Word: dahmer
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Person of the Week: Jeff Dahmer...
With the commencement of the insanity trial of Jeff "the Chef" Dahmer, the nation has once again dipped its curious hand into the blue plastic barrels filled with rotting flesh and bone...
...most Americans, the plea is a cop-out -- a too easy alibi that could allow monsters like Dahmer to return to the streets. In fact, the insanity defense is seldom used and rarely successful. Experts estimate the defense is raised in fewer than 1% of the 13 million criminal cases filed annually in the U.S. On those rare occasions where it succeeds, the offense is usually nonviolent, and the prosecution and defense agree that the accused is deranged. One example: a homeless person with schizophrenia who is charged with disorderly conduct...
...defendants in homicides or assaults are acquitted on the ground of mental illness. Would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley's plea was accepted, but insanity claims by Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi and mass murderer John Wayne Gacy were rebuffed. Experts predict Dahmer's bid will fail as well. "There is a point at which crimes reach such a magnitude that people don't care why someone did something," observes San Diego criminal attorney John Cotsirilos...
...legal test is that at the time a crime was committed, the defendant was suffering from a mental defect that made him or her incapable of telling right from wrong. Some states also consider whether a defendant's mental illness impaired the ability to control one's actions. The Dahmer case is expected to hinge on this so-called irresistible-impulse defense...