I remember one particular defendant who awoke the homeowners when they decided the barking outside was not one of their dogs. Seems he had been released from somewhere on the Left Coast and hopped a train to Luling. [I guess he smelled barbecue ]

He told them he was from the Army of Zion and they had to give him water (and later played with body waste in his cell at the jail), but he was certainly rational enough to stop walking into the people's home when husband pointed and cocked his pistol. Some things go straight through crazy.

I had to figure out how to explain to the grand jury that - while clearly not all there (yes, he was found incompetent) - if they did not indict him, rather than getting him help, he would be released outside the Sheriff's office, free to wander our county.

As to the arguments against our current standard, if we tried to view the defendant's behaviour exclusively from their side - did the actor believe it was wrong - then no pedophiles are ever going to jail. Who is going to lead the charge in that direction?

Whitney, you forgot the part of the law that says that the defendant first has to have a severe mental disease or defect. Pedophilia isn't a severe mental disease or defect that will ever get the child molesters into the insanity arena. It's like sociopaths. They don't qualify either. Thank God.

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Originally posted by Floyd L. Jennings:
Shannon, technical question: The act with which charged occurred prior to the inception of 46C, but the trial and the decision to rely upon an insanity defense are well after 46C was enacted. Does 46C apply or will post-disposition proceedings be heard under the now-repealed 46.03? The issue is important for purposes of the standard for confinement and release.

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SB 837's changes (including the creation of new CCP Ch. 46C) only apply to offenses committed on or after 9/1/06. So Yates' case should be governed by the old law.

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Originally posted by John Bradley:
Well, as long as insanity is considered a treatable condition, annual reviews are likely to continue. The guilty but insane verdict gets around that problem by holding the defendant responsible. So, there is a bit of a distinction with a difference. The not guilty by reason of insanity moves everything into a civil arena.

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Actually, if I remember correctly, last session's changes to the insanity law in SB 837 keep dangerous acquittees under the jurisdiction of the criminal courts and strengthen the supervision of those acquittees. However, as noted above, Yates will be supervised under the old law.

As for guilty but insane (GBI)... that issue was debated before the Senate Jurisprudence Committee during the last interim. My recollection is that Matt Bingham, the Smith Co. CDA who dealt w/ the Laney case, was the only witness in support of GBI. The committee's eventual report rejected GBI in no uncertain terms. (For the report, click here (warning -- large .pdf file): The report)

A third point: today was a good day for killer moms. A jury in Illinois just walked a mom who had previously been convicted of killing her 10-year-old son (the conviction was overturned on what the AP called a "technicality".) Instead of insanity, she used the SODDI defense, blaming it on Tommy Sells, the Texas serial killer (who gave an uncorroborated "confession" to the killing, a confession that apparently has more holes than a Swiss cheese pinata.)

[This message was edited by Shannon Edmonds on 07-27-06 at .]

At least one TV news station this morning got it right. They said that because of the law in place in 2001, it was very possible that Andrea Yates could 1) go to a maximum security hospital, 2) have a review hearing by doctors, and if found to no longer be a danger to herself or others, go to a less restrictive hospital, and then 3) "it's very possible that one day she'll be free in the community." That's a change from articles that ran in newspapers (while the jury was deliberating) saying that she'd be in a hospital for the rest of her life.

You just have to wonder what the results would have been if men killed their children and then claimed insanity. I think there's an unfortunate double standard for women when it comes to criminal justice.

The double standard argument has never had more resonance with me than when NOW tried to help out with her defense. However, the thing that keeps me from really decrying the disparity of punishment in this case is the fact that Yates did have a mental illness and a man in the same circumstance would not have had such an illness to rely upon that to garner confusion of the issues.

. . . now Susan Smith, on the other hand, that's clear evidence of a double standard.

What upsets me most though, is the reaction of the mental health industry to this verdict. I have concerns about the increasing importance placed upon psychologists in the criminal justice system, and I worry that this verdict will only add to the increase (despite the fact that the expert testimony clearly went agains the defendant and the case had to be re-tried because of a mistake made by the consulting expert).