Is the Insanity Plea a legitimate defense?

[Pearwood]

Of course it's legitimate. If you put him in prison he'd need endless observation because he's still fucking crazy and thinks that he's entirely in the right to do what he does. You need an entirely difference facility for people like that with people there who know that they basically have Hannibal Lector on their hands. Plus in the unlikely event they do manage to control his obvious mental disorders there's always the question of whether it's fair to punish someone who is no longer a threat for something they couldn't control.

possibly the rest of his life

That's the key phrase. He isn't getting off easy, getting off easy would be something like a 20-30 year prison sentence. He's there forever unless they manage to fix him.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

He was psychotic at the time of the attacks?
What about all the time it took to prepare them?

 

[sinterklaas]

Of course he's insane. What sane person murders 77 people on a children summer camp and proclaims himself to be the leader of the renewed Templars Order.

Temporary psychotic is bullshit though.

He was psychotic at the time of the attacks?
What about all the time it took to prepare them?

^

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

You are strongly mistaking "Psychiatric Ward for possibly the rest of his life" for "Getting off scot-free".

He is going to be behind lock and key, heavily medicated and very likely personally restrained for the rest of his life.

Seriously, not kidding, the man will spend the rest of his life strapped to a bed for days on end (shitting and pissing himself day in and day out, i need to stress this, when they strap you to a bed, if you need to shit, you shit yourself. He is going to be spending a lot of time shitting and pissing himself.) punctuated by long 'interview' sessions wherein doctors will treat him as though he is a neutered monster trapped under a microscope.

Oh, and because he is clearly pretty fucking violent, he's likely going to be kept 'regulated' on Halperidol or stronger Haldol isn't one of the 'fun' meds. Any time this man has not under that microscope or literally strapped to a bed, he is basically going to be sitting in a corner, drooling at a wall.

His sentence is somewhat analogous to lifelong solitary confinement, except that he's going to be under the direct, physical care of probably like a half-dozen or more very large orderlies who probably don't particularly like him even a little bit. Even a little. (because btw each and every one of them knows exactly who he is. exactly who he is)

He has not gotten away with shit.

He is, however, clearly out of his fucking mind.

It is generally not a good idea to put clearly fucking batshit psychotics into a prison with other people who are, while possibly violent, are not likely to be batshit psychotic.
If you do that, people get killed. Either someone kills him or he kills someone, there is no option C.

Norway has chosen to medicate the brains out of this monster, strap him to a bed and stick him in a box under a microscope.

I feel this was the appropriate choice.

I don't know why people don't get this. And here of all places... you'd think no one has ever heard of Arkham Asylum. Figure this guy is going someplace like it just much less interesting yet vastly more disturbing and depressing.

 

[xvbones]

Wait, what? Dude, their rehabilitation rate is excellent. It doesn't mean that Norway has pansy criminals for this guy to be a wolf among sheep.

Yes, that is exactly what I said: someone could get killed.

What exactly did you think I meant by 'someone could get killed'?
Did you think i meant 'everything will be totally cool forever'?
Because I promise you 'everything will be totally cool forever' is pretty much the exact opposite of what I meant when I said 'someone could get killed.'

Like really entirely the exact opposite.

Erm...no, it's not. It's mental institution, not mental mausoleum. This guy will be there for the rest of his life...

...locked in an institutional building. For the rest of his natural life, yes.
That's is also exactly what I said. Yes.

Tell me something, what, precisely, do you think the word 'imprisoned' means?

You don't honestly think the expressions "there for the rest of his life" and "imprisoned" are mutually exclusive, do you?
What with one basically being the definition of the other and all.

Basically.

 

[thespyisdead]

it's not enough, that most of the prisons in the nordic countries are like a vacation resort, but now they let THAT guy go free.


NOW THAT IS A LOAD OF BULL

 

[Combustion Kevin]

it's simple:
guilty and sane -> time in prison appropriate to the crime comitted.
guilty and insane -> loony bin, never getting out until deemed fully cured.

 

[doctorsilly]

Keep in mind, the longest possible prison sentence in Norway is around 20 years, and they have the most humane prisons in the world, it is actually almost a holiday resort. They even hire artists to make it less impersonal there. Mental institutions can keep him until he is cured. He will never be cured. /thread

 

[Treblaine]

Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a rampage in Norway last July, isn't going to jail. A mental evaluation found he inhabited a ''delusional universe'' and was ''psychotic'' at the time of the attacks. He is now going to stay in a Psychiatric Ward for possibly the rest of his life. What do you guys think about this? Should he have gone to Jail or do you think the prosecutors are right in just putting him in a Psych ward? Or in that case, what do you think we, as a race, should do with people who were "delusional" or "psychotic" during the time of a murder or an attack?

What odd phrasing an paragraph breaks.

"what do you think we, as a race"

I'll assume you mean we the Human Race.

Well stop and consider this: under Norwegian law the maximum sentence is 20-years, after that time they'd HAVE to release him or else come up with a very good excuse why to detain him. But sectioned under mental health act he will only be released when he is "cured" which for such a well concealed organised and calculated crime I don't think they will ever be able to say he is safe enough for release.

In almost every jurisdiction for the same crime those who get the insanity plea spend longer incarcerated and once sectioned the doctors NEVER want to let the patient go as if they kill again then the doctor is criminally liable. If a parole board releases a criminal, they are in NO WAY liable if the criminal goes on to kill or harm again, but a board of mental health physicians would be.

And don't be thinking it will be an easier ride in a mental asylum than in prison, mental asylums are often far far worse than prisons, you are almost always kept in complete solitary and subjected to endless tests and "treatments". Prisoners is Jail tend to settle into a fairly peaceful and content life where you can read, receive mail, see visitors and so on. In a mental asylum he'll be sharing "wards" with compulsive masturbaters, shit-fetishists and ranting-raving lunatics, he will be treated more like a dangerous animal than a human being. The full Hannibal Lecter treatment:

Don't worry, I don't think this Breiviks (or whatever his name is) is smart enough to orchestrate an elaborate escape. And escape is his only way out.

I think this is a just punishment, I have not read of the details of the trial of his psychological examination but I can see how plausible it is that he really is insane. And insane, while it means he won't be punished per-se, his treatment will be far worse than any sentence under Norwegian Criminal Law..

 

[xvbones]

I don't know why people don't get this. And here of all places... you'd think no one has ever heard of Arkham Asylum. Figure this guy is going someplace like it just much less interesting yet vastly more disturbing and depressing.

Honestly, it being Norway, he probably will be kept in a bright, clean, well-lit room and his orderlies will probably never mistreat him.

This man will never not be heavily medicated full stop.

The rest of this man's existence involve very simple shapes and several gallons of drool, I shit you not.

 

[Custard_Angel]

This guy wasn't insane. He was dangerously sane. He was aware of every single thing he was doing.

He has no chance of rehabilitation because there is nothing actually "wrong" with him. What he did was despicable, but he'll never be sorry for it.

He doesn't need psychiatric care or prison or anything. He needs to be isolated for the entirety of his life. He needs a pit in the ground.

 

[VaderMan92]

I think the insanity plea makes sense. You don't want to throw some nutjob into the general prison population. But irredeemable loonies like this Breivik guy just need to be put down.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Is the Insanity Plea a legitimate defense?

Breivik's case tells us (in big, bright fonts) that we live in insane world. So...

 

[Polite Sage]

I think it's better for all parties considered that he is put into a psychiatric ward, and here is why:

Now that he has been officially declared insane, it makes his' "statement" lose all credibility and his supporters or other racist bigots can also be viewed as mentally impaired douches. Now there is going to be a lot less people that can publicly agree with him.

If he had been sentenced to death, he would've just become a martyr for his "holy cause", thus locking him up in a mental hospital is a lot better alternative.

 

[Athinira]

You are strongly mistaking "Psychiatric Ward for possibly the rest of his life" for "Getting off scot-free".

He is going to be behind lock and key, heavily medicated and very likely personally restrained for the rest of his life.

Seriously, not kidding, the man will spend the rest of his life strapped to a bed for days on end (shitting and pissing himself day in and day out, i need to stress this, when they strap you to a bed, if you need to shit, you shit yourself. He is going to be spending a lot of time shitting and pissing himself.) punctuated by long 'interview' sessions wherein doctors will treat him as though he is a neutered monster trapped under a microscope.

It's Norway, not America. Psych wards in Norway doesn't function in the same way.

The Norwegians are basically peace-loving hippies, and it's not going down in the way you so describe. Sure, a mental ward isn't a playground there either, but the only time you will be strapped to a bed is if you misbehave. Breivik, for all his lack of emphaty, isn't without logic. He isn't going to misbehave if he knows it will make his situation worse.

I personally think he belongs in a prison.

 

[Tekkawarrior]

snip

Soon as I saw your post I was like "I don't remember replying to this thread :S"

 

[SmegInThePants]

if someone is insane in the sense that they don't even understand what they are doing, that they don't even understand they are harming others, then that to me is real insanity deserving of special treatment.

on the other hand, if you know you are killing people, but you're just 'psychotic' so you don't care or you've convinced yourself its for the good, then you deserve to be treated as a normal murderer. You knew and understood that you were killing people yet did it anyways, you are morally culpable even if you thought that they were all out to get you or whatever.

This is someone i don't think anyone would ever feel comfortable with allowing back into society, so why spend extra money for 'treatments' we have no confidence will get him to the level where we'd be comfortable having him live next door to us? Prison, death penalty, whatever is normal for mass murderer's in Norway is what he should get.

 

[Radelaide]

Umm... Yeah? Why does it matter if they get a life sentence in prison or in the loony bin? They're still out of the way and no longer killing people.

Because if he's sent to the loony bin, they're assuming he can be rehabilitated into the society. He would be treated as if his murdering 77 innocent people was a symptom of illness and not a pre-meditated plan of murder. His lawyer (the poor bastard) will be trying to say that "he's sorry for what he did as he wasn't in control of his actions and that he should be able be made into a functioning member of the public again."

He needs to be locked up in a dirty cell made to look at the pictures of the families he's destroyed and never see the light of day. There are just some people who should have been aborted before birth and he's one of them.

 

[xvbones]

it's not enough, that most of the prisons in the nordic countries are like a vacation resort, but now they let THAT guy go free.


NOW THAT IS A LOAD OF BULL

dude seriously what

'go free' is comes from where, now, dude, where did you see 'go free' remotely mentioned

freedom and this dude are mutually exclusive forever, he is spending the rest of his life in a sealed, white room

This guy wasn't insane. He was dangerously sane. He was aware of every single thing he was doing.
He has no chance of rehabilitation because there is nothing actually "wrong" with him.

Forgive me and with all due respect, 'dangerously sane' is a completely meaningless expression and also, again with respect, utterly incorrect.

What you are regarding as 'dangerous sanity' is what sociopathic behavior actually looks like.
Movies and TV and video games have been lying to you for years and years and years.

There is nothing in this man that is even a little bit sane, because sane people do not murder 77 people period, much less all at once.

There are many many many many many things that are wrong with this man.
Oh my god so many things that are wrong with this man, because otherwise he would not have murdered all those people that he murdered.
All at once.

He doesn't need psychiatric care or prison or anything. He needs to be isolated for the entirety of his life. He needs a pit in the ground.

In other words, he needs to be institutionalized, i am glad you agree.

What is interesting about this is that usually, after a spree like this, the (very very very crazy person) tends to take their own life or just get shot to shit by the police.

They caught this one alive.

 

[TitanDrone]

The accused did not "plead insanity." He was subjected to a mental test, because the assumption here in Scandinavia is that ANYONE who owns and uses a his gun to kill people is insane.

The court-ordered psychiatric evaluation resulted in a diagnosis of Paranoid-Schizophrenia, a very debilitating condition that causes delusions. In this case it is likely that the accused did in fact think he was doing society a favour by targeting the young people at a political summer camp organised by the left social-democrats.

The inspiration appears to have come from the extremely negative rhetoric of the far right, or at least that has been a large part of the discussion. Personally I am glad the whole "he did it because of a game"-angle did not take hold here. Some papers parroted the angle, but since education is free and the norm is at least nine years of school, most people know better. Fictional worlds may help enforce pre-existing delusions, but they are not the root cause of the deceased mind.

The murderer in this case, did not want a label of "insane," because it would completely invalidate his crusade against whatever it is he is crusading against. According to reports, he is disappointed with the verdict.

It is worth noting, that in Norway, as in Denmark a ruling of committal is in effect an open-ended sentence. No parole and no forgiveness. A relatively extreme sentence in a system where homicide is worth 12 years and most crimes carry a maximum sentence of between 4 and 8 years. Also, in most cases, we tend to throw people away according to the worst thing they did. So a murderer who stole the victims purse might get the 12 years for murder, and not the 2 years op top for theft.

As you can probably understand, the mass-murder of politically active individuals is viewed as a direct attack on the foundation of democracy. The accused has attempted to reason with his accusers, and he has failed. He is now at the mercy of doctors, who will not let him out of their sight for the rest of his life. IF he is ever judge normal, could in theory be released before he would have been, had he received a conventional sentence.

As pointed out above, prison is better that an open-ended committal to an insane-ward. In prison, he would likely be left to evolve his decease, and after serving his time, he would get out and likely cause more problems. With doctors around him, he will be forced to either see what he has done and begin suffering properly, or he will stay there until he dies.
Paranoid-Schizophrenia usually shortens the life a lot, so he is unlikely to last long.