posted on March 13, 2002 02:25:25 PM newIt's a simplistic approach to a complex situation, if you fry the person you don't have to find a way to cure the person.
More like warehousing rather than cure. Back in the 70s, Rosalyn Carter tried to raise awareness of the realities of mental illness. Health and Human Services under the Reagan administration were too concerned with the rights of Baby Does to concern themselves with what happens to the mentally incompetant when adult. link It's been downhill ever since for the mentally ill. State psych facilities where the forensic psych patients are tough places to work.
KatyD and Skylarraye, I just about had to heimlich myself. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on March 13, 2002 03:16:32 PM new
Its so nice to see someone greet me after such a long time with such a lovely response. Hello sky. long time no see. Feel better now?
Katyd, someday maybe you will enlighten me as to what you are talking about with stoke34.
It isnt going over my head, the responses Im getting and the "innuendo". I might be bullheaded, but Im not stupid. Hope y'all are enjoying yourselves. It isnt at my expense, like you think.
[ edited by hepburn on Mar 13, 2002 03:18 PM ]
posted on March 13, 2002 03:42:28 PM new
LOL! I do love this forum, its so very entertaining.
KatyD - exactly who do you think I am? Please, go on, I can't tell you how funny it is to see your many posts accusing me of being some other regular poster here.
Here are a few facts to help you with your guessing - 1. I'm male 2. I live in Southern California 3. I'm married and am the father of two small children 4. I've lurked on and off in this forum long enough to know the cast of usual characters here 5. I believe paranoid, dellusional message board posters are funny as hell.
But hey, that must all be made up right? Becasue, heaven forbid, someone delurk and actually have an opinion that doesn't jibe with the bleeding-heart crowd. Oh, and KatyD, if I don't get back to your response in a "timely" manner, it might be because I work for a living and check in when its convenient for me. Or I guess I coulda forgot my password - ROFL!
posted on March 13, 2002 03:45:55 PM new
"It's a simplistic approach to a complex situation, if you fry the person you don't have to find a way to cure the person."
Depends on what you mean by "cure" doesm't it? I mean frying her certainly cures her from ever doing it again, right?
posted on March 13, 2002 04:00:00 PM new
"What happened to the children is worse than horrible, but the responsibility is on more people's head than just the mother."
So how do you propose to deal with those "responsible"? And exactly how are you going to qualify that responsibility? Does Yates spend the rest of her days in pysche ward and her husband in prision? How about her doctors, do they go to priosion as well? Yates committed murder, no if and or but about it. We know that as a certain fact. Please explain how all the others who are "responsible" should be charged and how they should be punished.
posted on March 13, 2002 04:45:47 PM new
Snowey - dellusions as in those who are convinced that I'm someone other than a person sufficiently moved by this topic to delurk. KatyD can fill you in.
As for the compliment, I'm glad you took it as such. I wonder, though, if your compassion for the killer is stronger than your compassion for the victims and other potential victims of those who choose murder as a way for dealing with depression.
Oh, and KatyD - my thoughts exactly.
[ edited by Stoke34 on Mar 13, 2002 04:48 PM ]
posted on March 13, 2002 05:07:28 PM new
Actually, rather than hallucinations or delusions, perhaps it is more along the lines of multiple personality disorder.
posted on March 13, 2002 05:42:40 PM new
KatyD, it never leaves my computer. Maybe I should put the DSM here too.
Stoke, it's obvious you don't understand the difference between neurosis and psychosis. Welcome You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on March 13, 2002 06:18:41 PM new
Mentally ill people do not "chose" to commit otherwise criminal acts. They are compelled and their inhibitions overwhelmed in carrying out these activities.
The motivations are not deliberated, weighing the consequences, and chosen as with normal people. Mentally ill people have no more choice in these actions than someone with OCD chooses to wash their hands 300 times a day.
It is too late to give compassion towards the dead children, it will do them no good, nor will punishing their mother serve any useful purpose.
Murder is not just the taking of a life, it also requires a mental state capable of having criminal intent. Mentally ill people, as well as retarded people, lack the mental capacity to form criminal intent.
posted on March 13, 2002 07:02:57 PM new
REAMOND- Like most things in life, mental illness is a question of degree and semantics. Not to mention medication. To say that all mentally ill people have no choices is too simplistic. How about those who are medicated? How about those who are episodic?
posted on March 13, 2002 07:07:09 PM new
I found this one on that link. Reminds me of a few people I have met online. oppositional defiant disorder
Yes, please. Put some of your very fine and very useful tin foil beanies up for the next RAG. I really need them.Some unseen force seems to be sucking my brain out and I need them to counteract the force.
posted on March 13, 2002 08:57:56 PM new
Stusi- Perhaps I was not clear. The acts and lack of choices in question would be while in a state of mental illness.
posted on March 14, 2002 02:07:43 AM new
rawbunzel- Oppositionally defiant adults are all too common. They often will argue for the sake of argument, sometimes taking conflicting points of view. Remind you of anyone here?
REAMOND- Yes, of course. But not all those so labeled are always without choices as intellect still plays a big part in one's actions. For example, a delusional person may hear voices but doesn't necessarily feel compelled to obey them. Some may still know right from wrong. Others may not.
posted on March 14, 2002 08:25:38 AM new
I don't know why I feel compelled to post in this thread. The RT is a place that I've always avoided, mainly because there are no solutions for controversial subjects like this...only polarization, an entrenchment in beliefs, and little respect or effort to understand those who differ in point of view.
I think a case can be made where virtually ANYONE, who murders, could be considered mentally incompetent.
Hitler, McVeigh, Charles Manson, the 9-11 terrorists, Andrea Yates, etc...that list goes on and on....
The question is... "Now WHAT do you do with these people?" ...the ones that are still alive after their acts?
Bottom line...I think SOCIETY has a right to NEVER have people, like Andrea Yates, "at large" again. Isolate and lock them up until their death...or execute them. It's a hard decision to determine WHICH is more humane. If it was my punishment to bear, I would hope for execution. To me, that would be the MORE humane form of punishment.
I realize that is because I have the spiritual faith of a "next life" and it contributes to my thoughts. Those who are agnostic might have a different point-of-view.
I will defer to the 12 "peers" who have sat in that courtroom, with the unenviable task of determining what is "right". After all, they have witnessed the entire process and must make a determination based on the evidence submitted. The jury system is not perfect...because there are humans involved...but I can think of no other way that is better...for society, or for those accused.
posted on March 14, 2002 09:17:41 AM new
I have a close friend who is now old and has alzheimer's. When I was little I greatly admired this beautiful, talented and refined lady. One day while visiting she grabbed my 6 yr old daughter by the hair and hurt her and scared her half to death. I didn't know she had violent tendencies. No one told me that after Alzheimer's hit, she developed a hatred for her toddler grandaughter and had tried to strangle her. Now I do not leave my kids near her, and they don't get close.
To any onlookers it would seem that she continually targets her gd and has murderous tendencies. The truth is she doesn't know and would be horrified if she did know. But for everyone else's safety, she needs to be under constant care.
Normally I would have wanted Andrea put to death for murdering her kids. But there are medical records showing an already existing problem. She thought cartoon characters were talking to her from the TV!!! She should have had decisions made for her like a child or alzheimer's victim with adult supervision. As far as the liability of the husband, doctor, and family members - that's so hard to judge. I admit to being agry at the husband, but I can only go on what the media says.
At the very least this has started a big debate on the subject of mental health.
posted on March 14, 2002 10:29:16 AM new
gawooley- There are those who just place no value on the lives of certain others and commit premeditated murder. I don't believe them to be necessarily mentally incompetent. Their competence may have nothing to do with it. These people should be executed. There should be no chance of them ever entering society again and no one should have to pay for their upkeep.
posted on March 14, 2002 10:43:57 AM new
I don't think what happens to Andrea Yates is the issue. It's more like what to do with people who kill their kids. Obviously they're insane to do something like that in the first place, so wouldn't anyone who does this be nuts? What if the dad killed them?? Would anyone think twice about what to do with him?
"Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much....."
posted on March 14, 2002 11:17:40 AM new
Hi Krafty! Good to see you!
Actually, Andrea Yates is the issue here due to the post partum depression aspect and the length of time she had been suffering with it and trying to get help for it. Men may suffer from some other mental affliction that drives them to murder their children....like the man in the news yesterday that set the house on fire killing all 6 of his children and then bringing the estranged wife to view the conflagration. [he did try to slit his own throat when confronted]. We'll have to wait what will hapen to him. Each instance of murder has its own individual cause. That is why we have to have trials for these people. As I said before...one size [verdict] does not fit all.
posted on March 14, 2002 07:01:16 PM new Hepburn, there's a shoot-from-the-hip bauve* you indulge sometimes that comes across as being so rooted in emotion that (to many) very little thought seems to accompany it. I know you're a talented artist and a helpful person. I also know that you imbibe the world in a single draught: people are either good or bad; right or wrong. While a part of me (and perhaps others) might relish the clear-conscience simplicity of viewing humanity in a similar black-and-white way, I, personally, have had to succumb to the reality of "mitigating" circumstances: I make allowances every day -- for the mentally retarded baggers Safeway has graciously employed, who nevertheless crush my eggs beneath the canned goods; for the indigent Thorazine crowd who wander away from the "treatment" center and clog traffic by stalling confusedly in the crosswalks on the main thoroughfares of my town; for the Mom in her SUV who's in such a hurry to pick up her kids from school on time that she blocks my driveway for half an hour. These are minor things, obviously, but they're easily the stuff that could surge one-already-on-the-edge into the sorts of rampages we read about every day in our local newspapers; people who feel "slighted" by socety in their day-to-day lives.
Back on topic, I think Andrea Yates is mentally ill. I would confine her to a treatment facility and sterilize her. I'd sterlize her husband, too, for I'm not at all convinced that this woman was not pushed over an edge I hope none of us ever have to know by being forced to have more children than she wanted or could cope with.
And if you ever cut off the utilities to one of your non-paying tenants, Hep, I'll look for the mitigating circumstances in your trial, too...
* bauve: way of being, personality; affect; manner
posted on March 15, 2002 09:55:20 AM new
Did anyone else hear the following...
On Court TV today, Catherine Crier (former judge) said that during the trial the prosecution had questioned several defense witnesses about an episode of NBC's Law & Order in which a mother drowns her child and is acquitted on an insanity defense. The prosecution said that Yates had seen the episode two weeks prior to killing her children and suggested that that episode prompted her to use an insanity defense, as she thought she'd be acquitted.
It's been discovered that no such episode even exists and the defense team considered flying down Dick Wolf, the producer of the show, to testify to such. I don't know why they didn't.
Crier thinks the jury might have embraced the theory that Yates exaggerated her illness, based on this show. Since no such episode exists, she thinks this is going to be major issue for appeal.
**To clarify as I just heard a little more about this:
Park Dietz, the prosecution's witness, has worked as a consultant on Law & Order a few times. During cross examination he brought up the "Andrea watched that show" possibility.
Upon finding out that this particular show doesn't exist, the defense asked for a mistrial, which of course, was denied.
posted on March 15, 2002 01:10:25 PM new
Quote from AOL news:
[b]''This crime is the crime of ultimate betrayal: the ultimate betrayal of a mother to her children,'' Williford said. ''Those children never had a chance.''
"She will live the rest of her life knowing what she's done.
''When it comes to punishment, there can be no greater punishment."[/b]
IMO, she deserves to live with this every day of her life, death would be too kind.
[ edited by deichen on Mar 15, 2002 01:12 PM ]
posted on March 17, 2002 08:31:20 PM new
So if she should not be fried, then will the courts recognize female insanity, if they do so will they just recognize it when they want to ? the fact is the hour before she did this, she could have picked up the phone and had her old man arrested for domestic abuse, hell she could have had him arrested after, you know if the kids had killed her they could have asked the court to go soft on orphans. Yes she was mentally ill so what ! they kids are dead .... dead.... Dead....
