Should the mentally ill be be allowed to be put on the death penalty?

[Bells]

Here is the story of Scott Panetti:

Scott Panetti

After having read this, I was basically amazed at how things can go so wrong. So I ask those of you who have read this article or know his story, who is to blame for this? His parents for not having sought treatment for him as a child? The system for having allowed him to own guns in the first place? The Sherriff who had not taken the guns away from him after his wife and her family had pleaded with them to do so due to his escalating mental illness? The judge who allowed Scott to defend himself when it was obvious that his mental illness had rendered him incapable of really understanding (keep in mind that this was a man who dressed as a cowboy for his self-represented capital trial and at one stage called the judge 'you puppet')? Should a mentally ill man be allowed to represent himself at a capital trial and ultimately, should a mentally ill man face a capital trial? The system that allowed a severely mentally ill man to represent himself? The system that allowed such a man to get the death penalty instead of life in a mental institution? Or should Scott himself be blamed for this crime and ultimately his illness?

Personally speaking, while Scott did himself commit the crime, I have to wonder at how he was failed by the whole system as a whole, from his parents through to the criminal justice system. Even the daughter of the victims (his ex-wife) stated that Scott's trial was in fact a farce and a circus, and that he was failed and should not be put to death because he was in fact ill. The jurors in the case had admitted to being scared by Scott during the trial. It was apparently painly obvious to all who attended the trial (lawyers, doctors and his family) that Scott was severely ill and should not have been there and that the trial itself was ridiculous in the circumstances.

 

[Chalaco]

didn't even bother reading yoru post, too long, too boring. I will, however, say this: Only sex offenders should be awarded the death penalty (yeah, I said awarded). And capital punishment only seen on days of yore, we want to send a message on this one, folks. Child molesters, rapists, basically all sex offenders should get sent straight to death row.

Or how about, rapists are put to death, and child molesters are castrated. Or how about first time sex offenders are castrated, then, if they miraculously find a way to commit a sex crime again with no bollocks (note for the slow: bollocks can mean nonsense, it can also mean testicles), then they should be put to death for their second sex crime.

I'm getting ahead of myself... no, I'm not. Sex offenders should be castrated and/or put to death. Sounds about right to me.

 

[one_raven]

Well, can't the same really be said about all violent offenders?
If they are so far gone into their socipoathic ways, who is to blame?
Society? Parents? The "system"?

But it doesn't really matter, does it?

What is the point of the criminal justice system?
The way I see it, it's main purpose, first and foremost, is to protect members of a society from those within that society that will do them harm.

First objective...
Get those that will cause harm to people off the streets so they can do no more harm.

Second...
Rehabilitate the offenders.

Third...
Be proactive in keeping those that may cause harm from doing so (while keeping a safe distance away from infringing on personal freedom.

That is how I see the role of the criminal justice system.
Regardless of who is to blame for the person's criminal behavior, the person who perpetrated the crime must be held accountable for his/her actions, and the innocent (relatively speaking, of course) must be protected.

 

[Flores]

Here is the story of Scott Panetti:

Scott Panetti

After having read this, I was basically amazed at how things can go so wrong. So I ask those of you who have read this article or know his story, who is to blame for this? His parents for not having sought treatment for him as a child? The system for having allowed him to own guns in the first place? The Sherriff who had not taken the guns away from him after his wife and her family had pleaded with them to do so due to his escalating mental illness? The judge who allowed Scott to defend himself when it was obvious that his mental illness had rendered him incapable of really understanding (keep in mind that this was a man who dressed as a cowboy for his self-represented capital trial and at one stage called the judge 'you puppet')? Should a mentally ill man be allowed to represent himself at a capital trial and ultimately, should a mentally ill man face a capital trial? The system that allowed a severely mentally ill man to represent himself? The system that allowed such a man to get the death penalty instead of life in a mental institution? Or should Scott himself be blamed for this crime and ultimately his illness?

Personally speaking, while Scott did himself commit the crime, I have to wonder at how he was failed by the whole system as a whole, from his parents through to the criminal justice system. Even the daughter of the victims (his ex-wife) stated that Scott's trial was in fact a farce and a circus, and that he was failed and should not be put to death because he was in fact ill. The jurors in the case had admitted to being scared by Scott during the trial. It was apparently painly obvious to all who attended the trial (lawyers, doctors and his family) that Scott was severely ill and should not have been there and that the trial itself was ridiculous in the circumstances.

Bells, you must learn a bit more about Schizophrenia to assess the situation. Schizophrenia is a multiple personality disorder that is cause by the inability of the subconscious to deal with the realities. When the contradictions in the brain build up to a high level, a Schizophrenia episode is imminent and will act as a vent for the brain to work out some of these contradictions. For example, Scott's obsession with the devil is the result of his inability to justify the evil in him. He is aware of his actions and knows that they are evil, yet he doesn't want to take direct responsbility. He insulted his brain by illogically placing a devil as the responsible party for his troubles, and his brain insulted him back by justifying to him that if there was such a devil, this is what could be done him. A Schizophrenic patient remains in the cycle of confusion and sepration from reality until they finally take the blame and responsbility. Some of them prefer to live in the Lala land away from reality and prolong their diseace.

Is a Schizophrenic person liable for their action. Yes, but not directly. These people are obviously hiding from a lesser evil and end up getting caught in a bigger one. Should they be killed or treated? I think that our mental institutions do not have the capability to debug such complex brains and they end up suppressing the episodes with tranquilizers. Tranquilizers may put a temporary bandage on, but as soon as the patient is subjected to the environment again, they'll get right back into trouble.

Of course and as you know, we ALL die. Thousands die in one day when an earthquake hits. Life is pretty cheap, and the killer could tell you first hand how cheap life is. So the death penality is not a big deal in my view. I believe in god and the hereafter and the soul and know that killing the person is not the end...God is most just and will deal with all souls (even those who were dealth with unfairly) in the most fair way.

 

[Siddhartha]

I've never seen that approach to schizophrenia Flores. From my understanding (did some Psych undergrad before um, protesting at how they taught it by leaving) schizophrenia can't really be classed as simply as you have. Furthermore, I wonder if you are instead talking about Multiple Personality Disorder. Either way, a man with no grip on reality cannot be judged by a system which places great worth in the empirical.

 

[mouse]

Schizophrenia is a multiple personality disorder that is cause by the inability of the subconscious to deal with the realities. When the contradictions in the brain build up to a high level, a Schizophrenia episode is imminent and will act as a vent for the brain to work out some of these contradictions

Not really. From medicine.net
"There is no known single cause of schizophrenia. Many diseases, such as heart disease, result from an interplay of genetic, behavioral, and other factors; and this may be the case for schizophrenia as well. Scientists do not yet understand all of the factors necessary to produce schizophrenia, but all the tools of modern biomedical research are being used to search for genes, critical moments in brain development, and other factors that may lead to the illness."

Of course and as you know, we ALL die. Thousands die in one day when an earthquake hits. Life is pretty cheap, and the killer could tell you first hand how cheap life is. So the death penality is not a big deal in my view.

With that rationale justifying homocide or even war is not that much of problem for you, isn't it? That is scary.

 

[spidergoat]

Schizophrenia is a multiple personality disorder that is cause by the inability of the subconscious to deal with the realities.

ok, it's off-topic slightly, but schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiple personality disorder, or the ability of the subconcious to deal with any kind of reality. Where did you get this stuff? The way you phrase this, you imply that the schizophrenic is responsible for their condition. This is not really true.

A Schizophrenic patient remains in the cycle of confusion and sepration from reality until they finally take the blame and responsibility.

Only if that sense of responsibility leads them to accept being medicated for the rest of their life. Medication is the only known treatment for schizophrenia.

 

[BigBlueHead]

From NIMH - http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizsoms.cfm

Schizophrenia is a devastating brain disorder—the most chronic and disabling of the severe mental illnesses. The first signs of schizophrenia, which typically emerge in young people in their teens or twenties, are confusing and often shocking to families and friends. Hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking, unusual speech or behavior and social withdrawal impair the ability to interact with others. Most people with schizophrenia suffer chronically or episodically throughout their lives, losing opportunities for careers and relationships. They often are stigmatized by lack of public understanding about the disease.

Schizophrenia is not the same things as multiple personality syndrome. Notice the last sentence They often are stigmatized by lack of public understanding about the disease. One of the manifestations of this lack of understanding is the obtuse and persistent belief that multiple personality syndrome is a widespread problem that often causes emotionally disturbed people to murder those close to them. This is a story spread by court shows like Law & Order on which BS is rampant.

If this person was diagnosed with schizophrenia, they should probably have been hospitalized and treated BEFORE they committed a crime, not once they already have.

 

[Leviticus]

"If this person was diagnosed with schizophrenia, they should probably have been hospitalized and treated BEFORE they committed a crime, not once they already have."

Yeah, how are they gonna know when a person will commit a crime....

Anyway- the whole judicial/criminal punishment system should be revamped, but no-ones gonna do this. It would cost money* and in the end as i have mentioned in other posts if their are people running the whole thing then there are always going to be some mishaps- but even though they should not be on the scale of this incident.

I personally do not support the death sentence, i think it is outdated and basically, stupid. If it was abolished tehn things like this couldnt even happen in the first place.

*of course money is much more important than peoples lives.

 

[BigBlueHead]

Yeah, how are they gonna know when a person will commit a crime....

How do we know if a criminal will commit a crime again? We don't, but we assume that they will.

In the case of a person with a mental problem such as schizophrenia which causes unpredictable behaviour, they need help (and the rest of us need to help them) before their behaviour becomes a problem. If Scott Panetti had been properly diagnosed and treated beforehand, that might have better protected the people that he killed.

I don't believe in the death sentence either, but I do believe that there are some problems that people need help with. When a person has a delusional disorder, that's not something that you should just "leave alone".

 

[Flores]

From NIMH - http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizsoms.cfm



Schizophrenia is not the same things as multiple personality syndrome. Notice the last sentence They often are stigmatized by lack of public understanding about the disease. One of the manifestations of this lack of understanding is the obtuse and persistent belief that multiple personality syndrome is a widespread problem that often causes emotionally disturbed people to murder those close to them. This is a story spread by court shows like Law & Order on which BS is rampant.

If this person was diagnosed with schizophrenia, they should probably have been hospitalized and treated BEFORE they committed a crime, not once they already have.

You and the entire behavioral health research across the universe is only interested in understanding the crusty top layer of the problem and in finding bandage medecine that can temporarily stop the bleeding.

In all of the articles that you guys have posted, I have not even seen one explanation to what triggers the onset of schizophrenia.

I will say it one more time, schizophrenic episodes are triggered by the fact that the brain have been overwhelmed by subconscious contradictions resulting from lack of worthwhile explanations to support life episodes that the patient have undergone. The patient can no longer process reality until he acts out his confusion in a physcotic episode. After the episode, some room in the subconscious is freed, the patient gets better, then the patient is again confronted with reality and the contradictions built up to the point where another episode is emminent and the cycle goes on. With each episdoe the risks increase because the patient is more encountered with unrealistic situations that will be harder to logically figure out in the real world.

What do the medication accomplish? They are all bunch of tranquilizers to prevent the patients from thinking about the issues in his/her head....

As far as whether to impose the death penalty on a person like that? I say, don't kill him, but the alternative of confining him of a physc ward heavely tranquilized and chained to his bed so he can't think at all is far worse than death.

 

[BigBlueHead]

Flores:

And yet that is how we do things now. If you believe that mental illness requires more research and that our ways of dealing with it need reformation, then I generally agree.

HOWEVER.

Schizophrenia may only be caused by brain damage from an unknown source. This is to some extent what is happening with Parkinson's disease, since certain patterns of chemical exposure have been statistically linked with Parkinson's.

To characterize schizophrenia as being the result of bad experiences may ignore physiological causes of the disease for which no one can be blamed. There have been many cases in the past of medical problems, even obviously physiological ones, being classed as mental problems or psychosomatic ones.

So, to assume that it represents a psychological problem that can be fixed with sufficient counselling may be unfair to the patient by implicitly blaming them for being unable to deal with their own "inner demons" when in fact they are suffering from brain damage caused by exposure to a toxic substance, an unlucky blow to the head, a genetically inherited disorder, or any other physical cause.

 

[Flores]

Flores:

Schizophrenia may only be caused by brain damage from an unknown source. This is to some extent what is happening with Parkinson's disease, since certain patterns of chemical exposure have been statistically linked with Parkinson's..

Parkinson's diseace is very different than Schizophrenia. The parkinson's patient is sharp in his/her thinking, yet unable to act their thoughts out due to nerve damadge. The body of the Parkinson's patient fails while the brain is in top notch order. On the contrary, the Schizophrenic patient enjoys a top notch physical ability and impaired thoughts. The body is perfect yet the brain chooses to escape. They are very very different animals.

To characterize schizophrenia as being the result of bad experiences may ignore physiological causes of the disease for which no one can be blamed. There have been many cases in the past of medical problems, even obviously physiological ones, being classed as mental problems or psychosomatic ones..

The onset is inability to cope, inability to process, lack of explanation for certain seemingly weird life episodes. I'm not blaming the patient for that, for example, the famous mathematician (name????) in the recent movie (name???...beautifull Mind) was a genious who was frustrated by his inability to fully understand a hard mathematical concept that he thought about. Of course noone would try to debug his brain, because noone can even begin to comprehend the complexities in his brain, so the Mathematician started talking to imaginary friends and even detaching himself from realty and constructing another reality in his mind like the FBI code figuring out stuff. He remained Schizophrenic until he finally discovered the bloody equation, and that was not easy. Many other people could go nuts in hallucinations trying to reach the ONLY answer that will please their brain...not everyone is an Einstein, Churchill, or Lincoln, and they were all manic depressands/bipolars/Schizophrenic....who were lucky enough to find peace with their beautifull overly compexed minds.

A schizophrenic episode is a case of brain insult, not brain damage. Can we detect insults to our brains??? Never....that's why there will never be a cure to Schizophrenia, unless intense well meant intelligent counceling is devoted to undo the insults and harms that have been inflicted on the brain.

I'm convinced that while Schizophrenia can cause a person to commit suicide or even neglect a child, it should never cause someone to murder another person...unless the evil does exist inside the person and murdering is a tool of coping for that person, and thus punichment should be the order of business when the intent is malicious regardless of the state of mind.

 

[spidergoat]

You and the entire behavioral health research across the universe is only interested in understanding the crusty top layer of the problem and in finding bandage medecine that can temporarily stop the bleeding.

This is nonsense, everyone wants a true cure for schizophrenia, but failing that, a bandage is better than nothing. A friend of mine has schizophrenia, so I have personal experience with the issues involved.

What triggers the onset? While the brain probably develops abnormally from birth, it is age that triggers the onset of first symptoms, usually in early adulthood. It is largely stress that triggers specific episodes, stress caused by not being able to do what is expected of them, not fitting in with peers, or any kind of pressure.

triggered by the fact that the brain have been overwhelmed by subconscious contradictions resulting from lack of worthwhile explanations to support life episodes that the patient have undergone.

The schizophrenic person is overwhelmed by confusion in concious thought, and no amount of plausable, worthwhile explanation will satisfy them. All their senses are confused and they can't judge what is real, and what is only in their imagination. While they do seek explanations, they prefer outlandish, conspiritorial, and neverending highly complex delusions over the truth.

What do the medication accomplish? They are all bunch of tranquilizers to prevent the patients from thinking about the issues in his/her head....

First of all, anti-psychotic medications are not the same as tranquilizers. They do, however, act to calm down the mind which thinks too much, so much so that they frequently can't even sleep. This is a critical first step in treatment, allowing patients to talk to a doctor about their condition and treatment, and hopefully getting them to understand they have a problem. Trying to talk to a person while they are in the midst of a psychotic episode is mostly pointless and counterproductive.

After the patient is on medication, then it is possible to address any underlying psychological issues, although there may be none! The tendancy for schizophrenia is an inherited trait, perhaps influenced in some way by a mother's sickness while still in the womb, while the brain is developing.

Alot of people see movies like One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest, and get the view that medications are wrong. It's a great movie, but this piece of fiction has done much harm to the cause of treating mental illness.

 

[Flores]

This is nonsense, everyone wants a true cure for schizophrenia, but failing that, a bandage is better than nothing. A friend of mine has schizophrenia, so I have personal experience with the issues involved.

I really appreciated all your comments. I think you are right about the need for the medication to slow down the mind to at least get some sleep....but again, I ask you, since you have a friend with schizophrenia....Do you think that your friend could actually kill someone? I bet you that your friend is highly sensitive and wouldn't hurt a fly, but still please ask him if any voices are telling him to murder innocent people? And if so, can he gives us his reasoning or State of mind in which he feels that someone MUST die?

I still remain to think that schizophrenia can result in mostly self harm, but I can't exonorate a murderer whether it's a mom drowning her five kids or Mr. Scott killing his inlaws just based on our speculations of the diseace and what it can or can't do.

 

[Bells]

Hmmm I guess I should really have asked the question differently. The story of Panetti is one in which a severely mentally disturbed man was allowed to represent himself in a capital trial. Now as far as I'm aware, the laws have changed in Texas whereby a person who is mentally ill is not meant to be on death row.

Panetti had not only schizophrenia but also suffered from bi-polar disorder, which would mean that his manic episodes would be even more severe. He suffered from constant delusions and paranoia. He was allowed to own firearms in the first place and when the family contacted the sherriff and asked that the firearms be removed after he'd threatened members of his family, the family were ignored and Panetti was able to keep the weapons with which he killed his inlaws.

This is a man who'd been in and out of mental institutions over a 10 year period. How can it possibly be that he be allowed to represent himself in a capital trial? How can it possibly be that when even the daughter of the victims approached the DA to give further evidence of his declining mental illness, they told her that her statements weren't necessary and they were prosecuting him regardless. She had approached them to tell them that she had contacted the Sherriff to beg him to remove the firearms from her husband who'd threatened her and her child and her father, and that the Sherriff had refused, even though she had proof that he was severely mentally ill and was in fact at that time in a mental institution for those threats. And the DA told her that those statements weren't necessary because they were going after Panetti. They refused to accept that the Sherriff should have taken those guns off him. The wife has stated in affidavits that had they taken those guns, the crimes would probably not have occured. Even she admits that his mental illness played the main role in the crimes.

This man's mental illness was ignored so that Texas could notch up another yet death in its prisons. Personally, I in no way think that his crimes should go unpunished. He should be locked up for life in a mental institution. But what I find absolutely disturbing is that this man was allowed to represent himself in such a case. A case where the judge had no control over his actions in the court due to his mental illness, and a case whereby Panetti scared the crap out of the jury with his wild ramblings and stares. Even the prosecutor had to complain about his abnormal and erratic behaviour in the court room. Previous attempts to bring his case to trial had been refused due to his mental illness, previous juries were not able to convict because he was so severely mentally ill. He had been deemed mentally unfit for such a trial. But in this case, the only other option the scared jury saw was to let him go free, so they pretty much had no other choice but to send him to the chair. This whole case is a travesty. He should never have been allowed to represent himself in such a trial, he should have been remanded straight into a mental institution for the rest of his life. This is a man who thought the whole world were out to kill him and in his absolute paranoia, he refused legal help and fired his lawyers because he thought they wanted to kill him. Yet in such a state, and a state which was getting worse and worse as time went along, he was allowed to dress as a cowboy and call the judge 'you puppet' and represent himself in a capital trial. It should never have happened. He should have been packed off with his cowboy suit to a mental institution instead.

 

[Flores]

This is a man who thought the whole world were out to kill him and in his absolute paranoia, he refused legal help and fired his lawyers because he thought they wanted to kill him. Yet in such a state, and a state which was getting worse and worse as time went along, he was allowed to dress as a cowboy and call the judge 'you puppet' and represent himself in a capital trial. It should never have happened. He should have been packed off with his cowboy suit to a mental institution instead.

Bells, I mostly agree with you, but this is such a fine line. The State while it shouldn't be allowing mentally ill patients to represent themselves in a trial, may go the other way and accuse a totally sane person of being incapable of undergoing trial and thus deny people their basic right based on a very inaccurate subjective so called mental state.

I ask you, how do you know that Scott is not a genious who played the entire role of a bipolar, wore the cowboy suit on purpose, ect....so he can appear insane and escape the death penalty? People are very capable and can fool the machine and lie to the lie detectors. Convincing people is the easy part. You can try to defend him all you want, but deep inside of you, you know that you are not sure that he's not trying to fool the whole world. You are only making an emotional appeal for the general mentally ill crowd...the problem is that the crowd didn't kill, scott did.

 

[Bells]

From the link I posted above:

Scott Louis Panetti was born in Wisconsin on 28 February 1958. At the age of 18 he joined the Navy, but received an early honourable discharge due, he told his parents, to having arthritis in his hands. He joined his family who had moved to Texas. He married.

His mother has said: "Looking back, I remember the danger signs but I then associated his behaviour with typical teenager weirdness. After all, this was the early 1970's. Mental illness was not publicized or admitted to. I told myself that Scott was just a unique person. There were no support groups to contact that I know of, where one could go to for advice. Psychiatry was eyed with suspicion. I now understand what I didn't want to see then. There was something dreadfully wrong with Scott."(4)

The family moved back to Wisconsin in 1982. Scott Panetti stayed in Texas, but moved back to Wisconsin in 1986. His mother says: "Our plan was to get Scott the help he needed in the more progressive state of Wisconsin. Texas had a bad reputation concerning its treatment of the mentally ill."(5) In 1986, Scott Panetti's wife filed for divorce. She said that he had become obsessed with the notion that the devil lived in their house. At one point he had buried furniture from the family home, in the belief that the devil was in the furniture. He also nailed the curtains shut. Also around this time, 1986, he was having hallucinations where he saw the devil on the wall of his home, killed the devil, saw blood coming out of the walls, and washed the walls.

When the divorce came through, Scott Panetti became very unstable and moved back to Texas. There he married again, in April 1989, this time to Sonja Alvarado.

Scott Panetti was hospitalized on numerous occasions in Texas and Wisconsin:

1981 - Involuntarily committed to Kerrville State Hospital, Texas. He was diagnosed as paranoid and hostile to his family.
1986 - Admitted to Starlite Village Hospital, Texas. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. By now he had a history of speaking incoherently and paranoia.

1986 - Transferred to Kerrville Hospital. Diagnosed with paranoia and schizophrenia.

1986 - Transferred to Waco Veteran's Administration Hospital, Texas. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with anti-psychotic medications.

1986 - After he moved back to Wisconsin, he was admitted to Tomah Veteran's Hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

1986 - Hospitalized in Northern Pines Unified Services Center, where he was diagnosed with depression and suicidal ideation.

1986 - Transferred to Cumberland Memorial Hospital, and diagnosed with depression, brain dysfunction, delusions, auditory hallucinations, and homicidal ideation toward his family.

1986 - Admitted to Starlight Village Hospital on his return to Texas. Again diagnosed with schizophrenia.

1986 - Transferred to Kerrville State Hospital, and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and manic depression (bipolar disorder).

1990 - Involuntarily committed to Kerrville Hospital due to homicidal behaviour, threatening to kill his wife, his baby, his father-in-law and himself. Around this time he apparently had come to believe that there was a plot against him by the citizens of Fredericksburg, the area where he, his wife and his parents-in-laws lived.

1992 - Admitted to Kerrville Hospital, and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He had again threatened his family. Records from this time reveal that Scott Panetti had a series of different personalities or aspects of himself that he gave names to.

The crime was committed two months after this last hospitalization.

Errr Flores, that's what makes me think that he was not faking it or had planned it all along. The inlaws he killed were those of his second wife. The signs were there from a very young age. Now unless Scott had decided since he was a pre-teen to commit this crime, I would assume that it would be safe to say that he was in fact mentally ill. And even the psychiatrist for the prosecution found him to be mentally ill:

In July 1994 a hearing to determine whether Scott Panetti was competent to stand trial - that is, whether he had sufficient mental capacity to understand his situation and to assist in his defence - was declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

A second hearing was held in September 1994. His lawyer testified that in the previous two years, he had had no useful communication with Scott Panetti because of his delusional thinking. A psychiatrist for the defence concluded that Panetti was not competent to stand trial. A psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution agreed with the previous diagnoses of schizophrenia, and that Scott Panetti's delusional thinking could interfere with his communications with his legal counsel, particularly under situations of stress such as in a courtroom. However, he concluded that the defendant was competent to stand trial. The jury agreed.

The mental ability of a person to stand trial, represented, is one thing, but to represent themselves is another thing altogether. The rest of that article scared the hell out of me because of the absurdity in the way the system tried this case. What should have happened to Scott is that he be put in an institution for the mentally ill for the rest of his natural life. He should never have been allowed to represent himself in a capital trial (or any trial). By allowing him to do so, it only makes an absolute mockery of the legal system or any notion of justice, fairness and rule of law.

 

[Bells]

And I do apologise for ranting, but this particular case has struck a real nerve and if I have insulted or offended anyone I'm sorry.

 

[Flores]

And I do apologise for ranting, but this particular case has struck a real nerve and if I have insulted or offended anyone I'm sorry.

You don't have to apologise for anything...I mostly do agree with you.....but as you know, mental health institutions unfortunately are much like very expensive hotels....if you don't give consent and a lot of money, you are not admitted or even given a prognosis...So I do have many questions in regards to these mental institutions:

- Why are they letting go a person that they have supposidly diagnosed as a crazy maniac?
- Are these mental institutions or hospitals liable?
- How can these institutions or hospitals go around labeling happy...with big words like bipolar, phisophrenia, ect....yet they let these same people go home?????