For all those defense attorneys who think the jury should be told what happens to defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity, read on:

April 17, 2004, 1:04AM


Man arrested after boy found dead in oven

Body found in unlit oven
By ROBERT CROWE
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

A man suspected of killing his girlfriend's 6-year-old son in Beaumont, then putting the boy's body in the unlit oven, was arrested in Houston on Friday by Harris County deputy constables.

Kenneth Pierott, 27, who killed his ailing sister in 1996 but was acquitted by reason of insanity, was charged with capital murder of Tre-Deven Odoms and booked Friday night into Jefferson County Jail.

The boy's mother, Kathy Jo Odoms, told police she woke up around 6:45 a.m. because she was hot and smelled gas, The Beaumont Enterprise reported in its online edition Friday. Odoms found the stove-top burners on and turned them off.

After that, Pierott left, and Odoms, 30, found her son's body. She last saw the child alive about 9 p.m. Thursday when she put him to bed, police said.

The boy had no visible injuries, including burn marks, police said. The cause of death was pending.

Tre-Deven was not Pierott's biological son, but a younger boy in the home is the couple's son, police said. The other child was not harmed. Police took the oven to their headquarters as evidence.

Harris County Precinct 3 constables found Pierott at 9:20 a.m. Friday at his father's east Houston home in the 6200 block of Scotch Pines. Constables had been called to help control a mentally disturbed man, said Capt. Jack Hagee of Precinct 3 Constable Ken Jones' office.

Deputy Charles Gore learned from Pierott's family that he became unruly because he had not taken medication.

"A family member then said the subject inside might possibly have killed a child," Hagee said. "They thought he possibly committed a homicide in Beaumont."

Deputies arrested Pierott on outstanding warrants. "He was arrested without incident," Hagee said.

Pierott's family said he had come to Houston from Beaumont with his brother Friday.

Pierott spent six months in state mental hospitals after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the December 1996 beating death of his 25-year-old sister, who was confined to bed with severe cerebral palsy.

Court documents showed Pierott hit his sister in the head with a heavy metal dumbbell. He was found covered in blood in a nearby apartment. Police said Pierott told them he had been fighting with the devil and killed his sister because she had been corrupted by evil relatives.

He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Pierott was sent to Vernon State Hospital for evaluation in July 1998. Two psychiatrists said he was psychotic and needed to be in a maximum-security hospital, according to court records. He was transferred to Rusk State Hospital and released three months later when doctors said he was safe to be released.

Pierott returned to Beaumont, where he was treated by Spindletop Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

Is changing the law the answer? Read one opinion.

"Psychiatry is a guessing game, and I do my best to keep the fools guessing about me," Hinckley wrote in his diary in 1987. "They will never know the true John Hinckley. Only I fully understand myself."

He doesn't sound so crazy to me -- he hit the nail on the head with that quote. Not only can psychiatry not know the true nature of these people, but they cannot guarantee the safety of those around them in the free world. That's why these cases get dumped on the courts.

For more details on what is wrong with the insanity law, read the story.

Scary!!!

"guilty but insane" sounds pretty tempting...

Moving a plea of insanity from a defensive (justification) issue to a punishment issue would be a major change. But I think the original concept was that the actor lacked the requisite mens rea and thus was truly not guilty of the crime as defined. How do you logically get around that? Of course, the person still represents a threat because the psychosis is only treated, not cured, and can presumably result in repeated criminal conduct (as the Beaumont case so graphically demonstrates). It seems easier to me to just redefine what happens to the "criminally insane" than to have to juggle with the concept of guilt. If confinement or other restrictions in any form are attached, then it ultimately does not seem to make much difference (except maybe as to how a verdict is viewed by the press or libel law) what label is used in the verdict. Perhaps the consequences of a "not guilty by reason of insanity" finding need to be hinged to a finding of how dangerous the person actually is. Because the verdict is not "not guilty", I think we all recognize the person was found to have done what the state alleged and therefore that society is presumed to be in need of protection, even if the actor deserves no punishment.

I still believe that the hitch with the guilty but insane comes with our long set ideas on mens rea and the guilty mind. If you can plea no-contest, you avoid the mental state of the defendant at the time of the commission of the offense don't you?

With Nolo, the court still finds the defendant guilty without referring to any admission as to the state of mind of the defendant.

Isn't that right? or is there something more subtle that I'm missing?

For background on another "guilty but insane" discussion, click here: https://tdcaa.infopop.net/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=347098965&f=157098965&m=9093001757&r=21910379#21910379

Philip, I initially liked your idea, but if the defendant pleads "no contest due to insanity", don't you still have the problem of how the verdict would read? "Guilty"? "Guilty but insane"? What? Someone found guilty must be guilty of all elements, including mens rea, which returns us back to our starting point.

As for Martin's point, we know that the dangerousness issue is already a factor in where a NGRI acquittee is housed in the MHMR system (maximum security vs. non-security or out-patient). But I also think everyone would agree that those periodic (6 month) reviews by MHMR boards are inadequate to protect the public (as this Beaumont case demonstrates).

What else could be done--at the front end or after sentencing--to better protect the public?

Yeah, but correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't a stipulation of evidence usually read: I judicially admit that witnesses would testify to the following: blah blah blah. Rather than the judicial admission statement in the stipulation where the defendant admits to the elements of the offense?

It just seems that our distinction in the stipulation of evidence directly addresses what is or isn't admitted to. I mean, if we're already drawing that very fine line for the purposes of protecting defendants from admissions being used against them in lawsuits (as is done on some DWI pleas that go Nolo) shouldn't the same twisting of words work here?

I'm not convinced one way or the other, I just think it is more of a legitimate (meaning already established) attempt to twist words than 'guilty, but'.

Don't we only care when the crime is really bad? Murder is the most common crime that raises the public's hackles. Why not say that a finding of NGRI for murder = long-term confinement in a mental institution, rather than the ridiculous repeated psychiatric reviews that inevitably result in quick release?

Has that been the problem all along? Without a finding of guilty we were afraid to actually treat the person as though he was as dangerous as the sane criminal? The Supreme Court seems happy to say we can protect the public without demanding the restraints must be in the form of punishment for a crime.

The real problem lies in predictability. Would Hinckley (if given more freedom) engage in similar conduct or not? Case after case demonstrates its hard to tell, perhaps because we are not dealing with a person who thinks at all like any of us. Plus, it is likely much more expensive to treat the insane than it is to incarcerate the "true" criminals. Unless that changes, we will likely continue to opt for less stringent (shorter-lived) controls over the sick. Fortunately, the number of criminally insane is apparently far less than the number of those persons who can rationalize criminal behavior. It is scary to treat those persons differently, but I am not sure exactly what other measures would be cost-effective and still deemed "humane". If Jefferson County has to go to a lot of expense just to get another NGRI finding, though, it seems to make sense that those persons once found criminally insane should be released on some form of "probation" that can be quickly revoked and the person again subjected to "treatment" without worrying about a trial in a criminal court.

I think Martin hit a point, even individuals who are under treatment and taking their medications are capable of psychotic and dangerous behavior. Maybe moving insanity to the punishment stage and guilty and insane combined with a restructuring of the short review periods already in existence. John also has a point, the cases that upset everyone are the homicides, but we all know of favorite criminal defendants who have mental problems and are repeat customers. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is not well equipped to handle people with mental illness, and the state system designed for it may be as overworked as the prison system. This is a problem that does not appear to have a quick easy solution and we do not need a knee-jerk fix.

The other side of the coin is that traditionally, very very few defendants have been found to be insane under Texas law. Making a quick fix may open the gates to more claims that in the past were not substantiated, like the many claims of retardation recently.

[This message was edited by Jim Huggler on 04-26-04 at .]