toldailytopic: Should being diagnosed insane excuse capital punishment?

[Silent Hunter]

Probably not, . . .

That's all I needed to know.

 

[Silent Hunter]

Just to let you know, much of that movie is Hollywood. Our visuals (visual hallucinations) are not that grand.

Haven't you ever had a dream so real you thought it WAS real?

 

[Coffee is King]

Haven't you ever had a dream so real you thought it WAS real?

Dreams and hallucinations are very different. Our most common hallucinations are auditory (voices). Mine are threatening and cruel, which is the most common type. Visual hallucinations are not rooms full of people, more like one person, and we can often tell they aren't real. I've seen Peter no-tail ( a cartoon cat I used to watch), and angel that sent me to Texas (long story), and my deceased grandfather.

 

[Silent Hunter]

I don't want to derail the thread so this will be my last post to you on this particular line . . .

Dreams and hallucinations are very different.

Not from MY experience.

Our most common hallucinations are auditory (voices).

You don't speak for me or the whole world of mental health.

Mine are threatening and cruel, which is the most common type.

Right. YOURS are. Not everyone's are.

Visual hallucinations are not rooms full of people, more like one person, and we can often tell they aren't real.

Again, you are speaking from YOUR experience and I know you don't speak for me.

I've seen Peter no-tail ( a cartoon cat I used to watch), and angel that sent me to Texas (long story), and my deceased grandfather.

Your experience . . . again .

 

[Rusha]

The death penalty is wrong, period. Especially for deranged people.

I am certain Roxanne Hayes (if she were still alive) might disagree with you.

I mean seriously ... why shouldn't a nice deranged rapist and mutilator such as Larry Singleton (convicted of raping and cutting off a teenage girl's arms) be released after serving a mere eight years and four months of his 14-year sentence? Of course he needed to move on to his next target, correct?

Ironically, after all these years, Mary Vincent is still serving her sentence. Her arms never grew back.

 

[Buzzword]

Regardless of whether or not someone is truly ill, the threat of them causing harm or death to others should be the deciding factor of their sentencing.

So mens rea or intent has nothing to do with it?

[SVU example time]

Let's say a boy was regularly beaten to the point of brain injury as a child by his abusive mother.

The brain damage causes him to react abnormally to the onset of puberty, and at age 17 he strangles his girlfriend to death during sex.

[/SVU example time]

Whose fault is the girl's death in the above example?

 

[Quincy]

But through it all, I never killed anyone, never thought of killing anyone. I feel that people who do abominable actions only to blame their illness for them are merely excusing their sinister behavior.

Interesting stuff, Coffee!


I'd say no, to the topic at hand.

 

[Coffee is King]

I don't want to derail the thread so this will be my last post to you on this particular line . . .

I left you a message on your profile.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

No ... it should not. Otherwise, individuals such as Andrea Yates will be allowed the freebies of murdering their children (or others) when some shrink gives them a clean bill of *mental* health after supposed treatment.

Great point. :up:

Regardless of whether or not someone is truly ill, the threat of them causing harm or death to others should be the deciding factor of their sentencing.

I agree, although I would say the most important factor of all is... justice. A close second is what you said "the threat of them causing harm or death to others".

 

[ghost]

So mens rea or intent has nothing to do with it?

[SVU time]

Let's say a boy was regularly beaten to the point of brain injury as a child by his abusive mother.

The brain damage causes him to react abnormally to the onset of puberty, and at age 17 he strangles his girlfriend to death during sex.

[/SVU time]

Whose fault is the girl's death in the above example?

The 17 year old boy who knew how to engage in sex and murder. :duh:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

To have a civil society justice must be served. If justice is properly served less people will be victims of crime and less people will become criminals in the first place.

 

[Rusha]

So mens rea or intent has nothing to do with it?

[SVU time]

Let's say a boy was regularly beaten to the point of brain injury as a child by his abusive mother.

The brain damage causes him to react abnormally to the onset of puberty, and at age 17 he strangles his girlfriend to death during sex.

[/SVU time]

Whose fault is the girl's death in the above example?

I am not placing the fault of someone's upbringing on the person beaten. Clearly, this child was also a victim.

However, why should other individuals have their lives put into jeopardy or snuffed out because he is allowed to run free?

Here is my question: Is he still a threat to others as long as he is alive and could possibly be released on society on any given day?

We don't try to treat or analyze why a rabid dog bites, attacks, maims or kills other animals or human beings. Yet we are willing to allow a much more dangerous animal to continue living and thus being a threat to society?

 

[voltaire]

People should not be put to death by the state period. He certainly should have a tougher punishment, but death is not the answer.

Death is not a deterrent to crime. Prison is a deterrent. I would rather die than go through life in prison myself.

 

[Guyver]

I'll second that.

I'll third that and say their punishment should fit their crime.

However....if even one innocent person has been put to death for something that they didn't do.....there's something wrong with the system and it should be changed.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Death is not a deterrent to crime. Prison is a deterrent. I would rather die than go through life in prison myself.

The facts prove you are wrong. Read this post and check out the charts from Battle Royale XI.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

We don't try to treat or analyze why a rabid dog bites, attacks, maims or kills other animals or human beings. Yet we are willing to allow a much more dangerous animal to continue living and thus being a threat to society?

And all in the name of compassion. It simply doesn't make sense does it?

What it really boils down to is we have become more concerned with the guilty than with the innocent.

 

[Sherman]

Mental disease has been used as a lame brain excuse for committing a crime. People have been using this cop out for years. Some even say is dates back to the pagan Code of Hammurabi. It was used in Rome and Greece. Now where in the Bible is this bogus defense used. Each person is held accountable for his actions when he murders someone. This is how murder was dealt with in scripture.

Numbers 35:16-25

16And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.
17And if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.
18Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.
19The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.
20But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die;
21Or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he die: he that smote him shall surely be put to death; for he is a murderer: the revenger of blood shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him.
22But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him any thing without laying of wait,
23Or with any stone, wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm:
24Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments:
25And the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil.

No where in this is any insanity defense.
The nut job defense is just an excuse for killers to get off easy. You have to be crazy to some degree to murder someone. Still all murderers should fry. That will cause any would be killers to think twice.

 

[Selaphiel]

To have a civil society justice must be served. If justice is properly served less people will be victims of crime and less people will become criminals in the first place.

This topic discusses what justice is. The question is whether it is just to convict a person who has no real control over his actions due to serious mental illness who compromises the very human agency that criminal justice itself must assume to justify itself. Think everyone here agrees that justice must be served, the question is: What is justice?

As for your second point. I assume you refer to the death penalty. As far as I know there is little to no evidence that the death penalty prevents crime in a more efficient manner than prison sentences.

No ... it should not. Otherwise, individuals such as Andrea Yates will be allowed the freebies of murdering their children (or others) when some shrink gives them a clean bill of *mental* health after supposed treatment.

First of all, I doubt one psychiatrist is responsible for declaring such a person to be healthy, it is probably done by an entire panel of experts and the chance of them ever becoming healthy are not very good. The question is: On what grounds do you justify executing a person if that persons agency was compromised during the act?

 

[Rusha]

People should not be put to death by the state period. He certainly should have a tougher punishment, but death is not the answer.

Death is not a deterrent to crime.

Dead murderers do not reoffend ... EVER.

Prison is a deterrent. I would rather die than go through life in prison myself.

WRONG. As long as a murderer is alive, they are always a threat to society.

http://www.wesleylowe.com/repoff.html

 

[Rusha]

First of all, I doubt one psychiatrist is responsible for declaring such a person to be healthy, it is probably done by an entire panel of experts and the chance of them ever becoming healthy are not very good. The question is: On what grounds do you justify executing a person if that persons agency was compromised during the act?

Well, in Andrea's case, she was balanced enough to use birth control, seek help from a professional and tell her husband and others that she was afraid she might harm her children.

IF she is well enough to know she *might* hurt her children, then as a mother she should have been well enough to protect those children from HERSELF.