I am offended more, but I think the punishment should be the same, and that punishment should be a slow, painful, death penalty. I believe in punishing crimes, not motives. This is why I'm against all hate-crimes legislation.

It doesn't matter to me if someone kills an old lady because they want her purse, or they kill her because she's Jewish. She's equally dead and the punishment should be the same. I don't care if someone murders their kids because they want to keep them from living in a horrible world, or because they believe their kids are demons. They should die horribly and painfully for doing something this awful regardless of their reasons, mental state, etc.

I didn't say "take a life". I said commit a murder. I also didn't say circumstances don't matter. I said mental state doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they are insane, mentally retarded, on drugs, etc.

Murder means they thought about it before doing it. Circumstances matter. If a woman walks in and sees her husband having sex with another woman and she hits him in the head with a lamp, there was no premeditation and no forethought of malice. It was a crime of passion.

If someone thinks their neighbor is the spawn of satan, so they go out and buy duct tape, quick lime, a shovel, and rope and they wait for their neighbor to get off of work, and take them to a hole they've already dug in the desert, they are committing murder.

If they spend months contemplating how their kids would be better off in heaven, wait until their husband goes to work, draws a bath, and takes their five children one by one into the bathroom and drowns them, and then chases their oldest kid outside and drags him kicking and screaming back to the bath where she kills him too, she is committing murder regardless of whether she is depressed, schizophrenic, mentally retarded, or just plain evil.

Those two contradict and do not make sense. A soldier defending her or his country thinks about killing before performing the action. A person hearing their house being robbed thinks about killing, or committing murder in your case, before they do it.

On the other hand, sometimes people on drugs such as PCP do not think about killing people before they do. They will freak out and act irrationally and on impulse and some will not remember what they did when they are done tripping. The same goes for some insanity cases, it can be an impulsive act.

Wrong. They don't contradict each other and they make perfect sense.

Premeditation means you have a plan to kill someone in particular, you've thought about it before hand, and you've taken steps to do it.


Nice try, but not even close. A soldier doesn't think about a particular soldier in the opposing army. They think about trying to stay alive and killing those who mean to kill them. Not even on the same planet with premeditated murder. A person who shoots someone robbing their house has not planned to kill someone, and has not taken steps to kill them. Also, using force against those who use aggression against you is not murder. It's self-defense which again, is a million miles away from premeditated murder. Your examples are laughable.

If you make a choice to use drugs, you are responsible for any damage you cause while on those drugs. This includes murdering people. If I drink and drive and I hit a pedestrian who later dies, I have committed murder. The same is true for any other drug regardless of how it affects your mind.

Again, your example is nowhere near what I've discussed.

Ah...I think I'm starting to get it....you mean that many school shootings weren't murders because they killed indiscriminately. Gotcha.

So a sniper always kills indiscriminately? Never knew that.

So you have never thought about a particular scenario in your head? I have. If so and so broke into my house, even with no intention of deadly force, I would do so and so to so and so. That so and so being a particular person and that so and so means deadly force. I guess I would have thought about murder....

So your definition isn't "murder means they thought about it before doing it"? It is "murder means they thought about it before doing it or they took a drug that led them to mistakenly do it" because there wasn't premeditation in the drug case. Thanks for that.

You ignored my insanity example by the way.

We all try to do that ;)

You are laughable.

OK, for those of you who can't read, I never agreed with radar, I tried to defend what I thought was his position. Since radar explained himself, I'll try to explain where I stand on this.

I do not consider defense; whether it be of ones life, loved ones property or country to be murder.
If you intentionally kill someone because you were on drugs or whatever, I do not think that should be a viable excuse. If you commit premeditated murder - no excuses.

No. Murder means killing others who do not intend to physically harm, endanger, or violate a non-consenting other's person, property, or rights.

It doesn't really matter. None of your examples had any merit.

Ooo, get her!

Drugs (or alcohol) are a choice. Crazy, and by that I mean real, genuine crazy, isn't.

Everybody gets really hot over the "insanity defense," when it's actually used quite rarely, and even then rarely succeeds.

Apparently it's only used in 0.85% of criminal defenses nationwide, and only succeeds 0.26%.

Consider also, that most of those cases are not capital crimes ... One of our psychiatrists does criminal competency evaluations. Every now and again there's an "exciting" case involved, but mostly she's seeing people charged with destruction of property, criminal trespass, maybe rarely terroristic threats or assault.

Wolf, in your opinion, do you think the 0.26% success rate on 0.85% cases where an insanity defense is attempted, is about right, or too low? Do you think it under-reflects the role insanity plays in crime?

I think it is correct.

Severely mentally ill people mainly do have the ability to determine right from wrong, and to assist in their own defense.

Public perception plays a big part in most people's understanding of the Insanity Defense. Many people believe what they see on TV, that crazy people are scary and more dangerous than the general population (nope, they aren't, they're actually less likely to be dangerous, and on top of that, they are more likely to be victims of crimes).

More jurisdictions do need the option of Guilty but Mentally Ill. That puts the individual in prison, but also recognizes their need for treatment.

That makes sense. I've been wonderng about it, because I'd read elsewhere that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators, but that wasn't gelling with the apparently high number of convicted criminals with severe mental illness.

Wait.....

How was this decided. Peer Review sources please.