[somerfrost]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

S'okay, 2Mins, post strong opinions away. With a few exceptions, no one seems to get awful in discussion on derbytrail. For which I am grateful!

What makes it different is that a child molester is molesting children because that's how he (or she, I'll be fair) gets his/her rocks off. A man shooting his cheating wife is acting in a fit of rage. Andrea Yates heard voices in her head telling her she was saving the children from Satan by killing them. She really thought she was doing the right thing by killing them. Whether her mental illness was genetic or brought about by circumstance, I don't know. She was (is) a very religious woman, and to her Hell is a very real place. And her holy book has many instances of major characters hearing God speak to them, and then there she was, hearing voices herself (which many, many, many people suffering from severe depression do). How was she to know it wasn't God speaking to her?

And here's something else-- it is very, very difficult to dupe a jury into thinking someone is insane when he or she is not. Many serial killers have tried it and failed. Psychologists and psychiatrists aren't stupid-- they can tell the difference between someone who is really ill and someone who is faking. And the only way the prosecution could guarantee their conviction in the first trial was by presenting false evidence. Let's think about that-- the prosecution, the state of Texas, felt it necessary to LIE TO THE JURY in order to convince those 12 men and women that Andrea Yates was sane. And it worked, and thank God for justice that the lie was discovered. And without that lie, 12 different men and women found her incapable of comprehending her own actions.

And if she is ever "cured," I guarantee you she will be waiting for death to take her, too. Because I fully believe she loved her children, just as I believe she was too sick to understand what was happening to her sanity, or how to get out of the situation she was in (though I don't know, as do none of us, I can't help but believe her home situation contributed to her illness). In some ways, putting her to death might have been more merciful to her. But not as punishment for her crime. She didn't understand what she was doing. The child molesters, the man shooting his wife, for that matter the man who shot his 13-year-old daughter when she tried to abort his child (I just learned that lovely story this week)-- they know they do wrong. Andrea Yates didn't. She just didn't.

Good answer GR....I have little to add except for the fact that mental illness is simply not understood in our culture. A person gets cancer or has a stroke and we are (usually) compassionate, understanding and caring. Someone is psychotic, depressed or delusional and we think it's somehow their fault or they are play-acting, or somehow a "bad" person. I don't want to offend anyone but it's ignorance like that holding mankind back! I guess we've come somewhat forward from the days when a mentally ill person was thought to be possessed by some mythological "devil" and tortured to death...but then, today, I read posts like on this board calling for some pound of flesh and I think...you never know when to expect the Inquisition! Oral Roberts talks to his god and he's a great man with his own college...Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and most folks today are judged insane...doesn't seem to be a pattern! All I know is this...command auditory hallucinations are not usually a good thing but theyt are very very powerful to those experiencing them...I'm not sure how folks can judge others without the experience to do so?!