You Have GOT to Be Kidding!
Posted July 26, 2006 
Comments(5)
Comments(5) Prepare for a RANT!!
I just heard that Andrea Yates has been declared Not Guilty by reason of insanity!
Are you kidding me? How can anyone believe she didn’t know what she was doing was wrong as she drowned her children, chasing some of them down so she could kill them?
I don’t doubt she’s deeply sick – but how does that translate into not being guilty? How many years till she’s labeled, “recovered” and let loose?
This is yet another case to support the idea that we must change the legal system! It ought to be “Guilty by reason of insanity.” So that the person gets treatment and when and if they are “healed” they go to jail to serve their time!
The dead are still dead, and their blood still cries out from the ground!
From what was explained to us in our Criminal Law class a couple years ago, it’s quite unlikely a person who was found not guilty by reason of insanity would ever be found to be “cured.” Usually, these people spend the rest of their lives in a maximum security mental hospital, which is a prison in all but name.
Here’s a quick description of Vernon State Mental Hospital: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/07/23/yates_to_become_prisoner_regardless/
This is yet another case to support the idea that we must change the legal system! It ought to be “Guilty by reason of insanity.†So that the person gets treatment and when and if they are “healed†they go to jail to serve their time!
I can’t believe no one else has thought of this. You should be coined the Clarence Darrow of modern time. Maybe not, BUT I certainly would go for this!!!!
Hey Chris,
Thanks! Actually I didn’t think of it – I heard this idea a few years back and I think it makes sense. After all, if she ever does become sane, how could she live with herself for doing what she did?
She’d WANT to be inprisioned if she really understood what a huge crime she committed!
Mercy without justice is merciless!
Louie,
I hadn’t heard she was found “not guilty”. I like what you said about the dead are still dead! If this was a man, there would have been no sympathy, but our society feels that men don’t love their children as much as women, so if a woman does something like this, then there must be something mentally wrong, where as men are perceived as just horrible.
Mindy