Should A Killer Be Put To Death If He's Mentally Ill? (page 2)

rebel8

I had a mentally ill person confess murder to me. He was extremely psychotic, but still had the ability to discern his illness was relapsing, decide to avoid treatment, experience urges to be violent and still decide not to get help, plan the attack, realize it was wrong, do it anyway, and then cover it up (very well I might add). This is not my opinion, these are his own statements.

IMO yes even he deserved the ultimate punishment.

james_woods

Perfectly stated, Rebel8. In this case, it was almost as if he had an inner urge to do the crime, and was using the mental thing like an excuse factor.

And then probably confessed out of a need to be reassured and forgiven.

Therefore, Guilty.

Deputy Dog

minimus

How do you "murder" someone without being mentally ill?

minimus

Of course, there are those that have IQs of 20 and are retarded. Does such a person truly understand anything??

Hortensia

It's a conflict of "rights." Whose rights are more important - those of the mentally ill murderer, or those of the general public who feel they have a right to go about their business without fear? I'd say the general public has the more important rights. The death penalty protects the rest of us from a dangerous person who has no respect for life.

james_woods

Of course, there are those that have IQs of 20 and are retarded. Does such a person truly understand anything??

Minimus - I submit to you that anyone with a true IQ of 20 would be incapable of feeding themselves, let alone dispatching someone else. I got into a little office debate with my lab assistant whether one of our programmers was either an "idiot", a "moron", or an "imbecile". I think that we discovered the dictionary says that a moron is a person able to function to some small degree (IQ < 80 but above 50). Imbecile ranked below this, and finally "idiot" was IIRC someone who was so impaired that the IQ was unmeasurable. I personally believe that almost all "crazy" murderers actually show evidence of some craft and forethought. We may imagine them like the gentle giant in "Of Mice and Men", but in reality I believe they are more like the deranged Charlie Manson. Or like that programmer, whose devious bug it took me almost 4 months to track down.

minimus

20 was an exaggeration.

james_woods

I kind of thought so, Min.

BTW, I remember we had a terribly sad case here in Texas of a black inmate who was led away to execution. The guard noticed that he did not finish his lemon creme pie (dessert part of the last meal) -

He said that he was saving it for later.

That was not a joke - it really happened. It makes you wonder what we were doing this for.

BizzyBee

Mental illness that includes murder should receive the ultimate punishment, IMO.

Interesting sidenote: perfectly good words like cretin, imbecile, moron, idiot, that used to have diagnosable parameters (IQ points) are no longer in use other than as insults. The PC cops had the DSM change these diagnoses to varying degrees of "retardation" instead. They also did away with "handicapped," switching to "disabled" which then fell out of favor and now is "challenged." Or at least that was as of 10 minutes ago.

james_woods

Quite so, busybee - on Idiot, Imbecile, Moron.

I was surprised to learn this - at one time they were I believe French medical terms (in psychoanalysis) and did not have a pejorative meaning.

However, I think Cretin (a la Crete) always had a nastier meaning.

Should A Killer Be Put To Death If He's Mentally Ill?

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