Ya cause that's a good idea

X
(/sarcasm)

Marie wrote on Jul 26^th, 2006 at 8:45pm:


You've got to be freakin' kidding me.

The woman murders her own children in her bathtub one by one, and the jury doesn't have the guts to execute her. How does that make anyone "very happy?"


-b0b
(...screw that.)

I won't pass judgement on Andrea Yates because I don't know very much about the cause or the person.

I do believe that people suffering from mental illness can do horrible things without even knowing they are doing it.  It doesn't make it right, or make it any less horrible, but it does make the person subject to a different set of rules.  Life in a mental ward would be my choice, none of this getting out bullshit.

I do also recocgnize that "insanity" pleas are HIGHLY overused this day and age.  Just because you are distraught and do something irrational doesn't make you insane folks.

Like I said, without having met Mrs. Yates or knowing more about the case, I don't think I can justly sentence her.

I just hope that jury understood what they are letting that woman get away with if they weren't 100% sure she was bat shit insane.

That woman isn't worth the oxygen she's breathing.  I think that the practice of not executing the criminally insane after a mass murder is one of the great failures of our society.  I'll even go so far as to state that the insanity defense is one of the worst things to happen to the US criminal justice system.

Ultimately, it is irrelevant if she was "sane" or not.  The results are the same.  Her children are dead, and she killed them.  Execute her.

I don't care what the excuse is (postpartum depression or schizophrenia or anything else for that matter), she killed five kids and she deserves to die.

I can pretty much guarantee that if the father had killed his five children, he would have been found guilty, sentenced to death, and you never would've though twice about what kind of lame insanity excuse was.   This is just another example of how the courts favor women.

-b0b
(...thinks they should treat her for her depression and then drown her in a tub. )

What about a man who is mentaly retarded b0b?  What if he accidently, being as most retarded people don't realize there own strength, killed a child or an adult?  Was he knowingly doing violence?  Did he understand what he was doing?

The same applies for people who are out of their minds.  That lady, if she is truly insane, had no idea that what she was doing was wrong.  She thought she was "saving" her children.  If you knew for a fact your child was about to suffer horrible torture and then die, would you kill them to spare it?  Now what if your insanity made you think that was the case and you did so when they were in no actual danger?

You can't treat people like that by the same rules as a person who KNOWINGLY goes out and does evil.

Your looking at it from a kill and be killed point of view.  But then again b0b, you aren't mentaly insane now are you.

And seems you so like them.  Lets use some scripture.

Matthew 7:1-2
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again"

The_Fat_Man wrote on Jul 26^th, 2006 at 11:55pm:


Emphasis added.  The key word there is "accidentally."  What Andrea Yates did was not an accident.  She intentionally, calculatedly murdered her children one at a time.  She has stated multiple times that she was perfectly well aware that she was harming her children.

Postpartum psychosis affects mothers after 0.2% of all births.  That might not sound like a high number, but when you think of the number of births taking place across the US (and the civilized world as a whole), that a fair number of affected mothers every day.  How many of them show up on the news after having meticulously murdered her five children?  Yeah, I thought so.

Yates started out blaming her serial killings on religion.  When she realized nobody was going to buy it, she played the depression card.  It wasn't until this latest trial that she tried a blend of both excuses.  I'm just disappointed that 9 jury members bought it.


Quote:


Religion is a powerful tool when used for the wrong reasons.  If I convinced a generally sane person that flashing their nekkid bodies in public would get them a bigger house in heaven, would you expect the cop to not arrest them?  Of course you wouldn't.  Religion is not an excuse to murder your children.  EVER.

Have you ever studied the predecessors of the Pagan religion?  When Assyria occupied Israel, they used to have live human sacrifices in the valley of Hinnom just outside of Jerusalem.  Parents would bring their children to a continuously burning pit and throw them, kicking and screaming, onto the fiery coals.  Was that justified?  Were their actions excusable simply because they thought it would "save" their children?


Quote:


The woman drowned her five children, one at a time, even after having to chase down the eldest and drag him forcibly into the bathroom.  The woman is freakin' evil.  Execute her and let God deal with her.


Quote:


I'm looking at it from a "she killed her own children" point of view.  How else is any rational human being supposed to see it?  In any other society in any other time period, she would've been walked to the gallows before the ink on her death warrant was dry.  Why is our society so "enlightened" that we think we can fix her?



Quote:


That quote is being taken way, way out of context.  If you read the rest of the chapter, you'll see that the entire passage deals with fairness.  It does not say, "don't ever judge anyone for any reason."  It is entirely appropriate to condemn someone (i.e. Andrea Yates) for commiting a horrendous crime (i.e. murdering her children).  The main concept of the passage that our conduct toward others will affect God's conduct toward us.

I want to ask you guys an honest question.  What is the best case scenario going forward?  Do you think she should be rehabilitated (if possible) and released back into the general public?  Do you think she should be locked up for the rest of her natural life?  I want to see if you guys agree on your ultimate "solution."


-b0b
(...can't figure out how a hung jury resulted in a verdict, anyway.)

Quote:


So b0b, let me ask you this.

You are judging Mrs. Yates without mercy, and without consideration for her cirumstances (Can you honestly tell me you are 100% sure she isn't out of her mind?).  You are showing absolutely no forgiveness, and are not caring what factors might have caused her to do this act.  No reason can justify it in your eyes, and you say she deserves the ultimate punishment, NO MATTER WHAT.

Your bible says that God will judge you the way you judge others.

So if that is the case b0b.  When you arrive at the gates of heaven, and God knows all your sins.  You are going to hell.  God should show you no mercy, nor forgiveness, or take into fact the conditioins that may have led to your sins.

Do you think God will judge Mrs. Yates the way you are judging her b0b?

You are going against what your religion tells you b0b.  You should not be so quick to make resh and harsh decisions on others, when you yourself will someday have to face those same conditions.

I'm not saying we should NEVER judge a person, but that you should take into consideration all things, and show mercy for those who may not have done true evil.

And in my eyes bob, there is a big difference between the evil an insane person does, and the evil a sane person does.

1. "The insanity plea is overused and is one of the worst things to happen to the justice system"

Why wouldn't it be?  For desperate criminals who want to walk freely, it seems very easy in theory.  However, insanity is more complicated than that.  Psychiatric illnesses have very specific criteria listed in the DSM-IV-TR that must be met in order to be diagnosed as such.  The sad reality is that many people don't know a lot about issues of mental health, and as a result of this ignorance, people who are relatively sound can fall through the cracks.  However, for people who truly suffer from a mental disorder, the insanity defense is definitely justified.  (On another note, I truly wish they would change
the technical term.  "Insanity" has gotten such a horrible connotation over the years and just adds to the ignorance and stigma experienced by people with mental illnesses.)

On another note, did you know that *I* used the insanity defense bob?  During an episode a broke several laws and ended up going to court and had to go to a state psychiatric facility for a thorough criminal evaluation.  The costs for my lawyer and my parents having to take days off without pay so they could drive up to East Lansing for my court days were devastating.

2. "State mental facilities have never cured anyone; they just seem like a housing pen for sick people"

I agree wholeheartedly, having stayed in one myself for several days.  If someone is sick, why the hell would you remove them from their home and natural support systems to stick them in some building where they're cut off from everything?  I couldn't shave or shower without someone there watching me to make sure I didn't hurt myself.  We were only allowed outside for a couple of hours a day, and that was in a fenced in area.  Middle-aged men would flash me their boy parts.  This was supposed to help me?  I'm a huge advocate of community rehabilitation.  At any rate, being where she is now is definitely a heck of a lot better than jail.

3. "Whether she was sane or not, she still murdered her children and deserves to die"

And you feel appointed to decide this how?


4. "She was using PPD as an excuse"

You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard this in my life.  "Well, why don't you just cheer up?  Snap out of it!  Maybe if you pray harder you won't feel so bad."  It's not that simple.  Psychiatric illnesses have a biological basis.  I actually had a group of people try to drive a demon out of me when I felt depressed.  Sigh...


5. "Her crime was not an accident.  She was well aware of what she was doing."

You can speculate all you want, but I highly doubt that you (or anyone else on this forum for that matter) have personally experienced a psychotic episode.  You are concious and aware of what you are doing, but it's like something is taking over your mind.  Delusions and hallucinations abound and are part of your reality.  Because of what you may believe, see, hear, touch, and so on, you are not really yourself even though you believe you are.  I think most of you know me well enough to know what kind of person I am.  However, in my psychotic state, I attacked a police officer and a neighbor, threw chairs and computer monitors at windows, and just about killed myself, among other things.  They were all justified to me at the time, but that was because my mind was throwing me for a loop.  It's very likely that Andrea Yates was aware of her actions, but because of her delusional beliefs at the time, it wasn't really *her*.


6. "A lot of women suffer from PPD but none ever do anything like this"

Most of those women are able to detect it early enough and intervene with appropriate treatment.  If left untreated, PPD, like other mental illnesses, can get worse and worse until the person completely loses touch with reality.  Her doctor told her husband to never leave her alone with the kids because of her state.  What did he do?  He left her alone with the kids.


7. "She was blaming her religion for her actions at first"

Are you aware of the fact that the most common delusions during psychosis are often based on religion?  During episodes, many people will claim to be God, to be working for God or to be spoken to by God.  This happens even to people who aren't religious.  It's part of the illness.


This is really all I can think of for now.  I always thought you were a basically good kid, but your ignorance both amuses and saddens me.  Do you go around calling me your "psycho ex" now?  Doesn't really matter, as I've had worse things said about me.

(Not getting off my soapbox, as it is now permanently glued to my feet...)