All of you crusaders out there waiting to take offence, note that this is just my view. Please. Really.

I have no fundamental disagreement with what you say, Kiwi, but would add one point.

The failure to conclude (a) may well also be the fault of the Texas legislature, which after all has the power to set the definition of "insanity" for legal purposes. My understanding is that at least in part, this jury's difficult was that mental conditions which would be considered "insanity" in any enlightened jurisdiction are simply not sufficient to be called "insanity" under Texas law.

As an example (and I am not speaking precisely here, or implying Texas law is precisely thus): the original and antiquated "insanity" defense was the "McNaughton Rule" that one is insane if pi[but only if he/she is unable to appreciate the nature of his act. The classic example is a man who cuts off his child's head in the honest delusion that he is in fact merely chopping a head of cabbage.

Under so limited a rule, one is not considered "insane" (for purposes of criminal law) if, though he knows he is cutting off a child's head, he is so far gone that he cannot control himself, or is driven by the belief that God has ordered him to do it.

If the Texas legislature has put so severe a limit (or an analogous one) on what its courts may consider to be "insanity", then shame on them -- and the fault lies more with the legislators than with the jury.