He did it again-Interpol is looking for him

[gturner]

There are tons of diagnoses that are classified as mental illness, from bibliomania (book collecting), coulrophobia (fear of clowns) to catatonic schizophrenia, pedophilia, and antisocial personality disorder (formerly called a psychopath or sociopath).

The book collectors and clown-o-phobes don't cause many problems, but the often charming psychopaths sometimes like to rape and kill. They also use violence, deceit, and intimidation to control those around them, commit fraud and extortion, frame people, steal, engage in murder-for-hire, torture animals and people for amusement, and are pathological liars.

Just because they might be born lacking certain emotions doesn't excuse their actions. After all, in the world of Star Trek their lack of emotion should make them act like Spock, not Khan.

 

[gturner]

Any society that puts people to death is stooping to the level of the killer. By treating the killer humanely we are showing that we are more moral than the killer.

My state hasn't executed anyone since 1946 and my state only executed 3 men during the whole of the 20th century. Our society hasn't collapsed as a result of not executing murderers.

Yes, but it works for you because living in Tasmania is a fate worse than death.

Bazzzzinga!

 

[Miss Chicken]

No-one is excusing their actions. What we are saying is there is a reason for their actions and that reason has to be taken into account once they have committed a crime. No-one is saying that they should not be confined, in fact I have said that sociopaths who kill (or rape for that matter) should be confined for the rest of their life as there is no cure for their condition.

What I am saying is that once confined they should be treated humanely and it should be accepted that they do have a mental illness.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Tasmania's most notorious killer is serving 35 life sentences plus 1,035 years without parole. He was convicted of 35 murders (as he should have been). However he is an extremely disturbed man with a very low IQ and an even lower emotional age. He knew what he did was wrong but only in the same way as a child knows something is wrong. He is currently serving his sentence in the secure mental health unit run by the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services. This unit is within the prison.

 

[gturner]

Our Supreme Court agreed with you, for a while, and then in 1966 we met Richard Speck.

A&E biography of Richard Speck:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

This guy will give you nightmares.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Martin Bryant gives people nighmares.

I think John Bunting is as nasty as Richard Speck but I don't think he should be executed.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

There are some people that are so dangerous that even the TINY chance of their escaping or ever harming anyone else is unacceptable. I believe that we would be irresponsible to permit that chance in the case where the DNA burden of proof is satisfied in addition to the ordinary standards.

 

[gturner]

Martin Bryant gives people nighmares.

I think John Bunting is as nasty as Richard Speck but I don't think he should be executed.

It sounds like he's just as nasty, if not worse, but Richard Speck was notable in that life in prison was the most fun he'd ever had. He grew boobs, snorted coke, and had a blast. As they said, if a wall of the prison collapsed Speck would be the only guy who wouldn't leave.

 

[RJDiogenes]

When someone repeatedly kills without remorse -- assuming the person hasn't lost touch with reality and knows what he's doing is wrong -- it's proof that the killer is simply evil.

No, it's proof that the killer is mentally ill. If somebody kills repeatedly without remorse, they are mentally ill. These actions would not be committed by a sane person.

Your personal definitions of "sanity" and "mental illness" differ from those established by the law and by the psychiatric profession. But, like Lewis Carroll's Humpty-Dumpty, some people think they can make words mean whatever they want them to.

Okay, kid, you go find me a shrink who will give a remorseless serial killer a clean bill of mental health.

No, but other types of mental illness (depending on the illness, and this again is a professional call) do not necessarily remove your ability to see the world and to know its rules.

And many do. If somebody is capable of killing repeatedly without remorse, whether they flipped a coin and said, "heads I kill someone, tails I eat a bowl of Captain Crunch" or not, they are mentally ill.

So if somebody is kidnapped and their arms and legs are cut off, this is not as bad as rape?

That sort of scenario should fall under that category too--I left it out but that is in the same category. Rape is a particularly severe form of torture, given the intimate nature of the violation, but I would have no problem seeing the sort of person you're describing being locked away for life, or put to death if the evidence threshold I outlined is met.[/QUOTE]
The point is that there would be a very long list of crimes that fall into the same category; and there would always be someone saying, "What about me? What happened to me is just as bad as what happened to him." So the list would grow. Once you turn the law into something that validates hatred and vengeance, there's no end to it. The purpose of the law is to be rational when people can't.

 

[John Picard]

Polie: van der Sloot says he knows location of Holloway's body

This will be interesting.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Isn't Karma a bitch?

In Aruba he was treated like royalty. His family's status and his father's influence kept the crime from being properly investigated and kept him from jail.

Now, he kills a young girl who's family's status and father's influence will make sure he is properly prosecuted.

Ya gotta love it.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

No, but other types of mental illness (depending on the illness, and this again is a professional call) do not necessarily remove your ability to see the world and to know its rules.

And many do. If somebody is capable of killing repeatedly without remorse, whether they flipped a coin and said, "heads I kill someone, tails I eat a bowl of Captain Crunch" or not, they are mentally ill.

However, they may still be capable of understanding that what they are doing is wrong yet choose to do it anyway. Again, that should be a professional call, but it IS possible to have deviant thoughts from a mental illness (such as, during the period in which I was depressed, thinking suicidal thoughts) yet make the decision that no matter how it might feel, you will NOT carry out that act no matter what. (Or to make the wrong decision but still know it is wrong and not care. If you know and you did it anyway, then you are responsible.)

So if somebody is kidnapped and their arms and legs are cut off, this is not as bad as rape?

That sort of scenario should fall under that category too--I left it out but that is in the same category. Rape is a particularly severe form of torture, given the intimate nature of the violation, but I would have no problem seeing the sort of person you're describing being locked away for life, or put to death if the evidence threshold I outlined is met.

The point is that there would be a very long list of crimes that fall into the same category; and there would always be someone saying, "What about me? What happened to me is just as bad as what happened to him." So the list would grow. Once you turn the law into something that validates hatred and vengeance, there's no end to it. The purpose of the law is to be rational when people can't.[/QUOTE]

Those are the "big three," though, and I think that reasonably anything below that cannot be considered (however difficult it is) to be of the magnitude of a life. I think that statutes have to be very clear on that, very hard to change, and that the standard of evidence where the death penalty comes into play MUST be higher than it is for a life in prison sentence--that is why I think that in addition to the other evidence being beyond the shadow of a doubt, DNA evidence should be mandatory and confirmed by multiple labs. There are three things the law should accomplish in the case of those who acted out of malice rather than a simple mistake: deterrence, restitution, and protection of the rest of the populace, and in some cases I believe even the most minimal risk of escape and harm to more victims to be so unacceptable that I do back the death penalty. It is not about revenge, and as I said before, the necessity should be mourned, not celebrated. But to protect the rest of the populace I believe that there are crimes bad enough where it is necessary.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Whether you support the death penalty or not has little to do with this case. Joran van der Sloot isn't going to be executed because that country does not have the death penalty. In fact very few countries in South America do have the death penalty.

I would hazard to say that nearly every non-American on Trekbbs lives in a country that doesn't have the death penalty and yet our societies are functioning well. Our mass murderers/serial killers aren't escaping from prison at any greater rate than people are escaping from America's death row.

The fact is, even with the death penalty, prisoners in America spend years in prison before the sentence is carried out. If that period was lessened by not allowing all appeals than more innocent people would end up being executed.

 

[gturner]

Actually Joran van der Sloot does face the death penalty, which in Peruvian prison costs about four cartons of Marlboros and two issues of Playboy, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[gturner]

Ack! After reading this I understand more about the total incompetance of Aruban authorities.

Aruban authorities say they have no official confirmation on reports that Joran Van der Sloot, the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, told Peruvian investigators that he knows where the body of the Alabama teen can be found. Aruban Solicitor General Taco Stein says that they are reaching out to Peruvian authorities to discuss the reported statement and that if Van der Sloot did, in fact, say he will tell investigators where the body is, the Arubans will weigh the information to see if they can act on it. "We are in the process of reaching out to them," Stein said of Peruvian investigators, "as you can understand they are very busy with their case... it's very hard to get the proper person."

I guess they need van der Sloot's permission to investigate? So many classic quotes in just this one paragraph.

 

[RJDiogenes]

However, they may still be capable of understanding that what they are doing is wrong yet choose to do it anyway. Again, that should be a professional call, but it IS possible to have deviant thoughts from a mental illness (such as, during the period in which I was depressed, thinking suicidal thoughts) yet make the decision that no matter how it might feel, you will NOT carry out that act no matter what. (Or to make the wrong decision but still know it is wrong and not care. If you know and you did it anyway, then you are responsible.)

Understanding that killing is wrong and doing it anyway is just further proof of mental illness. And surely you wouldn't argue that depression that doesn't result in suicide is not mental illness; there are degrees of severity.

There are three things the law should accomplish in the case of those who acted out of malice rather than a simple mistake: deterrence, restitution, and protection of the rest of the populace, and in some cases I believe even the most minimal risk of escape and harm to more victims to be so unacceptable that I do back the death penalty. It is not about revenge, and as I said before, the necessity should be mourned, not celebrated. But to protect the rest of the populace I believe that there are crimes bad enough where it is necessary.

I appreciate the point you're making here, though I do disagree.

 

[gturner]

Understanding that killing is wrong and doing it anyway is just further proof of mental illness. And surely you wouldn't argue that depression that doesn't result in suicide is not mental illness; there are degrees of severity.

But thieves understand that stealing is wrong and they do it anyway. It's profitable! And yes, some thieving is classified as a mental illness, as are many behavioral crimes, if for no other reason than there must be something wrong in the perp's head because normal folks just don't do sh*t like that.

As for remorseless killers, you can certainly call it a mental illness but many of them do it because it's convenient, fun, thrilling, and in some cases pretty lucrative. So maybe their brains are wired a bit differently. Maybe that's why they need killin'.

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

However, they may still be capable of understanding that what they are doing is wrong yet choose to do it anyway. Again, that should be a professional call, but it IS possible to have deviant thoughts from a mental illness (such as, during the period in which I was depressed, thinking suicidal thoughts) yet make the decision that no matter how it might feel, you will NOT carry out that act no matter what. (Or to make the wrong decision but still know it is wrong and not care. If you know and you did it anyway, then you are responsible.)

Understanding that killing is wrong and doing it anyway is just further proof of mental illness. And surely you wouldn't argue that depression that doesn't result in suicide is not mental illness; there are degrees of severity.

How is it further proof? People kill without remorse for plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with mental state; rather, like the reason most crimes are committed, it's percieved advantage, pragmatism and perfectly sane people's ability to maintain cognitive dissonance that leads many people who kill to their actions and lack of later remorse. Gang members, soldiers in combat and prison wardens who execute inmates are examples.


Further, mental illness and diminished capacity are not one in the same. Diminished capacity can be a component of mental illness, but not usually, and one's antisocial actions alone are not enough evidence of diminished capacity. To conflate the two is to assume that mentally ill people are inherently incapable of understanding right from wrong, incapable of making any sound decisions for themselves at all, a misconception at the crux of stigma the mentally ill who manage to function in society (i.e. most of them) face daily.

Frankly, its insulting to anyone who struggles with mental illness, and in the case of sociopathy, a dangerous slip on the slope to absolving sound people of egregious violations.

 

[Miss Chicken]

He isn't absolving them or saying that there should be no consequences for their actions. He is simply arguing that they are mentally ill and therefore should be treated as being mentally ill.

Martin Bryant has an IQ of 65, an emotional age of about a 2 year old and has had seriously behavioral problems all of his life. He is mentally ill. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment 35 times with another 1035 years added on. without the chance of parole. I am perfectly happy with this sentence being imposed on him even though he is mentally ill.

He is serving his time in the psychiatric ward because he is mentally ill. I see nothing wrong with that. To put him in to the general population in the prison would be wrong.

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

He isn't absolving them or saying that there should be no consequences for their actions. He is simply arguing that they are mentally ill and therefore should be treated as being mentally ill.

Treating them as mentally ill when they're committing crimes sound of mind is absolving them of consequences.