Reply to Why are people more sympathetic to Lindsay Clancy than Andrea Yates? (Child death mentioned)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How sad to have a life, a pretty nice life it seems, and for it to vanish in a blink. I feel so terrible for the grandparents and extended family and friends too. How tragic the whole thing. So many lives destroyed. [/quote]
I feel bad for her, too.[/quote]

I feel bad for Cora, Dawson, and Callan.  [/quote]

We truly lack understanding of severe mental illness.[/quote]

Weird response. 
We hold others accountable when they do bad things and are mentally ill. Why would she be the exception?[/quote]

In the legal system there is an entire framework regarding accountability for criminal acts and mitigation because of mental illness.

Nicholas Cruz undoubtedly and indisputably had mental illness and a history of being abused as well as other mitigating factors like FAS which the jury considered in deciding to spare him from the death penalty despite his horrific actions, which were determined to be crimes because he was not floridly psychotic at the time he committed them.

Andrea Yates and other post partum moms suffering psychosis have been found not guilty by reason of insanity- or the equivalent language, it differs by jurisdiction- because they were floridly psychotic at the time of the actions and that is a level of mental illness which the law recognizes removes from the person the ability to choose to conform their behavior to the law. It is akin to a compulsion defense. Florid psychosis is the one of the few mental illness manifestations which meets the legal standard for insanity. The kid in Florida who killed a couple in their garage in the midst of a florid psychotic episode wherein he was suffering from a Lycanthropy delusion in which he believed he was a werewolf and he tried to eat the face off one of his victims, total strangers to him and he attacked them on a walk home from dinner. Law enforcement tazed him and beat him repeatedly and EMS finally had to sedate him to get him to stop eating the victim's face. No, he was NOT on drugs.  Does anyone really dispute that such behavior is INSANE?

About one quarter to one third of people in prison are mentally ill. It is quite likely higher than that, even. Some of them should have benefitted from alternative dispositions but most are benefit just of some mitigation at sentencing because the level of mental illness doesn’t arise to absolution because of being incapable of forming mens rea - intent - in the context of a sane mind.

Yes, some mentally ill people are still competent to comport their behavior and thus belong in prison when convicted. Some mental ill people lack the capacity to comport their behavior and they belong in a forensic psychiatric hospital setting until deemed no longer a danger to themselves or society. Like John Hinckley Jr. [/quote]

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