http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14024728/

this story still haunts me. does anybody remember this? horrific. however, she suffered from postpartum depression that went untreated for years, after several pregnancies. how does everyone here feel about the verdict?

the best part is photos of her lawyers consoling her, shaking her hand.

captions read: andrea yates and lawyers react to her being found not guilty.

captions should read: lawyers tell andrea yates 'congrats, we've proved in a court of law that you're a fucking loonie!'

ha! i thought of that, too. it's not much to celebrate, huh?

i'm not sure that were i in her shoes, i wouldn't rather die. how could you live with the knowledge you murdered your own children?

probably the correct verdict, though.

you know, that's the second thing i thought about when the story about the murders broke. first of course was those poor children and what they went through. then i thought, HOW does someone live with that? and what about the husband? in some ways, i blame him for not getting her some help when it was obvious she was falling off her rocker. and um, how's about we stop making more kids until we figure out how to take care of these without killing them???

I've always thought the insanity defense is a bunch of crap. I mean no kidding she's insane. Anyone who kills another human is insane. I can't think of one case where somebody murders someone and you'd say they weren't insane. Rational/normal people do not kill other humans.

I believe most of us get your point, but some people kill because of a severe mental illness. The insanity defense is absolutely not "a bunch of crap," in my opinion.

Overly simplistic response, but you'll get the point:

Insane: When someone kills another human because they believe that person must be killed to enter heaven, or that they are Satan and must be stopped, they are insane.

Not insane: When someone shoots a dude because he spit on his girlfriend, or when a guy kills a guy for the kilo of cocaine in his truck, or the old man kills his wife who is terminally ill, or the Mafia hit man who takes out a snitch... not insane.

The real question is, even if they are insane, does that make it even more safe for these people to be walking around? If the legal system existed for the sole purpose of doling out justice, than the difference would be important, but if protecting people is also one its functions, I would say the ability of the defendant to rationalize is moot.

The distinction is important because the result may be prison / death penalty vs. hospitalization / treatment.

That said, most mental illnesses respond well to treatment. The reality is that people sometimes are "off the streets" longer with a not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) vs. a guilty verdict. NGRI typically results in hospitalization (locked, secure hospital) with a stipulation that the person not be released until doctors and the judge deem him/her to be safe. In the case of patients who have killed, many doctors are quite reluctant to release these folks. When they are released, they nearly universally are under strict, regular supervision, monitoring, often given injections of medications to ensure compliance, etc.

There is a dude in Ohio who shot and killed his parents around 15-20 years ago. Clearly mentally ill, NGRI case, was hospitalized for many years, but for a few years now he's been out, is stable, monitored by mental health professionals.


Anyways, it's certainly a tricky, difficult issue. But, as a mental health professional, I have met numerous folks over the years who clearly are out of touch with reality because of a medical problem such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.

There's a world of difference between these folks and murderers who do not have a mental illness.

Peace.

You realize that people who are found to be insane at trial are more or less institutionalized for life, right? Yates will almost certainly never see light of day again.

Honestly, I have no clue how the mental health system works. If they're locked up in a safe place to be treated until they're safe as smiler said, I have no problem with that.

see the thing is, everyones all pissed off and what not..saying....she got out of it, i cant believe it

fact is that id much rather spend my life in a prison than a metnal institution..she didnt get outta shit..shes gonna spend the rest of her life around people who are beyond fucked up..people who like to wake up every morning and play chinese checkers with george washington and liberace, or hang with a dude who likes to watch a television for 10 hours a day..with nothin on the screen..see what im sayin..at least in prison you can have a somehwat normal conversation with someone, or lift weights, or play a game of basketball..

If you like teh butt secks, you definitely have a point.

Its probably easier for female inmates to avoid getting raped, methinks.

I think this is something I should avoid trying to visualize.

anyone who murders someone is not insane, thats one of THE stupidest things i have read on here

i can think of several situations where i could easily take someones life and piss on them to boot

that's nice, but you DO realize this thread isn't about YOU, right?



are you a mental health expert? if not, then you really should refrain from making such ill-informed declarations.

I guess I'll play the Devil's Advocate and mention the possibility that everything the experts understand about mental health could be wrong. I'm not inclined to believe the odds of such are particularly high, but scientists are only beginning to figure out how the mind works. Alan Turing provided some interesting ideas in his work on Artificial Intelligence, when he responded to the proposal that machines would never be able to achieve thought by mentioning that we can't even begin to understand how thought works.

I obviously have not studied mental health, but it's really hard to say that the motivations of criminals, insane or not, are difficult, if not impossible, to determine. It seems that a link can be made between the chemical balance in one's mind and his behaviors, but who's to say exactly what they're thinking? Is it conceivable that crazy people can still make decisions they know are morally wrong? Even dogs and other less intelligent creatures are able to be taught some semblence of a moral code.

i'm no expert, either, which is why when it comes to something like this, i tend to leave it to them to determine. the field of psychology/psychiatry still, to this day, suffers from the stigma of being a pseudo-science. this is largely because most people need to SEE a problem in order to believe it exists, i.e., broken leg = can't walk for a while, head bashed in with shovel = killer headache. but unfortunately, much about health and science and certainly mental health, cannot be wrapped up in such neat little black & white packages. it's nuanced and complicated and there are lots of shades of gray. hence, we have people who spend years and years studying and doing research into disease and disorders, and while there are certainly "quacks" in ALL occupations, i think we need to put some trust into the fact that they know more about it than most of us.

Well, that's not really my point. I acknowledge that they know a great deal about behavioral patterns and whatnot. That's not the problem--the problem is that the entire foundation the science as a whole rests upon is something completely unknown to humans. The whole study relies on human thought. What if there was some important discover regarding thought that totally changes everything?

The other potential problem I see is this: certainly there's not some distinct line that can be drawn between rational and irrational. How much rationality is required to deem someone legally sane? And what about those people who are only temporarily insane? I've seen plenty of cases where someone would normally be sane, but, because of some extreme emotions, acts irrationally. Certainly these people don't get a pass, right?