That pleasant-looking chap above is Tyree Smith of Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 2013, he killed a homeless man and ate his brain and eyeballs. (After that appetizer, he went to Subway.) Smith was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, and committed to a state psychiatric hospital for 60 years. Just ten years after Tyree’s bold gourmet adventures, however, the state Psychiatric Security Review Board has ruled that Smith is ready to be transitioned back into the community.
So he’s out.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Is it responsible to ever release someone like Tyree Smith back into the public?
The report on Smith’s release said in part: “He denied experiencing cravings but stated that if they were to arise, he would reach out to his hospital and community supports and providers.”
Oh. I feel much better now.
Ethics Alarms 
Exile to Siberia.
Since he is now ‘recovered’ shouldn’t he be tried for the crime?
That’s how it should work, but doesn’t.
This is why it is time to remove the monopolies these professional groups have on essential services. The psychiatrists and psychologists have a monopoly on confining people for mental illness and, in this case, releasing the criminally mentally ill. How many times have they failed in this? James Holmes is a good case. He had been banned from seeking psychiatric help because he was deemed too dangerous, but the very establishment that deemed him too dangerous to be around THEM, refused to sign papers that would let the police involuntarily confine him. At least they successfully determined he was a danger to those around him, they just refused to help the general public. We have them pushing puberty blockers and surgical sterilization on children with no evidence this will help. In fact, the actual ailments they suffer from were probably caused by the very ‘experts’ that get to decide the ‘treatment’.
Let’s look at medicine next. The medical associations regulate themselves and are calling for ideological conformity in all physicians. Anyone who disagrees about COVID masks, vaccinations, DEI, affirmative action, etc can’t be a physician. Pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they don’t agree with the physician’s treatment, or diagnosis, or they think the person looks sketchy. Medicine is an essential service. We can’t have such groups dictating if we can get care or not.
I’m sorry, but I think the legal profession is in the same boat. This is an essential service and the ideological constraints placed by the law schools and the licensing is putting an intolerable restriction on the law. During COVID, no labor attorney in my state was willing to take a case by employees who were being forced to take part in a drug trial, not one. In Hawaii, George Young had to sue the state himself because no lawyer would represent him. He did win initially in the 9th Circuit Appellate court, but lost once he got professional representation. The Supreme Court did side with him, but they sent it back down to the 9th Circuit, so the 9th Circuit could deny the existence of a right to bear arms outside your house again and make it go back to the Supreme Court in a perpetual motion cycle.
Don’t even get me started on public education.
So, these essential professions have made such a mess or regulation that they cannot be trusted anymore. We are going to have to end these ‘gatekeeping’ functions and try to find some way to still train such professions and keep them competent. Maybe we have to let everyone have a law school if they want one, anyone have a medical school if they want one, and we find a way to sort them out in the end. What if we let everyone take the bar exam if they wanted to? You might say “Well, the bar exam doesn’t do a good job of determining if you know how to be a lawyer”. This might be true, but the question then becomes “Then why is it used?”, and “Why don’t you use a test that does?”.
He was not found “not guilty” by reason of insanity, not “incompetent” to stand trial. Double jeopardy is at play.
I believe they got him on medication to stabilize him for trial, and was able to participate in his defense. Because of this rare status, he was remanded to the psychiatric review board.
He was remanded for 60 years, but this, strictly speaking, isn’t like a jail sentence. Because he was found “not guilty”, he could only be involuntarily hospitalized if he posed a danger to society. By releasing him to “the community”, he remains under the supervision of the review board for at least 50 more years.
In the vast majority of competency cases, the disability is permanent and unrecoverable. Someone might be held in the forensic unit indefinitely if he were incompetent and a danger, but never be tried. Eventually, he might no longer be a danger, and thus must be released, even though the incompetency remains and standing trial remains impossible.
Tyree is different in that he was found “not guilty” even though his competency has been purportedly restored.
The logic of his release is that he was mentally stabilized for about a year after the horrific incident prior to the trial, and then been stable for 10 years while at the Whiting Forensic Institute post trial.
The question is whether anyone could ever truly be considered “stable” again after eating a homeless man’s brain (even once).
“The horrific case made headline news, with Smith found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity after a July 2013 trial.” That’s what the linked article says. (NOW linked—sorry: I didn’t do it right first time.)
If he had been found incompetent to stand trial, then he would be tried now. Do you have another source?
That is the distinction I am highlighting, that was found not guilty, thus double jeopardy applies and he can not be tried.
If he were not competent at the time of trial in 2013, but now recovered, he could be face trial in 2023. He’d still be able to raise the insanity defense, however, and potentially prove a sufficient lack of understanding for criminal liability at the time of the crime.
The following is legislative commentary on the Connecticut insanity defense (with an inexpicible comparison with Montana’s). It’s a bit old, but I believe largely still accurate.
https://cga.ct.gov/PS94/rpt%5Colr%5Chtm/94-R-0918.htm
I can’t track down the article, but I thought I read he’d been stabilized between arrest and trial. In any event, he was found competent to stand trial, and thus enter a not guilty plee.
He is a presenation about competency, stating it is generally the state’s intent to “restore” incompetent dependents so they can face trial.
Click to access Competency-To-Stand-Trial.pdf
Tyree appears to be an example of a defendant successfully restored to face trial.
Additional info:
https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/smith-tyree-lincoln.htm
(Just to be clear, I am addressing the gateway question of, “What the hell is going on here?” The law appears to demand that someone mentally ill, but no longer a danger be released. I haven’t taken a side on whether it is ethically possible to find a brain+eating cannibal is sufficiently rehabilitated to be released – the visceral “ick” factor is quite strong.)
He can be released, but only if he’s released into one of the neighborhoods, or preferably suburbs, populate mostly by the bleeding heart woke—you can always know by amount of signage and flags that broadcast their wokeness. In fact, I think we should the same with “undocumented immigrants” and all these oppressed and unjustly imprisoned criminals they want out.
There’s an inherent problem with the idea of curing the criminally insane after a crime as horrific as this one: if they’re truly sane now, how can they live with themselves?
Can a sane person be comfortable living in the general population, knowing they once murdered a homeless man and ate his brain? Should a sane person feel it sufficient they have a number to call, should they feel the urge to kill and eat somebody? Maybe make an appointment for next Tuesday? You know, the kind of contingency plan you have against leaking faucets or a trick knee.
“The report on Smith’s release said in part: “He denied experiencing cravings but stated that if they were to arise, he would reach out to his hospital and community supports and providers.”
Why is he reaching out to the hospital and community supports? Does he mean he will consume them to satiate his cravings or to help him not seek to satiate those cravings?
I suppose the question arises to what level of accountability does society hold these decision makers when they alone decide it appropriate to release someone with such propensities? It seems to me that they should be subject to civil actions by those harmed by their decisions.
Opposition to cannibalism is such a colonizers’ mindset. Those descended from the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Pacific Islands, Africa, etc. should be free to celebrate their cultural heritage.
Seriously…The message of the bulged-out eyes and protruding tongue expressions used in the traditional Maori war challenge performance is intended to convey “I see you, and I’m going to eat you!” I don’t know if they have any gesture that translates into pulling a fire alarm.
Vincent Weiguang Li has apparently been a less than cannibalistic member of free society for nearly a decade.
There’s also a strange void of justice for the families of the victims of these cases. A functioning justice system should also be recognized as reducing likelihood victims desiring to go Gary Plauché on the accused.