Jury Acquits Texas Mother Who Killed Sons
 

God ordered her to bash in the heads of her sons

A woman who claimed God ordered her to bash in the heads of her sons was acquitted of all charges by reason of insanity Saturday after a jury determined she did not know right from wrong during the killings.

Does this mean that all Christians who claim that God spoke to them are insane? ... :eek:

//SiN-edit - for the link-challenged

Wow -- sad! I hope she never has more children.

She's going to end up in the loony bin now anyway.

To quote Lewis Black, she should be forced to sit for twenty years next to somebody who's crocheting something that isn't there.

Re: Jury Acquits Texas Mother Who Killed Sons
 

I don't know if this is answering your questions, but I believe "God" is a state of mind. "God" tells us what "he" would not want us to do. In reality, it's you telling yourself. Therefore, IN MY BELIEF, everything that you do based on "God's will" is based on your own will (part of which, of course, has been contributed by society). Therefore, I believe that the woman killed her children because she wanted to, regardless of whether she was insane or not, and there should be no such thing as "not guilty by reason of insanity". No outside force forced her to kill her kids. She did it herself. She should be given life in prison or executed.

Only the ones that really are.

(BTW, the orange doesn't work well with the "Sand" color scheme...)

No. Only that "God told me things" is not a very good reason for beleving something, or doing something.

Re: Re: Jury Acquits Texas Mother Who Killed Sons
 

If God's will is your will, then why the need for redundant terminology?

Re: Re: Re: Jury Acquits Texas Mother Who Killed Sons
 

"Redundant terminology" is necessary to explain my point of view.

If the penal system were really there for rehabilitation, then not guilty by reason of insanity would make sense. If it were there for punishment, then it would make sense. It seems to me though that the penal system is largely there to remove from society its dangerous members (as defined by old white guys). If that is really what the penal system is about, the insanity should be no defense. Knowing right from wrong does not make you more dangerous - rather the opposite.

If God told her to do it, and she did, and she told people she did, then she should answer to God, not us, and we should arrange that meeting expeditiously, if you take my meaning. I am against the death penalty when there is any possibilty of error, but that does not seem to be the case here.

Excellently said!

i always knew christianity was nuts!

I'm a bit shocked that this defense worked, and irked that the "severe mental illness" is just unnamed psychotic delusions.

I think she should be locked up with a few other loonies... who just happen to have access to some head-bashing sized rocks!


btw: the verdict should've been more like...

Guilty, but spared the death penalty d/t insanity. Eligible for electric shock therapy upon completion of trial.

I think there's a legitimate difference between someone who thinks they're hearing the voice of god telling them to do something they don't want to do (like kill their kids) and someone who, say, kills their kid in a fit of anger or through willful neglect, or, say, someone who shoots another person in a robbery or something. These are qualitatively different. The woman's a loony, plain and simple. Did she understand right and wrong? I kinda don't think so. She knew it was wrong by human standards but thought it was ultimately right by divine standards. Granted, the bottom line is still that she bashed her kids heads in and can't be trusted around society, but is it because she deliberately makes choices that are in her own interest but counter to social mores, or because she's nuts in the head? I guess I don't really have an opinion on whether she should be declared "guilty" or not, but it seems like there's some kind of difference between someone who's deranged and someone who's just selfish and amoral, and that ought to be recognized somehow in the legal system.

Why is when we talk to God, it's call prayer, but when he talks to us, it's schitzofrenia? Spelling sucks, I know. Read the tag line and move on. Either way, put her against the wall and be done with her.God might tell her to kill someone else.

Right. They never argued she didn't do it. They all knew she did. Insane or not, this is a person who should pay for their crimes, and that cost should be their life.

The biggest problem here is, if it was a he who did the killing and not a she, he would have gotten the death sentence whereas she gets off on insanity. All the insanity pleas, etc would not have worked for the he.

Either way, I find it sickening that they let someone off who obviously killed their kids.

Is this killing of one's own children some sort of epidemic or has this been always around? It seems I've been seeing lots of news reports of this sort lately.

So, how do we cure her?

Place her in an insane asylum until she no longer believes in God?

WHAT THE FUCK?

Church and State should be SEPERATE!!

SHE KILLED TWO HUMAN BEINGS!
She deserves to die.