have to do with fertility?
Why? What problems would that solve? How would that make life for anyone better, beyond satisfying a sense of primitive bloodlust? Isn’t forgiveness a better virtue than vengance? If, God forbid, you ever fall victim to a serious mental illness, do you want to be judged as harsh a standard as you advocate judging this woman by?
apparently the difference between ‘having mental problems’ and being ‘insane’ has escaped you. it’s kinda a continuum, with, say, a paper cut on one end and a sliced juggler vein on the other.