According to the New York Times, [Jared Loughner] may plead not guilty by reason of insanity. How do mental-health experts figure out whether a federal defendant should qualify for the insanity defense?
With difficulty. To prove insanity in court, defense attorneys must demonstrate that their client’s mental illness prevented him from understanding the wrongness of his criminal undertaking at the time of the offense. (This standard is stricter than merely showing the defendant generally cannot not tell right from wrong.) They must also show a clear connection between the defendant’s delusions and the crime he committed. So, for example, a paranoid schizophrenic shoplifter who burgles a melon because he’s hungry probably won’t get off the hook. But a similar shoplifter who steals the melon because he believes the melon will neutralize a chip the CIA planted in his brain probably will.
[…]
In the end, evaluators can only state their opinions and how they arrived at their conclusions. Ultimately it’s up to a judge or jury to determine whether the insanity defense holds water.
John Doe: It’s more comfortable for you to label me as insane.
David Mills: It’s VERY comfortable.
— from the movie Se7ven
Just say God made you do it and quote anything from the old testament, especially Deuteronomy.
Ex with Melon theft.
God told me to take the melon because he hath given the fruits of the earth to the Sons of God and the merchant was a heretic and deserves nothing of God’s goodness.
For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, neither turned they from their wicked works. Nehemiah 9:38
That should do it.
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In this case, it is his only defense. It doesn’t mean that it will work. They have nothing to loose by trying.
A reasonable discussion on the topic from a respected source of hard news:
In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?
He won’t get to take a long “dirt nap” because this is not like McVeigh.
Shame that we can’t just execute him for being a f*ckin’ nut, but we can’t.
Then again, one problem with the insanity defense is that its not enough to hold onto an irrational belief (or even a whole raft of bat-sh*t crazy beliefs.)
Causality (if A then B) is a rare thing to believe in nowadays.
By those standards every religious person would be disqualified from a jury pool.
(If there IS a guy living in the sky, then the flowers are marking the path to Valhalla.)
Where did he get all the money for hotel rooms and a gun if he was broke and had no job? He’s not crazy, he’s play’n you all. It’s too bad they don’t hang criminals in the town square as an example anymore.
GF- guns and hotel rooms are pretty cheap. Well, I suppose that depends on what hotel he was staying at – certainly, I hope, not the Westin. But guns are pretty damn cheap these days.
Good luck to the defense lawyer – insanity is a pretty tough defense to pull off in federal court. She’s got a mighty set of brass balls, no doubt about it. But at least that mug shot should go a pretty long way to convincing folk Mr. Laughner is out of it.
To me anyone who kills another person without obvious reasons of self-defense is just plain crazy, major screws loose somewhere by definition. Who cares what sad childhood they had or whatever, they’ve jumped the track, that’s all.
Probably the USA ‘founding fathers’ didn’t think much about how violently deranged people might seek a vain-glorious notoriety by shooting people at random in front of global media cameras. What fools they were for not anticipating such things, letting everyone have guns, eh?
(I’ve heard, though, that in authoritarian gun-controlled China crazy guys simply take kids hostage with knives and axes)
I’ve been around folks with mental illness (“psychologically challenged” is the p.c. term) all my life, and I’ve heard that disturbed people who go violent in this condition are actually quite rare. It’s the spectacular ones that everybody hears about.
I’m no therapist but I’d say the one of the most difficult thing professionals in the criminally insane field have to deal with is determining what is the actual pathological condition of the perpetrator as opposed to just a plain old “bad news personality”. Might be a combination of both, even.
Bats in the belfry, though, whatever it is.
@#4 “He won’t get to take a long “dirt nap” because this is not like McVeigh.” – so what is difference? This one being Extreme Left nut vs. Extreme Right nut McVeigh? This was as intentional and planned attack on Govt. as McVeigh one. As for “mental” issues they are both crazy from the viewpoint and expectations of ordinary person. What is missing is understanding that mentally healthy but evil and ideology driven individual may logically perceive horrific acts as proper. No mental illness needed. Just rabid hate. Example seen much more frequently: masses of J.L. friends in thought rioting, smashing, destroying, attacking… everything in sight where- and when-ever G7, G20,… meeting occur. Same hatred and ideology driven “lunacy” as seen from normal people viewpoint. Normal and planned acts by viewpoints of participants in these riots.
The “legal standard” here is actually quite simple to understand: would the defendant have done the act WITH a cop standing right next to him thinking the cop would not care or even might help? THAT is legally insane. This guy is no where close to that.
So, as always, the more important question is why should such a person, be considered “Innocent” of the crime? No intent was formed to do the illegal act is the response grounded in English common law. I call shenanigans. OBVIOUSLY–the legally insane and those not even close to it should be GUILTY BUT INSANE and either executed or be deemed to have volunteered for medical experiments.
All part of living in a Luddite Society.
Greatest threat to society – the millions of unhinged right wing loons awaiting approval from their perceived leaders to commit atrocities.
Never mind the few hundred truly insane. These usually get caught or represent a lessor risk. This one looks like a real loon and should just get a couple rounds.
The REAL problem are the MILLIONS that are a snort of cocaine waiting to take down a public figure thinking it’s the patriotic thing to do.
The biggest threat to our democracy are semi-loons elevated to public figure status – ie Sarah Palin and that Witch loon, whats-her-face.
Dalls–that is a blood libel against cocaine users. You should be ashamed of yourself. Good call on that Witch loon, whats-her-face got caught misusing raised funds and will get away with it like any good Puke though.
#11 “This one looks like a real loon and should just get a couple rounds.”
Fortunately your remarks show the careful thought and restraint that is the hallmark of uneducated left wing loons.
Perpetuate the hate speech why don’t you?
The US justice system now permits waterboarding.
So what else do really you need to know?
I don’t suffer from mental illness, I enjoy it!
so we are going to spend 30k a year to keep him alive ?
#16
Better than 400k in trial costs alone, plus another 115k for experts and then the cost of everything else before he even goes to jail to sit on death row for 3-5 automatic appeals due to capital punishment laws.
On average we spend about 1.5 million to keep a person in jail for life.
That amount can be easily reached by the court costs alone in capital punishment. And then you still have the potential of him staying on death row for 15-20 years on our dime. And death row inmates cannot work in the regular population like lifers.
I’d stick with the lower cost of life and have them work in the prison than trying for capital punishment.
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Disregarding the costs (which i agree are an important consideration) the logical justice to this tragedy is two actions.
(1) immediate execution by firing squad to the loon who committed this atrocity
(2) 1yr jail time and 10 yrs probation for Palin for accessory to murder.
Insanity shouldn’t be a defense. If you’re insane, that’s even less reason for me to want you around. If you’re permanently insane, let’s take you out and put you down like a rabid dog. If it’s temporary, let’s treat you and then try you for your crimes.
Insanity isn’t a defense for anything.
>I’d stick with the lower cost of life and have them work in the prison
Why have them work?
Hopefully, he’ll just kill himself in his cell or shanked by another prisoner and we can save ourselves the cost of both a trial and incarceration.
Now they’re saying that Loughner was taking Salvia. And using the outrage to legislation to make its sale and possession illegal. Haven’t we learned from past experience with Pot, that this doesn’t work? It only ends up putting relatively harmless users, in prison with the killers and other hard cases. Burdens the police forces with another thing to stop, without any added funding to do it. A gives the drug traffickers a new product to exploit. So one nutjob went off and killed some people. And maybe, MAYBE, he smoked something, or ate something, that distorted his judgment. That’s no call for wide spread banning of anything he may have used. He used a gun, and they’re NOT talking about making those illegal.
This guy said enough that he left a record showing he knew he was about to do a bad thing. He also said enough that he doesn’t completely sort out his dream world from the real world. I think he is going to pass for sane in that he knew what he was doing was wrong and he would pay a price.