Here I had originally wanted to not make this a thread about the Death Penalty, but whatev. I can't resist.
My issue here - the part of this story that gets my blood boiling - is not that people with mental health issues may still be sentenced. Very few murderers (very few criminals. Indeed, very few people. But an even smaller share of murderers) are entirely "sane". It's the whole disgusting Catch-22-ish charade (and the hypocrisy) of first, passing laws to make the quite insane (incompetent) ineligible for the Death Penalty, then, trying to nonetheless obtain as many death sentences as juries will allow, and then, thirdly, denying insane murderers like this cat any form of treatment in prison because, in order to be eligible for the Death Penalty, a judge has officially deemed him "sane".
You'd think there wouldn't be any problem - any logistical problem, any logical problem - to storing the man in the closed ward of a psychiatric hospital until the rest of his natural life and/or his execution date, if you must have the Death Penalty. (In the Middle Ages, they'd have recognized this guy to be "possessed" by a "demon", then probably executed him anyways.) The only reason this wasn't done and he was put into a "normal" prison for "normal" people (if he had a "rational" premise in eating his eye out, it was probably to get into psychiatric treatment and away from his current co-inmates, not to escape execution) is basically to save the judge, jury, and prosecutor's face - not forcing them to admit they decided to condemn an insane man.
Well said.
And I must say: I am from Minnesota, which has banned the death penalty since 1911.
Poll
