Mother acquitted in sons' stoning deaths

The Dallas Morning News ^ | April 3, 2004 | By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News

[auboy]

Well of course she is crazy.

Crazy like a fox.

[jess35]

I think a person can be insane, but I do not think an otherwise "normal" person (as DL as been described), suddenly snaps and kills his or her children. If that were true, any of us could do the same thing DL did, out of the clear blue sky, with no warning whatsoever to our family, friends, and associates.

I think you hit the nail on the head. People don't want to aknowledge they might have it within themselves to suddenly snap so they are going to resist seeing it in others as well.

People "hide" a lot. They hide depression, they hide the random wacky thoughts. To be honest, it disturbs me more to encounter a person who doesn't believe in "insanity". That kind of person might not question their own actions.

[MarkL]

How long will it take before lawyers submit that she is no longer crazy?

That's my only problem with "not guilty by reason of insanity." I believe that it should be "guilty by insanity," which means that you will be institutionalized until you're judged no longer insane, at which point you get moved to a prison.

My personal belief in these cases is simple... "You'll be judged no longer insane when the person you killed is no longer dead."

Mark

[szweig]

Well, FWIW, I'm of the opinion that insanity is no defense against murder. If you did it I don't care if you were "sane" or "insane" (all infinitely definable terms). If you murdered someone you lose your life. Plain and simple. We'd have a lot fewer people in prison to maintain as well. And, (I'm ducking behind a tree with this one) we really ought to look at keeping women off of juries involved in cases like this one. Their nurturing nature affects their judgement and often acquits or spares the DP where it truly ought to be applied. SSZ Any reasonable disagreements out there??

[jess35]

If we keep all women off murder cases involving mothers killing children, should we also keep all men off rape cases? After all, their judgement might be affected.

[pax_et_bonum]

As long as there was no ugly ulterior motive--collecting on life insurance, marrying some guy who didn't want kids, desire to free up more of the budget to buy evening clothes, or the like--it would be pretty hard to explain this as anything other than insanity.

I agree.

I insanity exists, this has got to be an example of it.

Honestly, I hope she never recovers from it or the pain will be too much for her to bear.

This is horrible for the children especially, but also for the mother.

I hope that one day she and her children are reunited in heaven.

[NYCVirago]

Has this "mother" been stripped of custody rights to the child she tried to kill? I certainly hope so.

[MeekOneGOP]

Oh, yeah, I certainly would hope so too.

[trussell]

How's this for a reasonable disagreement:

I am a woman. I would sentence her to death!! Sick b!tch should die as horribly as she murdered and maimed her children!!

I am so angry that she is getting away with this!!!!

[rastus macgill]

I would held out for murder 1 on that jury.I am very skeptical about absolving anyone of responsibility for medical reasons particularly psychiatric ones.
She flunked the 911 TEST!
Just like Andrea Yates she knew what she did was wrong and she called the authorities! Dialing 911 should automatically rule out the insanity defense.
If she truly did not know what she did was wrong she could stand and scream,curl up in a catatonic ball or pleasantly continue about her daily routine-(what I'd look for as evidence of not knowing right from wrong.)
Calling 911,confessing or in other cases trying to cover up the crime and lying are all RATIONAL responses to knowingly committing a crime.
She skated on this one as usual sexism in the judicial system is almost always to a woman's BENEFIT.

[rastus macgill]

"Insanity" is a legal term not a medical one.It has nothing to do with how unprobable or heinous the crime nor how bizarre the motive-God told me to kill my children.....I wanted to impress Jodie Foster.......CIA radio waves forced me....etc
It is simply whether the perp knew right from wrong.
You can be stone cold crazy and still responsible if you knew it was wrong.

[hopespringseternal]

Well, I think this establishes that she was more sane than this jury.

[rastus macgill]

WE don't all have it in ourselves to snap and kill.Or we do.....free will gives us the CHOICE but even if God,Satan ,Martians or the CIA says kill we don't have to

[MarkL]

Well, FWIW, I'm of the opinion that insanity is no defense against murder. If you did it I don't care if you were "sane" or "insane" (all infinitely definable terms). If you murdered someone you lose your life. Plain and simple. We'd have a lot fewer people in prison to maintain as well. And, (I'm ducking behind a tree with this one) we really ought to look at keeping women off of juries involved in cases like this one. Their nurturing nature affects their judgement and often acquits or spares the DP where it truly ought to be applied. SSZ Any reasonable disagreements out there??

The term "murder" is the key here... Murder is the intentional taking of a life, in oposition to established laws, which puts it in a special category of homocide. With murder, there MUST be a criminal intent. That's where I believe that there is some "wriggle room" in the case of the insanity plea. When someone is "insane," they simply don't realize that what they're doing is wrong. There's no realization that what they're doing is wrong, and no criminal intent. That's the difference between a case like that and the Susan Smith murder case, since she MUST have realized that what she did was wrong, since she tried to make up a phony story about how her children were kidnapped.

Mark

[tking]

I think people may be having a problem with the letter of the law (de juris) vs. the reality of the law (de facto). The reality of this situation is that the individual in question did not "get away" with anything! In all likelyhood this person will never walk out of the hospital. And ,even if (against all odds) they did, it would be under strict supervision of the court. Judges, prosecutors, county sherriffs are all elected officials and none of them are interested in getting their name in the papers as responsible for letting a child murderer go free. As well, the Department of State Health Services, physicians, psychologists and administrators aren't exactly eager to take this one on either.

More importantly, I don't think this country is all that interested in dealing with mental health issues. I get the feeling that most folks just wish the whole issue would go away. Bottom line; mental illness is real, it is as debilitating as any physical illness and it is a disease of individuals who are difficult ,if not impossible, to make global or general predictions about.

Are there people who abuse the system? Of course. Are there people who will abuse any system? Certainly. But, I think it is very easy to ignore the complexities of this issue by issuing a blanket solution like "kill em all."
tking