[Squizree]

I consider the man sick, he should be sent to specialists and treated with a LOT of drugs.

[mellowdrama]

Though they may be a chemical straight jacket, psychiatric drugs do not take away bad intent, nor do they remove moral culpability for one's actions. A large dose of neuroleptics will not make this man any less a creep, though it might give him tardive dyskinesia after awhile. This would limit his criminal career, as you need a steady hand to be an effective stalker, I suppose. A truly schizophrenic person does not have the capacity of the forethought and planning that this man put into his criminal acts.

The insanity plea is a disservice to society and to millions of people who live with the stigma of mental illness.

[Squizree]

I can't help thinking that the guy is normal, but he just wants attention.

[mellowdrama]

Okay, I'll argue the other side, then. His abnormal ideation caused by a chemical brain dysfunction made him incapable of judging right from wrong. A wild surge of serotonin caused him to stalk, kidnap, and rape a woman, beat and rob a therapist, and make murderous threats against an accomplished magazine editor. The best society can do is drug and incarcerate him in a softer, padded cell than your average criminal would rate. Labelling him insane distances his actions as being something that's somehow mysteriously inhuman yet still pitiable and treatable, so that we can avoid the sticky problem of Justice altogether. And everybody can still be scared of the inexplicable bogeyman that might get them, too, if they're not especially nice to all the Little People in the world. Because, you know, they just can't help themselves, the wretches, and we owe it to them to see their names in the papers if they do their monster dance convincingly enough. Disgusting.

[Squizree]

That probably is the situation, but it's just a feeling in my guts.

[mellowdrama]

Well, 95% of the serotonin in your body is synthesized in your gut, so it might have a point. Twinkies worked for Dan White, after all.

[Squizree]

Wow, I must be in the wrong thread, cuz I didnt understand anything frmo that.

[mellowdrama]

Oh, Dan White was the guy here in San Francisco who shot Mayor Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk years ago. He famously used the "Twinkie Defense"--a sugar high--as his insanity plea. And 95% of the neurotransmitter serotonin is actually manufactured in the gut. So you are what you eat, and if it's Twinkies, you might go into murderous rage over it but beat the rap. Be careful of your gut, is what I'm saying.

[SomethingElse]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crim...sentenced.html

18 to life sentence was passed down today.