No one is saying it excuses anyone from crimes they committed. That’s simply your misinterpretation.
What we are saying is that you can exhibit signs of mental illness and still be held accountable for your crimes. I am not sure why you refuse to believe this. Perhaps one could put in a plea, but what does that mean? It doesn’t mean they send you home with a prescription. You still serve time, but perhaps you get more proper treatment at whatever facility they put you in. They could even still keep you in jail, but make sure you get a psychological evaluation before you are allowed to leave.
In many respects, those who say they have a mental illness have it worse because if they are places in a mental institution they can be held indefinitely.
What is your problem with calling attraction to minors what it actually is? It’s an abnormality. A disease. I’d prefer these people go to an institution where they can get real help as opposed to sitting in jail for a few months only to be released without having fixed their problem.
Why do you think so many of these people are repeat offenders. Because people like you want to ignore the issue.
Furthermore, prisons are not really known to reform people into being better people when they get out. I personally think we should get rid of all prisons and begin treating the psychiatric/social problems which actually lead to crime. I am not saying to let these people walk free, but they should go to institutions where they will actually get treatment and improve.
There are ways to mitigate this problem. One is to proceed with a bench trial. When you have a legally congizeable defense but are afraid that the underlying conduct will prejudice the jury, then the typical cure is to take a bench trial.
And how do you explain that of the hundreds that DID go to trial, the entrapment defense was not successful? How about on appeal – the appellate court looks only at the record; if you establishment entrapment as a matter of law, then why hasn’t any appellate court stepped in?
This is an argument similar to that of a tax protester claiming that “really” there is no legal income tax as long as you insist you are a citizen of Virginia but not the United States. When judges convict you anyway, they are just covering up the “truth.”
But the reality is – even if what you say is correct, the fact that vritually every single trial and appellate court rules that this is not entrapment means that, from a practical standpoint, it’s not entrapment.
So you keep saying. The list of assertions you’ve made and not really supported keeps growing.
See?
Thank you. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make this point, but I don’t have the legal expertise. Here’s what I’ve been trying to say here, IAmError403: if the police entrap a defendant, the case against the defendant is tainted. It’s not just something a lawyer gets to argue to the jury. It’s grounds for dismissing the entire case. That is a huge difference.
A practicing psychologist gave me his opinion outside of this thread; roughly, that any paraphilia that led to illegal behavior, or cannot be acted upon with illegal behaviors, could/should be diagnosed as a disorder and treated in addition to any legal punishment that occurs.
Could you please cite an actual law instead of some random selection of summaries?
No, actually. It depends on how you interpret “likely to not commit the crime in the absence of law enforcement actions”.
The people in question are not looking for chats in places like Car Talk or AdultFriendFinder. They are looking in places like Yahoo Teen and such. They are initiating discussions. They are initiating requests for visits.
Let’s not forget that the conversation itself is a crime. Even if they never meet, having a sexually explicit conversation on the internet with somebody who you think is a minor is illegal as long as you make plans to meet. AFAIK you don’t even have to show up.
As others have pointed out, failure to end someone’s life because the gun misfired will still result in a charge of attempted murder. The predators were attempting to have sexual contact with a person they believed to be a minor. They shouldn’t be given a pass because they failed to have intercourse.
Repeat offenders may very well require treatment for a mental illness, and they often do receive counseling and supervision while in prison and as a condition of probation.
I’m not ignoring “the issue.” As I and others have pointed out in this thread and the related discussion: minors are often physically attractive. Mere attraction to a person who appears to be physically developed regardless of age is not abnormality or a disease. Acting on those desires with full knowledge that preying on emotionally immature persons is legally and morally wrong is deviant behavior; but not all deviant behaviors derive from mental illness. You are recommending leniency because you feel sympathy for these criminals, but darned if I can figure out why you feel that crimes which are sexual in nature warrant special exceptions to our laws.
Do you feel that persons who steal are mentally ill? Those who do not pay taxes? Run red lights? What is it about human sexuality in particular that leads you to believe that mere deviant sexual behavior indicates mental illness in need of correction?
Since you keep referring to psychology, are you aware that criminal behavior is often thought of in terms of innovation? That those good citizens who work 40 hours per week, save money, pay taxes, obey the law, and save money for months to purchase a bicycle are conforming to societal rules and laws and therefore are leading a life full of delayed gratification for no other reason than because they feel they must behave themselves. Those who choose not to work, don’t bother with taxes or laws, and simply steal the bike they desire are innovators who are achieve instant gratification with little to no effort. Is the thief mentally ill? Or an innovator who feels no pressure to conform and thinks for himself? Who’s the chump here? Or does the bike thief deserve sympathy and treatment for mental illness rather than face legal repercussions?
Not everyone who misbehaves does so because they are sick. Many healthy, intelligent, and typically developed persons break rules and laws because they feel our laws are arbitrary, don’t apply to them, because they feel they are smart enough to get away with it, because they are greedy and do not want to wait for gratification, because everyone was looking the other way, because the young teen was unsupervised and sounded like a good time…
Do you or the practicing psychologist you consulted feel that each and every adult who attempts to make sexual contact with someone under the age of consent is mentally ill?
I posted this in another thread, but I like it so much I’m posting it here too.
Here’s a hypothetical:
Let’s say you work with a guy, we’ll call him Bob. And you really can’t fucking stand Bob. You think Bob is a real piece of shit, what’s more, you think the world would be a better place without Bob in it. And let’s say your other coworker, Leo, hears you muttering to yourself about this, and gets a little alarmed. So, Leo says, “Hey, what are you talking about? Are you thinking about killing Bob?” And you say, “Yeah, Leo, I am. I’d like to poison that motherfucker!” And Leo says, “Well, there’s rat poison under the counter in the break room.”
Leo is a little worried, so he dumps out the can of rat poison and refills the container with Splenda. And you go in there the next day, make some coffee, and dump a generous portion of what you think is rat poison into the cup. And you bring it to Bob, and Bob drinks it.
**
You tried to kill Bob.** You attempted murder. The fact that the rat poison was switched to Splenda doesn’t alter the fact that your intent was to kill. And saying that isn’t “criminalizing thought”. Leo doesn’t have to wait until you get a hold of some real poison to call you an attempted murderer, and if Leo was a real LEO, it wouldn’t be entrapment, and (I’m pretty sure)* you could be arrested.
And saying, “Well, I thought that Leo had probably switched the poison for Splenda,” isn’t an excuse either.
*Bricker? A better opinion please?
You’re right, except that you’re going to be able to testify that you thought that Leo had probably switched the poison for Splenda, and the jury is free to believe you… so it could be an excuse. But merely making the claim is not an automatic pass to freedom. The jury (or the judge in a bench trial) is free to hear and weigh evidence and believe, or disbelieve, any of it. It is very unlikely that the jury would believe the Splenda claim, unless there was some more solid indication of why the accused thought it was true.
I hesitate to draw this discussion further afield, but your question gets into a somewhat arcane area of law involving the difference between the different types of impossibility. A crime may be legally impossible, factually impossible, or of hybrid impossibility.
Factual impossibility was not, at common law, a defense against a crime. The classic hypothetical involves shooting a mannequin believing that you were shooting a sleeping person. At common law, that could sustain a conviction for attempted murder, even though the completion of the crime was impossible. In real life, two soldiers were convicted of attempted rape after having sex with a passed-out drunk woman. Only afterwards did they discover the woman had suffered a heart attack and died before they began their assault. Their defense was that it was impossible to rape a corpse, but since they had planned to rape the woman and were stopped opnly by the fact of her death, the attempt charge was valid.
Legal impossibility, in contrast, was at common law the situation that arises when the accused believes he is committing a crime, but the act is not actually criminal. Just as we say ignorance of the law is no excuse, we can also say that ignorance of the law doesn’t make a crime where none would otherwise exist. Imagine a man that believes the law forbids writing sex stories about bestiality. He writes such a story, thinking he’s breaking the law. But he can’t be convicted of even the attempt to break the law, because no such law exists.
Hybrid impossibility occurs when there are elements of each type in play. In real life, most states have abolished factual impossibility as a defense to the crime of attempt in any event.
And you feel that a court of law could be convinced that a married professional with biological children who made an attempt at sexual contact with a minor suffers from a paraphilic disorder? (There is a clear and fairly well-written paragraph in Wikion the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for paraphilia/disorder/optional, etc)
Those gray areas are broad and undefined. An 18 year old seeking sexual contact from his 15 year old girlfriend: suffering from a psychiatric disorder? A 21 year old excited by the prospect of a sexual encounter with an attractive 15 year old?
Thing is, dismissing each of the TCAP predators with a mental illness diagnosis trivializes both mental illness and age of consent laws. Some of these predators are simply horny and self-indulgent, and perfectly capable of following rules and laws, but choose not to.
Mental illness, in general, is NOT relevant to courts of law. Conflating the two is missing my point entirely, since my point is that one can be diagnosed with a mental illness AND fully capable of standing trial and being punished. Courts, to the best of my knowledge, are only concerned with mental illness when that illness SPECIFICALLY prevents them from distinguishing right and wrong. The typical sufferer of a criminal paraphila knows that it’s wrong on a legal level.
I have no problem with saying most of the TCAP predators both probably have a diagnosable paraphilia AND ought to be criminally liable regardless of that.
Are you somehow conflating me with IAmError403, or are you just not bothering to read what I’m saying?
No, I’m saying that saddling everyone with a sexual kink, quirk, or preference with a mental illness label trivializes both mental illness and the very deliberate actions depicted in TCAP. Finding teenaged girls appealing is not a sign of mental illness. (Repeat sex offenders are likely suffering from mental illness and definitely qualify for counseling as well as punishment.)
I’m also going to repeat what I said earlier: Not everyone who misbehaves does so because they are sick. Many healthy, intelligent, and typically developed persons break rules and laws because they feel our laws are arbitrary, don’t apply to them, because they feel they are smart enough to get away with it, because they are greedy and do not want to wait for gratification, because everyone was looking the other way, because the young teen was unsupervised and sounded like a good time…
There are going to be varying degrees. Not all of these men led a double life. Some were repeat offenders. I don’t know what constitutes a mental illness in your book, but there are going to be varying degrees.
In your mind, if a person who is attracted to little kids, lets say very little kids. Lets say this person has fantasies of molesting 5yo boys, but he is able to control his impulses and he never acts on them. Is this person mentally well because he not only can tell right from wrong, but he also does not act on his desire to wank off little boys?
Then lets say a person who has a wife and kids, has the same fantasies, but he is left alone with a 5yo and ends up molesting him even though he knows it’s wrong. Is he also mentally well?
Neither of those scenarios are what is depicted in TCAP. Of course there are varying degrees of mental illness, and if you will read each post thoroughly, you will note that I agree that repeat offenders are likely mentally ill.
Are you comfortable saddling every person who breaks a law with the label of mentally ill? Are you comfortable applying that diagnosis to 18 year olds with 15 year old girlfriends? Are you absolutely certain that typically developed people with careers, families, and the means and intellect to plan and carry out the attempt to have sex with a young teen are mentally ill? No chance they are just misbehaving because they think they can get away with it?