Thread: getting away with murder

I'm fine with ill people being locked up in a medical institution instead of going to jail. But here's the problem:

He will be institutionalized without a criminal record and will be reassessed every year by a mental health review board to determine if he is fit for release into the community.

How do you prove it is safe to let this person back into the community? You can't. Not unless you can do blood tests and show some chemical/hormonal imbalance at the time of the killing, and can explain the cause and demonstrate it is fixed somehow. That isn't going to happen in this case.

What's going to happen is this guy will spend some time held securely, and if he holds back from killing someone else in the meantime he will eventually be released.

This happens all the time and freed killers go on to kill again. I don't think that is in the public interest.

I find it amazing that dogs who bite people (and are just behaving as dogs are supposed to behave) are put down, while people who are such an obvious threat are treated with kid gloves.

It's almost like here in Indiana, a few months ago a teenage driver was "distracted" struck and killed a sherriff's deputy and they refused to charge her with anything. While admittedly it was a preventable accident and kind of sends a message to drivers.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

I find it amazing that dogs who bite people (and are just behaving as dogs are supposed to behave) are put down, while people who are such an obvious threat are treated with kid gloves.

Not where I live

Originally Posted by jockeys

Not where I live

One of the few good things about Texas. Although if you catch your wife in bed with someone else, you have to shoot them both. To discern which to shoot and which not to shoot would sort of nix the whole insanity thing

My little league baseball coach shot his wife eight times in the face from across the bench seat of his police cruiser as he was dropping her off at work one morning. He left her in the car and walked across the street to the Bridgeport Mental Health Center, dropped the piece on the counter and said, "I have a problem." He was sent to a state mental hospital for three months and was pronounced all better. He got out and got re-married. Guess what he did. He capped his second wife too. Don't believe me? Here you go: serial killer true crime library * serial killer news * list of serial killers * serial murder * female serial killers * crime scene investigation * tueur en serie * omicidi seriali *

as Ron White once so eloquently said,
"I’m from Texas. In Texas we have the death penalty. And we USE it. That’s right, if you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back. That’s our policy.
They’re trying to pass a bill right now through the Texas Legislature that will speed up the process of execution in heinous crimes where there’s more than three credible eye witnesses. If more than three people saw you do what you did, you don’t sit on death row for 15 years, Jack, you go straight to the front of the line.
Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty … my state’s puttin’ in an express lane."

Originally Posted by jockeys

a]They’re trying to pass a bill right now through the Texas Legislature that will speed up the process of execution in heinous crimes where there’s more than three credible eye witnesses. If more than three people saw you do what you did, you don’t sit on death row for 15 years, Jack, you go straight to the front of the line.

You mean all I gotta do to get rid of someone I don't like (in Texas) is fit them up using three other "witnesses" and they fry, quickly?

I'd be afraid of opening my mouth and making enemies in Texas. I'm used to more freedom than that.

Originally Posted by jockeys

as Ron White once so eloquently said,
"I’m from Texas. In Texas we have the death penalty. And we USE it. That’s right, if you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back. That’s our policy.
They’re trying to pass a bill right now through the Texas Legislature that will speed up the process of execution in heinous crimes where there’s more than three credible eye witnesses. If more than three people saw you do what you did, you don’t sit on death row for 15 years, Jack, you go straight to the front of the line.
Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty … my state’s puttin’ in an express lane."

Hows employment and housing in Texas?

Originally Posted by JMS

Hows employment and housing in Texas?

still doing better than the nation as a whole:
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/pres...0509epress.pdf

Originally Posted by jockeys

as Ron White once so eloquently said,
"I’m from Texas. In Texas we have the death penalty. And we USE it. That’s right, if you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back. That’s our policy.
They’re trying to pass a bill right now through the Texas Legislature that will speed up the process of execution in heinous crimes where there’s more than three credible eye witnesses. If more than three people saw you do what you did, you don’t sit on death row for 15 years, Jack, you go straight to the front of the line.
Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty … my state’s puttin’ in an express lane."

Texas has an unfortunate history of executing the mentally ill and minor offenders. Also, anyone who's familiar with the criminal justice systems knows eyewitness testimony can be extremely unreliable. It's also amenable to manipulation (the 3 witnesses can all be lying or merely mistaken). The recent advances in criminal forensics (ie DNA testing) had demonstrated how flawed witness-based evidence can be. There are plenty of documented instances where people have been sentenced to life in prison or even received the death penalty only to be subsequently exonerated when DNA testing became available. In other words-they were innocent from the get go. Texas is hardly this Country's crown jewel when it comes to dispensing justice..