Preventing crimes like the Arizona Massacre
 

I think it is time to put our cards on the table.
The Problem:
A mentally ill man bought a gun legally and passed an FBI check. He murdered 6 people, and seriously injured 14 more.
How could this have been prevented?
He was mentally ill and many people apparently knew about it. He should have been hospitalized, simple as that. Apparently many people were aware of his condition and did nothing about it. That is the mistake that was made.

Constructive solution:
We have mandatory reporting laws on child abuse. Maybe we should have the same reporting for mentally ill people, instead of privacy laws, so that the schools, the military, and other officials would have been required to report him to authorities so they could have had him evaluated and hospitalized.
Once hospitalized he should not be released until we are CERTAIN he is not a danger to himself or others.

Not the solution:
Gun Control: I have personally dealt with cases where mentally ill people seriously injured and killed innocent people with knives, bats, and their bare hands.

Blame the political discourse:
The sheriff in Arizona is blaming the vitreal political speech. When he has been asked yesterday and today what proof he has that speech had anything to do with this crime he admits he has NO PROOF.
We have a constitutional right to free speech. I have no problems with the current restrictions on speech because they do not restrict just speech but prohibit crime committed through speech that is INTENDED to harm. Just like we have a right to bear arms, we have no right to shoot people without justification.
Who's free speech do we restrict, who decides, and how do we define the restrictions so people know what they can and cannot say, and what punishment do you suffer if you say "the wrong thing"?
People are responsible for their own actions.
If we go down this road there are thousands of people on both sides of politics that we will have to arrest. God help us.

I'm sorry...I can not agree with the "mentally ill" theory. To me he was a cold calculated killer. He thought it out and carried it out!!! Plain and simple.

He should get a death sentence after all that's what he sentenced his victim to. No ands, buts or if about it.

I am not saying..
 

I am not saying he was legally insane. That is a far different and stricter standard than mentally ill.
I am saying he could have been easily identified as mentally ill before this happened and hospitalized to prevent this massacre. That is my goal: that something can be learned from this to prevent crimes in the future.

Do you really believe he was not mentally ill? Even the sheriff and the other law enforcement people admit that.

No I do not think he was mentally ill at all, and I can't go along with the "profiling" that he was mentally ill by the sheriff or law enforcement. The shame of it all is when he goes to trial, that will be his lawyers defense.

I really think that if the death sentence was carried out more often, we would not have all these killings.

I'm not saying "Death" unless it is absolutely positive WITHOUT A DOUBT!!
DNA, eyewitness, finger prints, gun residue .. the whole 9 yards.

Only when the judicial systems gets tough will things change in this country.

Insanity defense
 

The Insanity defense generically involves usually the defendant proving that he has a mental illness that prevents him from knowing right from wrong, and even if he knows right from wrong, he must have the ability to conform his behavior to the law.
I had a relative who was clearly mentally ill. Do you seriously want to put people to death who are so mentally ill who are insane? I do not.

I used the defense twice when I was a defense attorney and won both times. Both clients where clearly insane. The Courts RARELY find people insane who are not. Both defendants were hospitalized. One was released after years of hospitalization and the other is still hospitalized.

Some say we should find people GUILTY by reason of insanity. That should be inconsequential distinction between Not Guilty by reason of insanity. In both cases the person did the crime but are not PUNISHED because they were insane at the time and they are hospitalized until it is JUDICIALLY determined they MUST be released.

From what I can tell in this case thus far the shooter was mentally ill but not Insane. The facts thus far indicate he knew right from wrong and could have conformed his behavior but did not because he had decided to act against a government official, and she was the one he had access to.
This of course is based on media reports thus far and there is far more information to be found and known.

We need to focus on what really happened and not demand retribution which may feel good but does nothing to prevent such a crime in the future. If someone who saw him a school setting or evaluated him for military fitness recognized his mental illness and were legally required to report it and were legally protected from lawsuit for doing so, this may have never happened. Please think about what really could have been done to prevent this. If he had not bought the gun, he could have stolen or borrowed it like many killers do. We need to do the right thing to stop this insanity, even if it does not satisfy our desire for retribution.
JJ

Not sure how that would work if a law was passed that enabled the forced hospitalization of someone who was "accused" of being "mentally ill". I would be extremely afraid of the unforeseen consequences of such a law.

I know we have a need to find solutions to problems, but I have a hunch, we won't find one to this problem.

What usually saves a person who is losing his ability to control his actions, I think, is the observation of someone who knows him and loves him and sees the progressive change and does something about it. How do you write a law that mandates caring?

We already hospitalized people who are accused...
 

We already hospitalized many people who are accused of being mentally ill. They are evaluated and either released or continued hospitalized until they are judicially determined to no longer be a danger to themselves or others.
My point is REQUIRE trained persons like we do now in cases of child abuse, to report an insane person to the Sheriff so he can investigate and if appropriate have district attorney file mental health papers. Those required could be social workers, educators, and medical personnel, just like we do now in the case of child abuse.
The problem now is confidentiality laws and the fear of liability inhibit this process.
JJ

For example. in this case
 

For example in this case according to the media facts, under my solution, both the educators who noticed his behavior and kicked him out of school, and the military who examined him and refused his application, would have been required to report him to the sheriff without worrying about privacy laws and fear of lawsuit. I think they would have done it.
You are correct that this problem will never be solved if we rely on people who care, because frequently they have the mistaken belief they are doing the right thing for the one they care about when they do not call the sheriff.

After 31 years of seeing this problem repeated, I sure hope someone listens.
JJ

If one is clearly insane .. no I don't think they should get the death penalty. They should get the help they need.

I'm saying I don't think there's a darn thing wrong with this dude. So as far as I'm concerned he should get the death sentence.

Oh BTW ... I think Charlie Manson should have gotten the chair a long time ago!! He's really played the system for way to long.

Charles Manson was found guilty
 

Charles Manson was found guilty. He never raised the insanity defense. He was not executed because he is not eligible under California law and it has nothing to do with his sanity.

Have you read his writings or watched his youtube videos?
 

I have read the writings and watched the youtube videos of this shooter in Arizona. Based on his history in school, his writings and his videos, his apparent rejection by the military, and the opinion of the sheriff and law enforcement officials who think he is mentally ill, I think it is pretty clear he is mentally ill.. but as I said in another post, I do think he is LEGALLY SANE and responsible for his actions. Before anyone makes a final judgment there is a lot of information to check out.

I know he was found guilty. I'm just said he should have gotten the chair. It's a shame he wasn't eligible under California law .. talk about a waste of tax dollars keeping him around all these years.

I'm sorry .. I thought he was kept alive because of the insanity defense. My bad.

Manson was sentenced to death but it was changed to life after California abolished the Death penalty.
JJ

I was seaching the web to see why he didn't get the chair, only to kind out they did away with the death sentence in California.

Pfffft now wonder California is going bankrupt.

Thanks JJ for an interesting thread.

Here in California Gov. Reagan shut down the mental hospitals due to budget cuts. Mental patients were released only to become homeless, angry and confused. Fast forward to 2011, the mentally ill are still homeless, angry, confused and are on long waiting lists to get professional help. Here in California the parks are filled with the homeless and mentally ill.

I have a personal friend who lost her job, lost her health insurance and became seriously depressed. She tried to take her life, we found her just in time, she was hospitalized for 3 days, billed $14,000.00 for her stay. The doctor told her to see therapist when she was released, she contacted the agency, a six week wait to see the therapist. No medication was dispensed to ease her mental burden and six weeks looked like six years to her. Several of us had contacts in the medical community, she was helped immediately, others are not so fortunate.

Now imagine a mentally ill person who has a gun or has the opportunity to get a gun. Catastrophic situations occur like Tucson.


My solution is to provide medical treatment, comprehensive medical treatment for the mentally ill and stop selling guns to everyone. Let us treat our Americans with dignity and humanity for any illness that they may have. Also let Americans walk freely knowing they will not be gunned down by a mentally ill person or angry person who just lost his or her temper and had a gun.