Dealing with the Criminally Insane

[curiosityandthecat]

I thought this may be an interesting topic. I was just reading this article:

Inmate rips out eye, then claims he ate it
Judge ruled him competent to stand trial after similar incident in 2004
Jan. 9, 2009, 10:26PM

A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye, authorities said Friday.

Andre Thomas told officers he ate it.

Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts also had been ripped out. He was convicted and condemned for the infant's death.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6202701.html

(Read the rest of the article... it's special.)

...and it got me to thinking. It's related to the death penalty and therefore morality (hence the Philosophy section), but with the added flavor of insanity (though the concepts of reality and sanity are both debatable). How should we deal with the criminally insane?

[VanReal]

Great topic!  Sanity is a legal term and not a psychological term and I think that confuses a lot of people.  Someone can be legitimately mentally ill and still be considered sane by the courts and therefore considered competent.  But someone can have no shred of mental illness and be considered insane and therefore not considered competent.

Since they found this guy compentent that tells me he has some misfiring going on but is all too aware of his actions.  I don't think anyone would argue that some of our most notorius criminally insane (Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, etc) had some mental issues but they knew what they were doing, covered up their crimes and continued on their path of insanity.

I think Texas has the right idea, although I think we need to usher them into the execution a little more quickly to avoid this kind of delay.

[Kyuuketsuki]

How should we deal with the criminally insane?

Use them as railway sleepers?

Kyu

[SSY]

If I was facing the death penalty, I would rip out an eye in an effort to avoid it, seems like a pretty sane thing to do.

Catch 22 almost.

[Wraitchel]

Man, that's one creepy dude. He looks so calm in his picture. He is clearly off his rocker.

SSY, could you REALLY rip our you eyeball??? Can you even imagine how painful that would be? Have you ever tried to even cut yourself?

This was his ONE GOOD EYE! He already ripped out the other in 2004, and it did him no good legally. It clearly was no legal ploy.

As for what we should do with guys like this, I'm torn. Perhaps the kindest thing is to put him to death. He cannot possibly be happy. I am against the death penalty, though. I think it would behoove us to study him in a lab, both psychiatrically and physiologically to see what went wrong and try to learn from it.

R

[curiosityandthecat]

As for what we should do with guys like this, I'm torn. Perhaps the kindest thing is to put him to death. He cannot possibly be happy. I am against the death penalty, though. I think it would behoove us to study him in a lab, both psychiatrically and physiologically to see what went wrong and try to learn from it.

This is what I was getting to when I created this thread... is this one of those times when we just call "mercy killing" and be done with it? I just don't know where we would draw the line, you know? I mean, maybe the authors of the DSM-V could put something together, but... I mean, wow. Hah.

[SSY]

Man, that's one creepy dude. He looks so calm in his picture. He is clearly off his rocker.

SSY, could you REALLY rip our you eyeball??? Can you even imagine how painful that would be? Have you ever tried to even cut yourself?

This was his ONE GOOD EYE! He already ripped out the other in 2004, and it did him no good legally. It clearly was no legal ploy.

As for what we should do with guys like this, I'm torn. Perhaps the kindest thing is to put him to death. He cannot possibly be happy. I am against the death penalty, though. I think it would behoove us to study him in a lab, both psychiatrically and physiologically to see what went wrong and try to learn from it.

R

if I was depserate, I would give it a damn good go, maybe  :crazy: )

You say you want the kindest thing for them, and consider killing them to be it. But becuase of your own beliefs you instead decide to condemn them in a lab? Surely they will be much more unhappy there than dead? he is still a person, and using a person for experimentation against their will is a bit unethical ( I asuume he would refuse anyway, he may not in order to try and stave off his execution ).

[karadan]

As for what we should do with guys like this, I'm torn. Perhaps the kindest thing is to put him to death. He cannot possibly be happy. I am against the death penalty, though. I think it would behoove us to study him in a lab, both psychiatrically and physiologically to see what went wrong and try to learn from it.

This is what I was getting to when I created this thread... is this one of those times when we just call "mercy killing" and be done with it? I just don't know where we would draw the line, you know? I mean, maybe the authors of the DSM-V could put something together, but... I mean, wow. Hah.

I don't think there is a line.. To me, anyone with the ability to kill someone is broken. It is just a matter of how broken they are. With regards to why people get this way? Well, it is obviously an enormously complicated socio-environmental question. If there was a straight answer, we'd have dealt with the problem by now. If I am to simplify things though, I'm pretty sure most people in a secure unit can profess to having had a really shitty life.

The positive correlation between a healthy mind and a happy life is no coincidence.

As to what we should do with 'broken' people? Simply keep them away from the rest of society whilst trying to solve the massive issues which lead to people becoming this way in the first place.

[Loffler]

If I was facing the death penalty, I would rip out an eye in an effort to avoid it, seems like a pretty sane thing to do.

Catch 22 almost.

Seeing how you'd probably have to be crazy in order to go through with it, it's actually exactly like Catch 22.

[Loffler]

All law theory should be approached in this way: how you want the system work if it happened to you?

What if you were the perpetrator or perpetrator's family?

What if you were the victim or victim's family?

The thing about insanity is it can happen to anyone, even good people. There's no appeal to deterrents to be made. If I go insane and kill people, I'd like to be treated like any other sick person and merely be isolated from others, like in an asylum.

[curiosityandthecat]

The thing about insanity is it can happen to anyone, even good people. There's no appeal to deterrents to be made. If I go insane and kill people, I'd like to be treated like any other sick person and merely be isolated from others, like in an asylum.

If you go insane and kill people, are you sure you would understand that you should be isolated from others? Most murderers who perpetrated via reasons of insanity believe they are justified and did nothing wrong. Some even feel a tremendous weight lifted after the murders have taken place, and feel completely "normal" again.

[Loffler]

The thing about insanity is it can happen to anyone, even good people. There's no appeal to deterrents to be made. If I go insane and kill people, I'd like to be treated like any other sick person and merely be isolated from others, like in an asylum.

If you go insane and kill people, are you sure you would understand that you should be isolated from others? Most murderers who perpetrated via reasons of insanity believe they are justified and did nothing wrong. Some even feel a tremendous weight lifted after the murders have taken place, and feel completely "normal" again.

I didn't say I'd want to be isolated once I'd already gone crazy, I'm telling you what I'd want right now. And that's the best compromise between what I'd want as the victim and what I'd want as the perpetrator.

[Ihateyoumike]

This will probably be the harshest post I write on this forum.
I have zero sympathy for people like that. My opinion, it's too bad that he couldn't just be killed after what he did to his innocent wife and child. I don't care if it's painful or quick and peaceful for him, but he should be dead. It's a waste of alot of taxpayer money to keep people like him alive, IMO. I don't care if the guy was criminally insane, or in his "right mind" (though I don't see how that could be possible) the world is a better place without him. Some people have mentioned learning from him. How is that going to help prevent things like this from happening in the future? It won't as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, maybe it'll just let us know why someone did what they did after the fact in the future, but most of the time you can't see these things coming. How many serial killers/rapists/child molesters/etc.. have all the people after the fact said something along the lines of, "I never saw this coming," or "It couldn't have been them, they were just too normal/nice/loving/etc..."
Unfortunately, the "insane" just seem entirely too "sane" until after the deed has been done and it's too late.
And what good could come out of their seclusion from the rest of society? What positives can be gained from throwing them in a cage for the rest of their miserable lives? How does society benefit from that?
Society loses would be my answer.

[karadan]

This will probably be the harshest post I write on this forum.
I have zero sympathy for people like that. My opinion, it's too bad that he couldn't just be killed after what he did to his innocent wife and child. I don't care if it's painful or quick and peaceful for him, but he should be dead. It's a waste of alot of taxpayer money to keep people like him alive, IMO. I don't care if the guy was criminally insane, or in his "right mind" (though I don't see how that could be possible) the world is a better place without him. Some people have mentioned learning from him. How is that going to help prevent things like this from happening in the future? It won't as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, maybe it'll just let us know why someone did what they did after the fact in the future, but most of the time you can't see these things coming. How many serial killers/rapists/child molesters/etc.. have all the people after the fact said something along the lines of, "I never saw this coming," or "It couldn't have been them, they were just too normal/nice/loving/etc..."
Unfortunately, the "insane" just seem entirely too "sane" until after the deed has been done and it's too late.
And what good could come out of their seclusion from the rest of society? What positives can be gained from throwing them in a cage for the rest of their miserable lives? How does society benefit from that?
Society loses would be my answer.

For the simple reason that the justice system sometimes makes mistakes and the wrong people are put to death... With the small chance that this can happen, it is worth keeping people in a jail rather than putting them down, no matter what they have done, in my opinion.

[AnnaM]

Criminal is a juridical term (tortious interference); and insane is a pseudo-medical term.  'Criminally insane' is just non-sequitur.
Any 'sane' society will always condone retaliation against property agressors, and only property agressors.  I'm not interested in the military supercriminals and those who support them, nor their preferences, as regards acceptable institutions.