Is "not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity" a viable plea?

[Sdiver]

What is this world coming to?

Obviously the plea from the defense for this "mother" is going to be "Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity", just as the 2 other cases mentioned in the article below, and this "mother" will probably get off on that plea.

But is it justified?

All 3 of these incidents took place in Texas, where we all know as Ron White has stated, "Texas is putting in an express lane for Capital Punishment".

Is "Not Guilty By Reason Insanity" a viable plea? Those who remember when President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, and how HE was found "Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity", how we all were in shock by this verdict. The guy knew what he was doing. Don't feed us this line of B.S. that he "wasn't in the right frame of mind", just as I'm sure the defense will say about this "mother".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_baby_decapitated

Warning signs missed in baby dismemberment case


SAN ANTONIO – The warning signs were there. Otty Sanchez, a schizophrenic with a history of hospitalizations, wasn't taking medication and was depressed after her son's birth, the boy's father said. A simple request seemed to set her off, alarming him and his family.

Yet, the 33-year-old woman was staying in a house where she had access to samurai swords. Child welfare officials were never called.

Instead, Sanchez's troubles became apparent to authorities when they found her before dawn Sunday screaming that she had killed her baby. Her 3 1/2-week-old son was dismembered in a scene so gruesome that police were left shaken.

The scene was so gruesome investigators could barely speak: A 3 1/2-week-old boy lay dismembered in the bedroom of a single-story house, three of his tiny toes chewed off, his face torn away, his head severed and his brains ripped out.

"At this particular scene you could have heard a pin drop," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Monday. "No one was speaking. It was about as somber as it could have been."

"Maybe we missed" warning signs, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said. "I don't know."

Sanchez remained hospitalized Tuesday recovering from self-inflicted cuts to her torso and an attempt to slice her own throat. The former home health care worker is charged with capital murder and is being held on $1 million bond. Calls to relatives Tuesday were not immediately returned and it was not clear whether Sanchez had an attorney.

Authorities said Sanchez tried killing herself after butchering her newborn son, Scott Wesley Buchholz-Sanchez, with a steak knife and two swords while her sister and two nieces, ages 5 and 7, slept in another room.

Sanchez told police — who described a scene so horrifying that investigators could barely speak to one another — that the devil made her kill, mutilate and eat parts of her only child.

Scott W. Buchholz, the infant's father who met Sanchez six years ago while they were studying to be pharmacists assistants, said he isn't buying it. He said although his girlfriend had postpartum depression and told him a week before the killing that she was schizophrenic, she didn't appear unstable.

He wants prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.

"She killed my son. She should burn in hell," Buchholz, 33, told The Associated Press.

Otty Sanchez's medical history is muddled. A family member said Sanchez had been undergoing psychiatric treatment and that a hospital called looking for her several months ago. Gloria Sanchez, Otty's aunt, said her niece had been "in and out of a psychiatric ward."

In May 2008, Otty Sanchez's mother, Manuela Sanchez, called police after her daughter didn't return from a trip to Austin, saying she was concerned about her daughter's safety. Manuela Sanchez told police she suspected Otty was into drugs and specifically told police she wasn't suffering from any mental issues.

Buchholz, who is himself schizophrenic and takes six anti-psychotic and anti-convulsive medications, said Otty had postpartum depression and had been going to regular counseling sessions after the birth, but refused to take prescription medication for her depression. Still, he said she seemed fine.

"She seemed like a a very caring, loving mother. She held him, she breast fed him. She did everything for him that was nice," he said.

On July 20, Sanchez was taken to the hospital for depression and released less than a day later, Buchholz said. Sanchez told him that she was schizophrenic and was going to live with her parents and sister. Sanchez was arrested at her mother's house, where police found her and the dead infant.

Five days later, on Saturday, Sanchez brought "Baby Scotty" for a visit but stormed out after he asked for a copy of the birth certificate and other documents, Buchholz said. Buchholz called 911 to report that Sanchez stormed out and drove away with the infant without properly restraining him in the car, and deputies investigated it as a disturbance.

The deputy took a report but could do little else, said Bexar County Sheriff Chief Deputy Dale Bennett.

"If this guy had given us an indication that she had postpartum depression, or mental defects she was suffering from, we may have addressed it differently," he said.

Buchholz said he may have told the deputy Sanchez was depressed, but that he wasn't sure.

While schizophrenia generally develops in men in their late teens and early 20s, women tend to develop the illness, marked by abnormal impressions of reality, later in life.

Most new mothers suffer from postpartum blues as hormones shift after a pregnancy and they're fatigued handling a new baby. But as many as one-fifth suffer from the more serious postpartum depression, which includes symptoms like despair and failing to eat or sleep.

Postpartum psychosis is far rarer, affecting only about one woman in 1,000. Women with postpartum psychosis have delusions, frequently involving religious symbols and a desire to harm their newborn, said Richard Pesikoff, a psychiatry professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.

He testified in the second trial of Andrea Yates, the high-profile case of a Houston-area mother found not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her five children. Similar to Sanchez's claim that the devil told her to kill her son, Yates told authorities Satan was inside of her and she was trying to save her children.

"The most common part of postpartum psychosis is the delusional thinking," said Pesikoff. "Often but not always, it encompasses some type of religious thought. God is telling you to do something. The devil is telling you to do something."

Women with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are at particularly high risk for developing postpartum psychosis.

For women with schizophrenia who are not taking medication, the risk of developing psychosis is 50 percent or higher, said Lucy Puryear, another psychiatrist who was involved in the Yates case.

If a mother is diagnosed with psychosis, she should immediately be hospitalized and separated from the child, Puryear said.

Some psychiatrists will tell women with schizophrenia not to have children because of the high risks, but she said with medication and treatment, "it's possible to have a child and have a good outcome."

While Sanchez could face trial, other similar cases — including that of Yates and Dena Schlosser, a Plano woman who said she sliced off her baby's arms because she wanted to give the baby to God — have ended with juries finding the women not guilty by reason of insanity.

Andrea Yates drowned her five children in her Houston-area home 2001, saying she believed Satan was inside her and trying to save them from hell. Her attorneys said she had been suffering from severe postpartum psychosis, and a jury found Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006.

In 2004, Dena Schlosser killed her 10-month-old in her Plano home by slicing off the baby's arms. She was found not guilty of reason by insanity, after testifying that she killed the baby because she wanted to give her to God.

[The Reaper]

I really doubt that she will get the death penalty.

Women have traditionally been given the benefit of the doubt when they kill their children, and are almost always found not guilty by reason of insanity. The more heinous the method, the more insane they must be.

They are also much less likely to be executed if they kill their husbands, or to get very light sentences compared to men killing their wives. Spousal abuse allegation is a free ticket to kill.

Wait and see.

TR

[incarcerated]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

When I worked in corrections I can honestly say I seen people that were so crazy they could not be responsable for their actions.

You knew my first boss?

[greenberetTFS]

WTF, If she gets away with this really horrible crime,than I surly will give up on Texas justice.................

Big Teddy

[TDude90]

Personally, I think insanity gives us all the more reason to lock someone up.

[Soak60]

Some people really are insane.

But I think there is a big difference between "postpartum depression" and "homicidal f#$%ing maniac". One of them doesn't rip their newborn apart like a rabid dog.

And the father clearly has the high ground here on his wife, since he is schizophrenic and probably heavily medicated.

I doubt she'll see jail time; the most we can hope for is that she doesn't have another child, and she is put someplace "safe" for a good, long time.

That makes me sick just reading it... How does a person do such a horrific thing? With the history this woman has, its probable she actually is insane, though I will also agree with some that "insanity" is a plea too over used. As much as id like to see this person put down, locked away in padded room away from society might suit her best if not the other.

[Mike]

Though tried by many, the insanity plea is rarely successful.

I is kind of over sensationalised.

I agree that some people are truly crazy and it sometimes comes and goes.

Bad idea to be standing next to a crazy person when they take a notion to be crazy.

If found not guilty by mental disease or defect in some states, the subject can be confined to a mental instituiton until they get better, and that could be a LONG time.

I guess I'm not so horrified. It was all about timing. Four weeks earlier she could have someone else do it at taxpayers expense. It's her right, dontcha know.