Housewife Who Stoned Sons Found Not Guilty

http://www.foxnews.com/ ^ | 4/3/04 | http://www.foxnews.com/

[mlmr]

Although the guilty but insane works for me, there is something to protecting society by executing the murderously insane.

[DuncanWaring]

. One can, I suspect, be loonie as a Demhouse rat one minute, and vaguely rational the next.

Sean Hannity last Thursday, for example. ;-)

[Smartass]

Sounds like the O.J. Simpson jury struck again.

[af_vet_1981]

NO! The court system is a joke.

Yes, there is almost no strength left in the world of men. They call evil good and good evil.

[LdSentinal]

Not having followed the case very closely, I think this maybe was a correct verdict. What say y'all?

Sounds like the Susan Smith defense. Unfortunately, it worked in this case.

[zook]

But even if we assume she was "crazy" at the moment she killed her kids, I don't believe she was crazy all of the time. There had to have been a time when she knew she might harm them. I, personally, simply don't buy the "insanity" defense as an avenue to legal exoneration. It could be a mitigating factor, but not a reason for finding someone "not guilty."

[Brytani]

When you get down to it, this has/had nothing to do with the insanity defense. This has to do with a prevaling attitude in this country that a mother won't kill their child unless they are crazy.

Susan Smith, Andrea Yates both got off light. If a man had done the same, it would have been death.

Facts are, women do and can kill children in vicious ways. She deserved the chair, or at least the same type of death she gave to her children.

[HitmanLV]

Anybody who (sincerely) says God ordered them to kill their children is insane. I'd say that's a good veridct.

[deport]

LANEY FOUND NOT GUILTY
BY REASON OF INSANITY

ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 03, 2004

TYLER, Texas (AP) - A woman who claimed God ordered her to bash in the heads of her sons was acquitted Saturday of all charges after a jury determined she was legally insane during the killings.

A jury found that Deanna Laney did not know right from wrong May 9 when she killed her two older sons, ages 6 and 8, in the front yard and left the youngest, now 2, maimed in his crib. Laney, 39, was found not guilty by reason of insanity of charges of capital murder and serious injury to a child.

Laney broke into tears as the verdict was read. Her husband, Keith Laney, sat emotionless. A few jurors cried and struggled to maintain their composure.

State law allows Laney to be committed to a maximum security state hospital. Medical evaluations will dictate when she will be released.

In closing arguments earlier Saturday, prosecutors portrayed the killings last Mother's Day weekend as deceptively planned and coldly executed.

"It was graphic, it was horrific and it was brutal," prosecutor Matt Bingham told the jury.

Laney had faced life in prison for the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke, and the beating of Aaron, now 2.

Bingham pounded his fist in his hand as he recounted Joshua's killing: "He got strike after strike after strike on his head to the point that his brains were coming out of his head like liquid."

Defense attorneys argued that insanity was the only reason why a deeply religious mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of them and maim another without so much as a tear.

All five mental health experts consulted in the case, including two for the prosecution and one for the judge, concluded that a severe mental illness caused Laney to have psychotic delusions that rendered her incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings - the standard in Texas for insanity.

Psychiatrists testified that Laney believed she was divinely chosen by God - just as Mary was chosen to bear Christ - to kill her children as a test of faith and then serve as a witness after the world ended.

Prosecutors portrayed the killings as deceptively planned and coldly executed. They said that even if Laney believed she was doing right by God, she had to have known she was doing wrong by state law. Her first call, they pointed out, was to 911 to summon authorities.

[zook]

Three good points.

[Lunatic Fringe]

So much for Texas justice... a father would never get away with this lame defense.

[Kirkwood]

Now I know what defense to use if I ever get in big trouble... God made me do it!

[Lunatic Fringe]

I give up, folks... I really do. Texas juries have twice ruled that women can kill their children and get off with this lame insanity defense. If a father claimed God told him to kill his kids, and he crushed their skulls with large rocks, people would be screaming to bring back the electric chair to charbroil his ass.

The prevailing attitude that a mother just wouldn't do something like this unless she were crazy is the sad reality of 21st century America. And what disgusts more than the verdict is that the laws dictate she be committed until she is "well." Now, she won't be out in 6 months but probably within 6 years, after serving that time in a clean hospital, doped up on thorazine half the time, the other half being a paid consultant for the made-for-Lifetime-TV-movie.

[spunkets]

She's nuts. She is still in jail and will be until her commitment hearing. She will be placed in a nuthouse for a very long time. Same for John Hinkley and the artist that tried to bomb a smiley face on the US. That guy never had a trial, because he is so wacked out, no one claimed he was fit yet to stand trial. He just lives in the nuthouse.

Some people do crazy things for selfish reasons. The insane do insane criminal acts for insane reasons.

[deport]

Texas juries have twice ruled that women can kill their children and get off with this lame insanity defense.

---

I'm drawing a blank... who was the other one? I'm sure there may have been more.

[TheWriterInTexas]

Nope. Sorry. Wrong answer.

As a mother of two who dealt with severe post-partum after the birth of my second child (it lasted over a year), I entertained many despairing thoughts - but never about harming a hair on my babies' heads.

Despite this experience, I think she and Yates deserve the chair.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I AM SO SICK OF PEOPLE GETTING AWAY WITH KILLING THEIR CHILDREN! IT'S DISGUSTING! Who ISN'T insane who beats someone's head in? Why don't we just let all mass murderers off because it totally NOT NORMAL to hands on murder innocent human beings! EVERYONE IS INNOCENT! GET THE MEMO!

[zook]

I agree!

[Destro]

So the "Bible made me do it" defense will get you off in Texas?