Now, I have taken a little bit slack, not much, but a little for sure, for asserting that Sandra Yates deserved to die rather than be allowed to cop an insanity plea. IMO, if you’re capable of murder in a

Has a law ever been changed? That’s what I’m shooting for here.

You need to remember that insanity is a legal definition, not a medical one. One can be judged criminally “insane” from a medical condition such as diabetes or epilepsy, because it affects a person’s capacity to reason. Example: an epileptic has a seizure and assaults someone. Example: a diabetic suffers an alteration of blood sugar which causes him to do something criminal. I don’t think executing people with medical issues constitutes justice. That’s what strict liability would require and it’s Draconian in the extreme. (The word comes from Draco of Sparta for a reason - the penalty for breaking any law in Sparta was the death penalty.)

I agree with you that the insanity defense has been too widely applied. As I originally wrote there is the temptation to say that because sane people would not have committed a crime, that the criminal must be insane. That’s putting the cart before the horse. As I also wrote earlier in this post, I’m not sure that insanity is proven in this case, although there was indeed severe mental illness. Did she know what she was doing was wrong? I think the evidence says that she did, but that the jury ignored it. There have also been reports that not all of the psychological evidence along these lines was presented. That disturbs me.

Bottom line: I think we agree on the ends, but differ on the means. I don’t want to use unjust means to reach the correct end. I’d prefer to see the law applied correctly thereby using just means to reach a just end.

I think you really have to examine the mens rea of a criminal defendant for a variety of reasons. It’s part of determining what is the appropriate punishment. In most cases, it’s clear cut that the adult defendant knew or should have known what they were doing is wrong. But people do get mentally ill who have lost the capacity to reason. Some are children who have not yet developed the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. This doesn’t mean that the victim should be ignored. You have to look at both elements if you really want to achieve justice - which is fundamentally different than mere retribution.

3. Getting rid of the mens rea element would result in a very Draconian society. I don’t think even you want to live that way.

You add the caveat that I’m claiming as if it were a defense. It is EXACTLY my point that she suffered from psychosis in the first place. When one is psychotically depressed, it doesn’t mean anything from a treatment standpoint to say they were even more depressed at some point in their life. And, when the post partem effect is gone ( which it surely is by now ), she won’t be any better off than she was before if she truly is perfmanently insane ( which she obviously is ). If your back’s broke, spraining your knee is irrelevent until the broken back is repaired. Andrea now is what Andrea was before she committed the crime. She’s still insane and always will be. Ten years from now she’ll be the same threat to society as she was before. In this particular case, post partem sent her supposedly over the edge. Ten years from now, it could a post-traumatic trigger. Post partem IMO had nothing to do with this. She was FUBAR before the PPD became a factor. There is no such thing as being a little more FUBAR.

But, my bottom line is she should have been judged on what she did, not why she did it. When society starts enforcing the law based on the crime and not diagnosing everything THEN the death penalty will be a lot more of a factor than it is now.