You may remember a couple weeks back when I posted about a Texas judge ordering doctors to inject a death row inmate with enough drugs to make him sane enough to die, well who’d a thunk it, but in my new town of residence, Tacoma, I’ve got a close runner-up for a second place nomination to the SCOTUS behind the Texas guy.
A judge has ordered a man who faces first-degree murder charges in the 2004 stabbing of his girlfriend to keep taking anti-psychotic drugs so he will be competent to stand trail.
Thomas Shane O’Hagan has been in and out of mental hospitals since he was charged with the killing. Defense attorney Mary Kay High has argued that O’Hagan’s constitutional rights are not being respected.
“An individual does have a constitutional protection and liberty interest in not having anti-psychotic drugs administered to him,” she said.
(snip)
Deputy Prosecutor Pat Oishi argued that the only time O’Hagan has improved and given the state hope of trying him has been when he’s on medication. Oishi said doctors could watch O’Hagan closely for the side effects while they give him medicine that will improve his health and allow the county to try him.
Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant ruled in favor of prosecutors and ordered O’Hagan to go to Western State Hospital for another three months of treatment and evaluation.
I’ll say exactly what I said in the previous post: “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 upâ€.
And I’ll add this: If you do not respect the sanctity of human life and you cannot be cured of that which gives you a lack of that respect, then you have no place among society and it is no longer society’s burden to feed, house and cloth you. Either we put you on an island with others who have the same lack of respect for life or you take the swift path of the needle. I don’t care.