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Originally posted by Nothing But Net
Holy Shit, this guy sounds like me! Except for the music part 
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Well I was thinking that he sounds like several people I've heard on the Cellar, but left that conclusion for others to draw, lest I seem "mean" or "condescending".
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He may be deluded, but he's not insane, a least by legal definition. He knew exactly what he was doing.
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That's an oversimplified view of the actual legal situation.
"The modern history of the insanity defense begins in England in 1843, however, when Daniel MacNaughton tried to assassinate Prime Minister Peel, but mistakenly killed Peel's secretary instead. MacNaughton suffered from paranoid delusions and believed that Peel's party, the Tories, were conspiring to kill him. At his trail he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
"In response to pubic and official outcry about the verdict, the House of Lords was asked to define the test for when a person suffering from a mental disorder should be excused from responsibility for criminal conduct.
"The Lords...devised the test that bears MacNaughton's name, which says that the defendant is not responsible if, at the time of the crime as a result of mental disease, the defendant either did not know what he was doing or did not know that what he was doing was wrong."
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/featur...597/morse.html
Obviously he knew what he was doing. But did he know it was wrong? He repeatedly stated a belief that killing someone doesn't cause them to actually die. It may be enough to prove that he knew it was against the law, though.
MacNaughton is the standard in Pennsylvania, and many other states. In the rest, the standard is "incapable of forming criminal intent *OR* incapable of conforming his behavior to the requirements of the law."; not quite the same thing. It's kind of a crapshoot; what is the prevailing standard in each of the states? And then there are Federal charges too.