As a matter of fact, she did.
Got better, though.
Actually, what she probably needs is mental health treatment, not a prison sentence though I expect the latter is far easier to obtain than the former.
Reports are that her family were trying to get her committed to a mental health facility for her own good but there wasn’t enough hard evidence of her being a danger to self and/or others to do it. I think there is now.
I think we might be able to agree on that.
Women psychopath murderers: need help, compassion and hormone therapy.
Men: Fuck them to death!
It’s not about forgiveness if she mentally ILL. If she had cancer or a heart attack you’d want to her to get medical care, right? If her brain is malfunctioning she should get treatment for it. Unless it’s something that we can’t treat in which case we should minimize the possibility of harm to herself or others.
For one things, she’s already “bred”.
For another - I’m not familiar with Susan Smith but Andrea Yates was suffering from a recognized mental illness and her religious nutjob husband discouraged/prevented treatment for her until she killed the kids, combined with mental health care limitations imposed by private health insurance. She had had a prior episode in 1999 including several suicide attempts, which was treated, after which she was advised to have no more children. Which advice, apparently due to religion, she and her husband ignored.
In other words, Andrea Yates was a woman with a multi-year, multi-episode history of serious mental illness, several suicide attempts, whose husband disregarded the advice of trained professionals. Her family and the system failed her, and failed her children. She’s an ill woman and even a Texas jury was able to agree she was innocent by reason of insanity.
I’m just glad that with this most recent incident no lives were lost.
Not for me - if there is evidence a man was having a psychotic episode and his family was trying to have him committed when he then committed a crime of this sort I’d argue equally strongly that he should be committed to a mental health facility for treatment. Regrettably, that might mean confinement for life but sometimes that’s necessary to protect other people.
No shit.
I wonder who will take the kids? The mom claims the father is abusive.
The US mental health system is so under supported and over crowded. People aren’t getting the help they need.
This woman’s sister was desperately trying to get her admitted before the murder/suicide attempt.
Same kind of thing happened recently in Virginia. State Senator Creigh Deeds had taken his disturbed son in to be admitted. They were told No beds available and sent home. The next morning the kid stabbed his dad multiple times and then committed suicide with a rifle. Deeds has recovered and is determined to improve the mental health system in Virginia. His first step is creating a searchable database for available beds at all the regional mental hospitals.
A psychiatric bed registry is a good first step.
Just from what I know about this case, this woman needs to be separated from her children (and as soon as she delivers the one she’s carrying, from it too) toot sweet, incarcerated/hospitalized, and evaluated for mental illness. Which is going on as I type, most likely.
Has a “I was obeying God” defense ever worked? As in not ending up in jail or a mental health facility.
Don’t know if it’s the case for you, but when I went to that link the formatting was messed up, making it hard to read, but it was enough to remind me about the case.
I think in that case it was murder, not mental illness. For one thing, insane people usually don’t make up a cover story. Yates admitted she drowned the kids, she didn’t try to blame someone else. Smith needed the kids out of the way but wanted to retain her freedom, so there you go. Smith was actually like someone who knew she did something wrong and was functional enough to try to cover her actions. Yates clearly wasn’t tracking right and wrong and made no effort to cover her tracks.
While smith did have a history of problems, they seemed to be an outgrowth of various forms of abuse rather than a psychotic break. Being abused can make you suicidal and/or lead you to violence, but it doesn’t mean you’re unable to distinguish right from wrong which is the litmus test for whether or not you can be held responsible for your actions.
Of course not, but I presume you are joking, right?
So succinctly, put Broomstick your view is, “man kills kids” bad man, woman kills kids “bad man”.:rolleyes:
Obvious the moment she called Daytona Beach a better place. Cocoa Beach is the correct choice!
Absolutely not, in fact, that is the OPPOSITE of what I have said.
How in the heck do you go from “if there is evidence a man was having a psychotic episode and his family was trying to have him committed when he then committed a crime of this sort I’d argue equally strongly that he should be committed to a mental health facility for treatment.” to “man automatically bad”?
Did you even read my post, or do you have me confused with someone else?
With the caveat I am not a psychiatrist, and have sharply limited access to the facts in any of these cases, it shakes out like this:
Andrea Yates: mentally ill, needs treatment.
Susan Smith: bad woman
Hypothetical man having psychotic break: mentally ill, needs treatment.
Or, for another analogy: If someone deliberately rams a pedestrian with his/her car and kills that pedestrian they’re a murderer, a bad person, and evil (assuming the pedestrian was in no way a threat, of course). If someone is driving, has a massive epileptic fit, and their car goes out of control and kills a pedestrian they aren’t a murder but they are sick and need treatment. And to stop driving.
It is possible for a human brain to malfunction to the point the person shouldn’t be culpable for wrong done.
Of course, just as we don’t let epileptics drive cars we shouldn’t let disconnected-from-reality-and-morality folks in situations where they can hurt other people or themselves. It’s just that it’s a hell of a lot harder to diagnose insanity as opposed to the obvious symptoms of grand mal epilepsy. In both cases, though, the brain isn’t working right.
Can we at least agree after delivery her tubes should be tied?
You’re always wandering into threads making waves.
mmm
Er, speaking of reading posts, I re-read this and WTF? Where am I saying “bad man” when a woman kills her kids?
I think he’s referring to your description of Yates’ husband’s role in her mental breakdown.
I think the only difference is that fathers often use a gun to kill their children, and therefore, are more successful. That doesn’t mean they’re less mentally ill, or that their motives are any different.
Didn’t even notice until now that Broomstick had subtlely, yet effectively, passed the blame from Andrea Yates to her husband and “the system”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
But that’s not surprising – after all, everyone knows that a mother can never deliberately inflict any harm upon her own children, that would go against apple pie and everything else America stands for. The actual blame always belongs elsewhere, logic and reason be damned. //rolleyes//
I’d really, really like to view an example this, where the roles are reversed and everyone’s explaining away the father’s misbehavior. (In other words…cite?)
FTR, I don’t want my previous post to be misinterpreted as any sort of agreement with either AK84 or, especially, buddha_david.