A colleague of mine is teaching a graduate seminar called the Psychopathic Mind and every year he asks me to give a talk on the insanity defense. Today is that day so in an hour so I will be talking crazy murder! Here are a few of the slides… I don’t lean too heavy on PowerPoint (it keeps me on task mostly, but it’s great for pictures of course…
Denying culpability for bad acts is as old as humanity… and don’t believe the hype… it’s the wimmins fault. Who the hell listens to a snake?
The following is an engraving of Richard Lawrence trying to assassinate Andrew Jackson… misfire! misfire! Sucked to be Lawrence… crazy as a loon… defense attorney? Francis Scott Key… YES that one. Interesting side note… Key’s grandson would be killed in the late 1850s in broad daylight within sight of the White House by Congressman Daniel Sickles after being caught in flagrante delicto with Mrs. Sickles. Sickles would beat the rap by winning the first temporary insanity defense. Kismet!
Next up is Charles Guiteau, assassin of James Garfield — probably would have been found not guilty by reason of insanity these days… but alas, the “stalwart of Stalwarts” hanged by the neck until he was dead. Here’s a letter he wrote to General Sherman as part of the coup Guiteau thought he was part of… poor delusional fellow. Garfield died a long and painful death — he would also have lived if the event had happened today.
And lastly is murderer’s row… a peanut gallery (or maybe mixed nut) of recent folks who did, are, or would have invoked insanity. Despite the press it gets… insanity is rarely invoked and rarely successful (approximately 1/4 of 1% of the time).
Anyway… that’s my morning. Enjoy!
[cough] “… and don’t believe the hype… it’s the wimmins fault. Who the hell listens to a snake?”
I beg to differ. Adam knew better. Eve was innocently just trying to keep the relationship alive, trying to keep Adam interested. So, in effect, she was listening to that other snake, the one that has caused us wimmens so much grief since time began. End of argument.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
Eve wanted to be God. Adam wanted to see God.
“… in flagrante delicto with Mrs. Sickles.”
Mr. Sickles should have tried harder (that’s what we wimmens are told all the time, thank you very much. See Eve reference above).
There’s gotta be at least two regular contributors to the Puffington Host featured in that last slide, right?
“Charles Guiteau … poor delusional fellow.”
“… it’s the wimmins fault.”
The argument is breaking down.
Is there no room in our thinking for a flat out “stoopid” defense?
What do you mean by “flat”? Sexist war on unattractive wimmin, is it?
Yeah, she’s a real dog.
Dog? Mmmm, more like a twelve year old gay boy.
Oh yeah, she looks like a little boy.
http://www.threedonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/origin_Milla-Jovovich-8.jpg
That’s her? Well, I wasn’t judging by her face.
I know
Please tell me there’s some mention of the Twinkie defense in there.
As in, “He was so light in the loafers that he tripped over them and accidently stabbed the guy!” ?
Obliquely. I talk about White and the end of diminished capacity in California. The Twinkie Defense was latched onto by the press and the nascent gay rights movement, but its not much legally speaking.
As a side note if one wants to know the origins of Dianne Feinstein’s gun control views she came by them honestly after the Milk/Mosconi murders. She’s 100% wrong in her conclusions of course, but her trauma was real.
Or stated another way, White’s attorneys attempted to set forth that White’s diet of Twinkies and other junk foods was evidence of his diminished capacity not that the Twinkies caused him to go crazy and shoot the mayor and supervisor.
The word “Twinkie” was never even uttered at trial. One expert, as I recall, mentioned studies about nutritional effects on mood swings (a lot of studies back that up) and White’s change in diet from health to junk food (which was where Coca Cola was mentioned) was used as evidence OF his depression not FOR his depression.
The media completely fabricated the Twinkie Defense and arguably fanned the flames leading to the White Night riots since the “Twinkie Defense” label undercut a reasonable case by the defense (which doesn’t make it correct — just reasonably arguable) and job by the jury.
I think White should have gotten the death penalty, but he did that when he killed himself back in the 80s.
This.
And now for something really strange…
Dan Sickles became one of those political generals during the Civil War.Almost helped lose the Battle of Gettysburg for the Union.
Here’s what Floyd really meant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGsqBn9pog