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As someone with, unfortunately, direct personal experience testifying in a murder trial where an insanity defense was attempted, I have to be incredibly skeptic

by Natsu 6y ago

As someone with, unfortunately, direct personal experience testifying in a murder trial where an insanity defense was attempted, I have to be incredibly skeptical about doctors ability to declare someone 'safe' for society in any capacity. Especially when a wrongful death suit revealed them neatly discharged from any duty to the public. I feel like this is fundamentally misguided on some level when, apparently, there's fundamentally no one charged with any meaningful duty towards protecting those who get victimized. But most people never have to think about this, so how many even think about kids who find brain matter from a badly beaten "hat" staining the basement walls?

pdonis 6y ago
> I have to be incredibly skeptical about doctors ability to declare someone 'safe' for society in any capacity. I share your skepticism, but unfortunately I don't think anyone else has that ability either. So any time anyone who raises an insanity defense is allowed to go free, society is taking a risk. In the particular case discussed in this article, I'm not sure there was much of a risk, since the reason for the claimed insanity was a very particular situation and it was directed at particular individuals. There was no evidence that the defendant was likely to harm anyone else. But of course that's not true in many cases involving an insanity defense.
derbOac 6y ago
But does insanity imply safe? My understanding is that it just implies a different course of action. Maybe we differ but I do more trust that decision to be made as a medical one, perhaps with layers of oversight or committee approval, than anything else. To me the idea of denying this in a judicial setting even as a possibility is absurd. Maybe I misread it, but I thought the piece was arguing against the broader rationales about grounds rather than anything about the disposition of the particular case per se.
- Natsu 6y ago
  A successful insanity defense sends them to a psychiatric hospital instead of prison, generally. Then the doctors there do their best to determine when their patient is safe to rejoin society. One particular problem is that a person might theoretically be safe as long as they take their medicine, but many, many patients are utterly incapable of doing that on their own and any slip-up is likely to lead to more slip-ups until they end up unmedicated entirely. There are partial solutions like long-lasting injections for some things, but I also know that even if that's the proper standard of care, the doctors may fail to apply it with disastrous results and still walk away without even any liability despite having clear warning that their actions were putting someone in danger. So seeing this intellectual masturbation by lawyers is actually quite painful to me given what I've lived through. Especially when it practically requires mind reading to say what the person really thought, the idea that people could get off by claiming to have killed a "hat" with a bit of coaching is extremely troubling and I'm glad that judges aren't buying this nonsense. Sure, one can also look at the person's actions for any indication they knew they were doing something morally wrong or that they might be punished for, but I'm still against opening up the insanity defense. If anything, a true insanity defense should make it clear that someone shouldn't be a part of society because we should be far more skeptical about our ability to fix mental disorders than these lawyers seem to be. I'd like to see how quickly they reconsider this if the lawyers pushing the defense had to live with their clients for, say, a year afterward.

by Natsu 6y ago

pdonis 6y ago

> I have to be incredibly skeptical about doctors ability to declare someone 'safe' for society in any capacity. I share your skepticism, but unfortunately I don't think anyone else has that ability either. So any time anyone who raises an insanity defense is allowed to go free, society is taking a risk. In the particular case discussed in this article, I'm not sure there was much of a risk, since the reason for the claimed insanity was a very particular situation and it was directed at particular individuals. There was no evidence that the defendant was likely to harm anyone else. But of course that's not true in many cases involving an insanity defense.

derbOac 6y ago

But does insanity imply safe? My understanding is that it just implies a different course of action. Maybe we differ but I do more trust that decision to be made as a medical one, perhaps with layers of oversight or committee approval, than anything else. To me the idea of denying this in a judicial setting even as a possibility is absurd. Maybe I misread it, but I thought the piece was arguing against the broader rationales about grounds rather than anything about the disposition of the particular case per se.

Natsu 6y ago
A successful insanity defense sends them to a psychiatric hospital instead of prison, generally. Then the doctors there do their best to determine when their patient is safe to rejoin society. One particular problem is that a person might theoretically be safe as long as they take their medicine, but many, many patients are utterly incapable of doing that on their own and any slip-up is likely to lead to more slip-ups until they end up unmedicated entirely. There are partial solutions like long-lasting injections for some things, but I also know that even if that's the proper standard of care, the doctors may fail to apply it with disastrous results and still walk away without even any liability despite having clear warning that their actions were putting someone in danger. So seeing this intellectual masturbation by lawyers is actually quite painful to me given what I've lived through. Especially when it practically requires mind reading to say what the person really thought, the idea that people could get off by claiming to have killed a "hat" with a bit of coaching is extremely troubling and I'm glad that judges aren't buying this nonsense. Sure, one can also look at the person's actions for any indication they knew they were doing something morally wrong or that they might be punished for, but I'm still against opening up the insanity defense. If anything, a true insanity defense should make it clear that someone shouldn't be a part of society because we should be far more skeptical about our ability to fix mental disorders than these lawyers seem to be. I'd like to see how quickly they reconsider this if the lawyers pushing the defense had to live with their clients for, say, a year afterward.