Andrea Yates will be going to a mental facility rather than prison for drowning her children in the family’s bathtub in 2001. A jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity in her second murder trial. The Houston Chronicle explained:
Defense attorneys had urged jurors to find that Yates’
mental illness led to the children’s deaths. Experts testifying for the
defense said Yates drowned her children in an act of love to save their
souls from eternal damnation.Prosecutors did not dispute that Yates was mentally ill, but argued
that her condition did not keep her from knowing right from wrong.
I don’t think it is a stretch to suggest that this will spark a new
round of calls for reform to insanity defense laws, as the John Hinckley
case did. But one legal analyst says this case is so extraordinary that it may not touch off any real legal reform.
Within the last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
on the insanity defense in an Arizona case. That case was the product
of several states trying to tighten the insanity defense after John
Hinckley successfully avoided prison after shooting President Reagan.
The notion of insanity as a defense has been around for centuries. CrimeLibrary.com explains:
The insanity defense has its roots firmly embedded in centuries of
legal tradition. As early as the 13th Century, the English Lord Bracton
established the principle of mental deficiency in human behavior. He
said that some people simply do not know what they are doing and act
in a manner “as to be not far removed from the brute” (Menninger, 1968,
p. 112).From that concept, “insanity” came to mean that a person lacks
the awareness of what he or she is doing and therefore cannot form an
intent to do wrong. Since there was no malice in the intent of
his or her actions, then there could be no technical guilt. The
standard for insanity in the courts was determined to be such
that a “man must be totally deprived of his understanding and
memory so as not to know what he is doing, no more than an infant,
brute or a wild beast” (Melton, 1997, p. 190). This “wild beast”
standard was the insanity requirement of England’s courts for over a
hundred years and any defendant who attempted to use the defense had to
prove he or she lacked the minimum understanding of a wild animal or
infant.It wasn’t until 1843, when a man named Daniel M’Naghten committed a murder that would alter forever the history of jurisprudence in the Western world.
What emerged was the M’Naghten Rules, which said a that a person was
legally insane if he or she was “incapable of comprehending” because of a powerful mental delusion.
Here is a state-by-state rundown of insanity defense laws nationwide. Idaho, Kansas, Montana and Utah have no insanity defense.
PBS’ FrontLine produced a special report in 2002 about the insanity defense.
Several years ago, The Washington Post provided some background on the insanity defense. Here are some excerpts:
What is an insanity defense?
It typically refers to a
plea that defendants are not guilty because they lacked the mental
capacity to realize that they committed a wrong or appreciate why it
was wrong. Some states also allow defendants to argue that that they
understood their behavior was criminal but were unable to control it.
This is sometimes called the “irresistible impulse” defense.Why do we need an insanity defense?
It is an attempt to
impose a moral check on a system largely designed to weigh facts and
evidence. Thus, it allows judges and juries to decide some defendants
aren’t “criminally responsible” for their actions even though those
acts might be a crime under different circumstances, just as a child
who accidentally starts a fire shouldn’t be treated as an arsonist.
Is the law the same everywhere?
Some states have
abolished the use of an insanity defense, an action upheld by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1994. Some have amended their laws to include
standards of “diminished capacity” or “guilty but mentally ill.” …Are insanity defenses often successful?
No, despite
public perceptions to the contrary. One eight-state study of criminal
cases in the early 1990s concluded that less than one percent of
defendants pleaded insanity and, of them, only a quarter won
acquittals.
“In the real world, it just doesn’t happen,” said Maryland Attorney
General Joseph Curran, who as lieutenant governor in 1983 chaired a
task force that helped tighten that state’s insanity defense.Then why are they controversial?
Critics argue that some
defendants misuse it, effectively faking insanity to win acquittals or
less severe convictions. And often the trials involving an insanity
defense get the most attention because they involve “crimes that are
bizarre within themselves,” said Baltimore defense attorney Cristina
Gutierrez, who has defended a dozen such cases in as many years.
But studies by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law have
concluded that “the overwhelming majority” of defendants acquitted by
reason of insanity suffer from schizophrenia or some other mental
illness, said Howard Zonana, a Yale University psychiatry professor and
the academy’s medical director.Do people acquitted under an insanity defense walk free?
Rarely. In almost all cases, a verdict of not guilty by reason of
insanity prompts a judge to commit defendants to treatment centers
until mental health officials determine they do not pose a danger to
anyone. For some, that could be akin to a life sentence. …How does someone pleading “not guilty by reason of insanity” differ from someone deemed “incompetent to stand trial?”
The former term refers to a defendant’s state of mind at the time of
the crime; the latter refers to a defendant’s mindset at time of trial.
Usually, a trial will not proceed until a defendant is deemed competent
to understand the charges and face accusers.Is it used only in murder cases?
No, any defendant can
invoke the defense. Lorena Bobbitt argued she was temporarily insane
when she severed her husband’s penis with a kitchen knife four years
ago. A Virginia jury agreed; she was released after three months of
psychiatric evaluation.
Who else used the insanity defense?
A jury rejected Jack
Ruby’s claim of insanity and sent him to prison for shooting Lee Harvey
Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Almost 20 years later, John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan — like Oswald, in front of a throng of television cameras — but was
declared not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a mental
institution.The insanity defense didn’t help David Berkowitz,
New York’s “Son of Sam” murderer who claimed to receive his killing
orders from a neighbor’s dog. A Pennsylvania jury found millionaire
John DuPont guilty but mentally ill in the murder of a wrestling coach.
Lawyers for Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski argued that he was insane, but
Kaczynski himself resisted such a defense and pleaded guilty. Jeffrey Dahmer dismembered and ate his victims, but his jury failed to deem him insane.
Here are some other resources you might find useful:
- Bloggers react to the Yates verdict
- Court TV’s exhaustive coverage
- These are the choices the jury had: Read the verdict sheet.
- Andrea Yates’ hospital records
- The psychiatrist’s assessment of Yates before the killings, which said she had a history of psychiatric issues, including suicide attempts and deep depression.
Schools Navigate the Holidays of Multiple Faiths
How flexible should
school systems be if they want to be sensitive to students of many faiths? School calendars are
increasingly reflecting the complexities that districts face when it comes to religious holidays. The Associated Press said:
In May, Muslim parents asked New York City’s education department
for days off on two major Muslim holidays, which some districts in
Michigan and New Jersey already have granted. In January, a Long Island
mosque petitioned New York Gov. George Pataki to consider the holidays
when scheduling
mandatory statewide testing. Last month, the state Legislature passed a
bill that would take all religious holidays into account when
scheduling
the mandatory tests. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called
it the first step toward recognizing Muslim holidays in public schools.But also last month, despite a Muslim group’s lobbying at every board meeting, the Baltimore County district in Maryland
approved a calendar with a day off for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana,
but none for Muslim holidays. The group had hoped the district’s
growing diversity — 47.8 percent of students last year were minorities — would
be persuasive.“Either
I go against my faith, or I miss my schoolwork and have imperfect
attendance,” said 15-year-old Kanwal Rehman, who will enter 10th grade
in Baltimore this fall. In January, her midterm exams fell during Eid al-Adha, one of the two most important holidays in Islam.It can get complicated. When Muslims in the Tampa Bay region of
Florida asked for a day off to celebrate the end of Ramadan, another
local religious group perked up.“There
was discussion in the Hindu community if we should also push for a
holiday,” said Nikhil Joshi, a board member of the national Hindu
American Foundation.
Here are some other resources for you to consider:
- ReligionLink
- Religion Newswriters Association
- Anti-Defamation League’s “Religion in the Public Schools” page
- Poynter’s coverage of religion and journalism
- BBC’s Religion & Ethics news
Educating The Public About Funerals
MSNBC ran an interesting piece about the need for more public education when it comes to funeral planning. The story included this passage:
In the forefront of educating the public is the Funeral Consumers Alliance in South Burlington, Vt.,
a nonprofit organization founded in 1963. Along with monitoring
industry trends and mediating complaints, the organization spends much
of its effort alerting consumers to the existence what is known as the Funeral Rule, issued in 1984 by the Federal Trade Commission.This rule requires
funeral directors to itemize the costs of services like pick-up of the
body, embalming, make-up, casket, flowers, viewing, the service at the
funeral parlor or church, the hearse and the grave-site ceremony. But
noncompliance is rampant and widespread, says the alliance’s executive
director, Joshua Slocum.“It’s a huge
problem,” says Slocum, who prices a typical funeral in this country —
excluding cemetery costs — at about $6,500. “This noncompliance costs
consumers millions of dollars and, even more importantly, manipulates
them and denies them the choices the law is supposed to guarantee them.
In any single metropolitan area in any state, if you give me a stack of
price lists from funeral homes, about 75 percent of those general price
lists have one or more Funeral Rule violations.”What’s worse, he says, most people don’t even know the Funeral Rule exists.
Thus many consumers,
in addition to not knowing they are entitled to an itemized price list,
are unaware they have the right to opt for, say, immediate burial or
cremation without a ceremony, to refuse embalming or even to provide
their own caskets.
The Federal Trade Commission points out:
The Funeral Rule,
enforced by the Federal Trade Commission,
requires funeral directors to
give you itemized prices in person and, if you ask, over the phone. The
rule also requires funeral directors to give you other information
about their goods and services. For example, if you ask about funeral
arrangements in person, the funeral home must give you a written price
list to keep that shows the goods and services the home offers. If you
want to buy a casket or outer burial container, the funeral provider
must show you descriptions of the available selections and the prices
before actually showing you the caskets.
Many funeral providers
offer various “packages” of commonly selected goods and services that
make up a funeral. But when you arrange for a funeral, you have the
right to buy individual goods and services. That is, you do not have to
accept a package that may include items you do not want.
According to the Funeral Rule:
- You have the right to choose the funeral goods and services you want
(with some exceptions).- The funeral provider must state this right in writing on the general
price list.- If state or local law
requires you to buy any particular item, the funeral provider must
disclose it on the price list, with a reference to the specific law.- The funeral provider may not refuse, or charge a fee, to handle a
casket you bought elsewhere.- A funeral provider that offers cremations must make alternative
containers available.
ESPN’s Pat Tillman Project (Multimedia)
ESPN has produced an extraordinary multimedia project
on the death of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who volunteered to
serve in Iraq. The site includes raw interviews conducted by reporter Mike Fish
with eyewitnesses of Tillman’s death playing over a map of the shooting scene where it all happened.
The story includes some extraordinary reporting. ESPN explains its methods:
For the past five
months, in an effort to shed light on how Tillman died and whether
there was an attempt to use his good name and valor for political
purposes, ESPN.com has interviewed nine of the 35 Rangers who were
engaged with Tillman in the firefight, more than 50 additional Army
officials, politicians and medical and military experts, plus
relatives of the principals involved in the incident.Further, ESPN.com has
examined more than 2,000 pages of documents that include investigative
findings and maps — documents the Army made available only to members
of the Tillman family, which has shared them with a select number of
media outlets. The names of soldiers and officers involved in the
battle and subsequent investigations have been redacted by the Army,
but through extensive interviews and reporting, ESPN.com has been able
to confirm the identities of many of the individuals referred to in the
documents, including those who played the principal roles.Below is a sampling
of the transcripts from the investigations. Names and other details
were redacted by the Army. Please note, the documents contain
descriptions of graphic violence and explicit language.
Behind the Motorcycle Deaths
Al’s Morning Meeting reader Franke Santos, of Motorcycle Consumer News, dropped me some story ideas:
There was a recent NHTSA report [PDF]
that showed that the rate of deaths of motorcyclists has increased over
the last eight years. The reasons vary nationwide, but if someone were
to pursue this story, here’d be my main points and main questions:
- State by state, has funding for motorcycle safety programs gone up or down in the period between 1997-2005?
- Has the helmet law
changed in the last eight years? (Big caveat here — passage of helmet
laws frequently accompany a decrease in safety funding. Therefore I’d
caution reporters against the conclusion that helmet laws automatically
help decrease the number of deaths.)- Have standards in
state motorcycle safety programs been lowered? When I got my license
about nine years ago, I thought I got a pretty good beginner course,
which was intensive — 16 hours of classroom, 12 hours on the bike. Our magazine recently (2004) did a huge piece [PDF] on the gutting of safety programs standards, but our piece only covered Pennsylvania, Idaho and Oregon.- The average
“starting” motorcycle’s engine size has been steadily increasing over
the last 10 years. Are motorcycle dealers really assessing a rider’s
skill level and matching him/her with the right motorcycle?- I recently saw a commercial that was aired in Britain
that urged car drivers to look out for motorcyclists. I’ve looked for a
similar commercial or campaign stateside, and have not seen one.
College In the Summer
The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times
has a piece about how colleges and universities have become quite busy in the
summer months. Some students like the slower pace, others take classes
to graduate faster. Colleges like the idea of filling classrooms year-round.
Editor’s Note: Al’s Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas,
edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites,
as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes
directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be
provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends
upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors
and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
