Yates and Insanity

As I was watching excerpts from the Yates trial(and woo-hoo! for the verdict0, it dawned on me how serious an insanity defense really is.

It was often said that she would have to be crazy to carry out such a terrible crime, and if it had been a man who had committed this crime, insanity would never have been considered.

Now my point, pedophiles suffer from a mental illness they can never control. They are villified (andwell they should be), but has any of these sand fleas ever tried an insanity defense? We can accept Yates' insanity for her horrible crime, but nobody ever even will offer the possibility of treating a pedaphile for a mental illness. Rather, they can't die fast enough.

Please don't get me wrong. I'd like to see these pedophiles killed slowly and painfully a dozen times over, but I think medical officials are too eager to casually say pedophilia is a mental illness and can only be stopped by their execution. Why not leave mental conditions out of their profile and call them what they are--sick animals who don't even want to be 'cured'.

[LI_Mom]

I think there are 2 separate issues here.

The insanity defense is met when a person does not KNOW their actions are wrong/illegal. He/she doesn't try to hide their crime because they don't know they have committed a crime.

Pedophiles almost always try to hide their actions from others but they seem to not be able to stop from acting out on their fantasies. They know it's wrong but they can't/won't control themselves.

[Leanne Weich]

Originally posted by LI_Mom
I think there are 2 separate issues here.

The insanity defense is met when a person does not KNOW their actions are wrong/illegal. He/she doesn't try to hide their crime because they don't know they have committed a crime.

Pedophiles almost always try to hide their actions from others but they seem to not be able to stop from acting out on their fantasies. They know it's wrong but they can't/won't control themselves.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. Had Andrea had adequate mental health care, her 5 precious babies would probably be alive.

How many pedophiles have treatment yet still continue their raping ways, a lot of times escalating to murder? Look at John Couey, he refused mental health treatment.

IMO it is comparing apples and oranges.

There are a lot of people who can be classified as suffering from mental illness. People who suffer from clinical depression have a mental illness, people who have OCD have a mental illness, and there is also the disease of alcoholism.

My question is if Andrea's psychosis can be used as a defense then couldn't a person who suffers from any mental illness even if it comes and goes like depression be able to commit murder and have their charges reduced? I know people plea insanity allot of times when they are looking at the death penalty.

If a person who is a known alcoholic gets drunk and goes into a black out then murderers all their children, should they then be allowed to have their sentence reduced to a lesser charge? I don't think so.

The thought that Andrea Yates could ever be allowed out into the population is sickening and a discredit to those beautiful children who she violently took each one of their lives. Think about 7yr old Noah, think about how FRIGHTENED he was when he realized what his mother was about to do to him when she caught him, think about what he said when he was able to catch his LAST breath..."Sorry" he believed he was being PUNISHED for something he/they did wrong. My heart breaks always for the children but NEVER for Andrea.

Now, I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist, but isn't pedophilia a sexual preference rather than a mental illness? Pedophiles know that their actions are wrong and go to great lengths to cover their tracks, thus they are not insane when they rape/kill their victims. Couey, Westerfield and Carlie Brucia's killer, Joseph Smith are child molesters/child killers who knew their actions were wrong and went to great lengths to cover their tracks. They were not insane, just evil child preditors.

Andrea Yates is very mentally ill and there is no comparison of her case to the pedophiles on this thread. Big difference.

[happytweety]

In my opinion, both types should be put to death! There is no excuse for a pedophile to do what they do and there is no exception for people like Andrea Yates who kill their children. They are both separate cases but they are both just as sick and should get what they deserve!