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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:53 am Post subject: Insane Murderers go free in DC |
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Where else but in Washington DC would an involuntary insanity defense lead to complete freedom from any jail time and no commitment time for treatment either.
"You're Guilty. You're nuts. So, you're free."
| Quote: |
Conviction in doubt for DC mom who killed 4 girls
By SARAH KARUSH, Associated Press Writer
Fri Oct 16, 5:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON � A woman who was expected to be sentenced Friday to life in prison for murdering her four daughters could instead walk free under a scenario outlined by the judge who found her guilty, though such an outcome still faces several legal hurdles.
The decomposing bodies of Banita Jacks' daughters � ages 5 to 16 � were discovered in January 2008 when U.S. Marshals came to evict Jacks from her southeast Washington rowhouse. In July, D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick H. Weisberg found Jacks guilty of four counts of felony murder, three counts of premeditated first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree child cruelty.
Jacks was scheduled to be sentenced Friday but Weisberg postponed it while he considers issues related to her refusal to use an insanity defense. Jacks rejected the defense against the advice of her lawyers, who are now asking Weisberg to appoint an independent counsel to investigate whether she was competent to make such a decision.
If the defense is successful, it could lead to a new trial and Jacks, 34, could be found not guilty by reason of insanity. That course of events could end with Jacks walking free, Weisberg said.
Ordinarily, a defendant who successfully uses an insanity defense gets committed to a psychiatric institution. But that's not the case in the District of Columbia if the insanity defense is imposed against the person's wishes, Weisberg said. Civil commitment proceedings could still be held, but there's no guarantee they would be successful, he added.
"It's by no means clear to me that Jacks would be civilly committable in those circumstances, despite the horrific crimes of which I have found her guilty," Weisberg said.
Jacks reiterated to the judge that she didn't want to use an insanity defense.
Jacks previously told police her daughters were possessed by demons and inexplicably died one by one in their sleep. She believed they would be resurrected.
The extreme decomposition made it difficult for experts to determine exactly how and when the girls died, but medical examiners said the three youngest children were most likely strangled and 16-year-old Brittany was probably stabbed.
Jacks has insisted she is not mentally ill. But "the inability to recognize one's illness" is common among the mentally ill, her lawyers said.
Prosecutors portrayed the motion as a ploy to win a new trial and questioned the timing.
Weisberg scheduled another hearing for Dec. 18. |
So, who made these stupid DC laws anyway? |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:14 am Post subject: |
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That is weird. Insanity pleas are notoriously difficult to pull off, so if a criminal court does decide you qualify that should definitely trump what any civil proceedings would decide (although you could argue that there's a difference between the defendant having been psychotic and the defendant currently being psychotic).
It's a tough situation no matter what the laws are because there are obviously states of mind where a person isn't in control of his or her actions anymore (the fact that we're almost never aware we're in dreams while we're dreaming is good enough evidence for the existence of delusion for me), and yet I would never support forcibly drugging someone and I know for a fact the claim that the person doesn't know he or she is sick is abused (the famous example would be "Sluggishly Progressing Schizophrenia" diagnoses against Soviet dissidents). I'm no scientologist, but I definitely don't trust the psychiatric industry, particularly since they've been on this "everything's a brain disease" trip for some time now. |
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