But as of now, I would greatly appreciate it if this judge was nominated for at least the DC Court of Appeals, if not the SCOTUS
A Texas jury decided in 1991 that Steven Kenneth Staley, now 43, should be put to death for killing a restaurant manager, but three days before his February 2006 date with destiny, psychologists testified that he is mentally ill, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a mentally ill person cannot be executed. The solution, declared state judge Wayne Salvant in April, is for the state to inject Staley with enough psychotropic medicine to make him sufficiently sane to understand why he is going to die, at which point he can be killed.
Except for cases of self defense, you almost have to be a little crazy to kill someone, especially if you premeditate the act or do it in cold blod. Insanity should not be a defense for violence, it should be a reason to put someone away in a deep dark hole for a good long time before it is decided they need to be put out of our misery.
This judge has the proper frame of mind for this case: “Fix him up so we can f*ck him up”.
…and it is also the perfect jab at the mind-quacks who get fat off the courts.
It’s not the first time it’s happened, I’ve heard of a similar case back in the eighties where a guy just stopped taking his medication figuring that they couldn’t pull the switch if he was nuts. I can’t remember how that one ended, but it’s been tried before.
AK’s right though, you can’t be a normal person and do some of the crimes these people do. So the insane defense is just word play, a matter of degree. This guy killed ten people while wearing a tutu and a propeller beanie? give em the chair,.. oh, he ate their kidneys, well then maybe a nice soft padded cell then with lots of really good drugs.
The defining question from the judge should be on the insanity defense, would you be willing to call him cured at some point?
If you say he’s no longer a danger, then he can live in your home for thirty days after release. The race away from that defense by medical experts would raise a cloud of dust that could be seen from orbit.
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