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Well that is literally the point, she may not have. That's why psychiatric assessment is needed. With acute mental crisis events, you may not actually know right from wrong, or be aware of what you are doing. Now that may not be the case here. But it does fit some of the cases I was involved in the past when I worked in social care.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/dad-killed-kids-for-altruistic-reasons-psychiatrist-1.458810?cache=%3FclipId%3D104056
Dr. Roy O'Shaughnessy testified that Allan Schoenborn believed his children were being sexually abused, and felt the only solution was to kill them.
"The distortions in the thinking led him to believe - I think probably at a moment's notice at the time of their deaths - that the only way to protect them was in fact to kill them and put them in heaven," the psychiatrist testified. "In his disillusioned view of the world it was logical."
"A B.C. man found not criminally responsible for the killings of his three children about a decade ago has been granted the ability to take multi-day leaves from the Lower Mainland psychiatric hospital he was sentenced to. Dave Texeira, spokesperson for the victims’ family, confirmed the decision on Friday (March 11). “This is not good for anyone,” he tweeted. Allan Schoenborn has been held at the hospital since 2010 after being convicted of killing his 10-year-old daughter and two sons, aged eight and five, in April 2008."
I find that people who have not much in person experience with truly mentally ill individuals sometimes struggle to understand how disordered their thinking can be. In this case she attempted suicide, but also there was no real attempt to disguise her crime and get away with it. That suggests (but does not prove) some kind of break. A planned methodical killer might have smothered them, or gassed them or staged an accident.
That is not to say she should just walk away, if she was suffering from psychosis (which is much more than just the blues to be clear) then she needs to be committed and treated for a long period of time.
That was part of his defense so they will presumably find the psychiatrist who will spin it their way as much as possible, as the prosecution will do the opposite. I'm not sure how good the legal system is at separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak. Which is another issue indeed.
My experience back in the day with social work is that there are more people than you might suspect who are ok for 90% of their lives and then go haywire for what looks like some random reason (but probably is not). And some who almost go haywire (perhaps the intrusive thoughts those mothers spoke of) but don't. Telling those categories apart before something happens is exceptionally difficult I think.
I think there definitely are bad people, but there are also sick people and that sickness may make them do bad things. Telling the difference is difficult and vengeance upon the sick is probably bad in and of itself. Taking vengeance upon bad people (through the state process so as not to pull in their friends/relatives) seems pretty fine to me. It is a legitimately complicated situation. I also appreciated your input into the conversation. Thanks!
Two opposing analogies:
The genetically determined brute: a man who, by some novel genetic recombination, has random psychotic breaks with homicidal urges, and kills multiple people. Is it his fault? On one hand, "no", because it was "his genes" that determined it. But this abolishes all fault - all human behavior is determined by mechanical causation, or at least partially determined by, if we have souls with will or something. Any time you eat food, is that your "choice", or your genes and causation forcing you to, outside your will?
Or - someone's having a picnic in a city. A homeless guy wanders by, and the guy, ever generous, chats him up and offers him some food. The homeless guy sits there for a few minutes, then wanders away - but, for some inscrutable reason, drops some PCP in our guy's salad. Our guy finishes the salad, goes home, has a drug-induced psychotic episode, and murders his wife. As he comes down, he calls the cops, and gets arrested. At trial, the preceding events are proven beyond a shadow of a doubt with security camera footage.
In the former case, it's the person's "fault", in that they'd probably end up doing the same thing again, so punishing them for it is good. In the latter case, it's not their "fault", in that they won't end up doing that again, so punishing them for it is dumb.
Your intuition is wrong from a legal perspective. The first case is textbook insanity defense; the second is involuntary intoxication. Both are complete defenses--in neither case is the accused considered at fault. The first case may result in involuntary commitment to a mental hospital while the second would not, but that's a separate issue from legal responsibility for the homicides.
True, thanks!
I don't think it affects my point though - strike
psychotic breakfrom the first paragraph and just leave 'homicidal urges he acts on in a coherent way', and it fits with 'legal responsibility'. And I don't really see any "moral" difference between a gene that makes you homicidal via insanity, and a gene that makes you homicidal via some other method. The idea being - our desires, morals, etc, are informed by genes, both good and bad (your desire to save the drowning child is genetic just as much as a desire to kill is), so saying people aren't morally responsible for things their genes 'force them to do' just doesn't work.More options
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