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I didn't follow this one until I saw the thread and I've done some reading up. My view: (a) The lady was sick. Quite genuinely and organically sick. (b) The lady was ill-educated. (c) The lady was unsupported by the social agencies. (d) The lady was religious. Combined with (a) and (b), you're into deadly territory already. (e) The lady's husband, for whatever reason, is a twat. (f) The lady made the fatal error (see (a), (b), (c) and (d) above) of living in Texas. (g) The juries and judges in Texas all seem to suffer from a surfeit of (b) and (d). (h) As a result of (g) there appears to be no recognition that (a) exists and (d) is assumed to make up for any apparent symptoms which elsewhere would lead to the conclusion of (a). The rest just appears to follow on from (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g), with the consequences engendered by (h) to add to it all ...  All of you crusaders out there waiting to take offence, note that this is just my view. Please. Really.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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old hand
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old hand
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Delightfully cogent reply, CK! I'm no bible scholar, but I seem to remember that a Christian husband is supposed to look after his wife, not just inseminate her.
Yes, Helen et al, she did have some small latitude for choice, but in the milieu that CK aptly describes, she was as much chattel as any woman in the tenth century BC. She made Medea's choice, though outwardly for different reasons.
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Carpal Tunnel
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geoff, i agree with you some what.. she was chattel, at a time when the law does not recognize it. So, she obeyed her husband dictates, because that is what a wife is supposed to do, and when things weren't right, she appealed to him for help, only to be told she she needed to pray, and accept god's will.. but when she acted.. suddenly, she is now back to 21C reality. (and twat is a pretty mild CK. )about the only good thing i can see about the man, is he hasn't abandon her (yet) he still sees her as his wife, and feels honor bound to her.
i suspect he doesn't have that much education either, and he didn't know how to recognize and evaluate how serious her conditions was. i don't think if he had realize how sick she was, and how distorted her thinking was, he would have done nothing. he seems genuine bewildered.. he had no idea she was a disturbed as she was.
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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There was an interesting note in the newspaper I read about just this issue. The initial idea that you had to be able to determine right from wrong was adjusted to the more broad idea that you not only had to know right from wrong, but must also be able to stop yourself from doing the wrong. Apparently several US states changed back to the stricter definition after the attempted assination of Ronald Reagan.
I feel that one reason for this backlash is the number of cases of people getting off using insanity or mental defect pleas. The twinkie killer in San Francisco comes to mind. In Calgary, a woman was declared not guilty by reason of mental defect and spent less than a year in hospital before being "cured". She didn't know or realise what she was doing. What she did was drive several hours south of Calgary, cross the border, buy a handgun and ammunition, smuggle it back into Canada, go home, phone her ex-husband, meet him in the underground parking garage at her condo building and shoot him five or six times. She was upset because he was an oil executive and divorced her for a younger woman and her lifestyle suffered. She only got 5 or 6 million dollars in the divorce settlement. Funny, if the tables were turned he would have been called a stalker who deliberately hunted down his ex-wife.
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veteran
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You all may have noticed that the jury in the Yates case did not take very long to convict her, rejecting her defense on grounds of insanity. While I am not an admirer of the Texan justice system, this is not as callous as it may seem. It appears that the definition of "insane" for purposes of deciding criminal guilt is, by Texas law, not unlike the classic McNaughton rule, which basically turns on whether or not you knew, at the time you did what you did, that what you were doing was wrong. This is an outmoded notion used in few civilized places any more. But it must have been very clear to the jury (her own admissions were very damaging) that she did not fit the Texas definitin of insane; hence they had no choice but to find her guilty of murder.
A friend of mine is a psychologist who is employed by the local courts. His main job is to evaluate the mental condition of criminal defendants. We do not have, in Maryland, the same standard as in Texas, thank God. Before the question of "sanity" is even raised, the first job is to determine if the defendant is capable of assisting in his own defense. If not, he/she does not even go to trial, but to a state mental hospital until such time as found competent to stand trial. Then the question of "sanity" has to be raised, but we don't use that word here; I forget what the language is.
But as my friend has discussed with my wife and me many times, the term "insanity", or whatever substitute is used in legal terms, has no meaning in mental health terms. The whole concept of being in one way or another "sane vs. insane" or "competent vs. incompetent", etc. is something which exists in the law. To a health professional, the questions are "sick vs. well". It appears that everyone in Texas knows perfectly well that Mrs. Yates is a very sick woman, but that doesn't keep her from being "sane" and therefore legally a murderer and liable to spend the rest of her life in prison. It seems that even Texas prosecutors had no stomach for pressing for the death penalty, which might be more merciful. Indeed, even life in prison might be preferable to what could have been her fate if her lawyers had succeeded in making good on the insanity plea. If the Texas institutions are like the one in MD for the criminally insane, prison is preferable, according to my friend, who is very familiar with conditions in both. A truly horrible tragedy. It is heartbreaking to think of the poor woman's suffering already and what she will yet endure.
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Carpal Tunnel
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It seems that even Texas prosecutors had no stomach for pressing for the death penalty
What? I got the impression they were paid by the head. Who forewent their commission? You mean that unemployment in Huntsville is still at an all-time low? Aren't they lucky?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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