Conservative pundits seem to be having a problem with the fact that Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., the homeless man who slaughtered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte subway as her fellow riders pretended they were under the sea or something, has been declared incapable of standing trial and prosecutors have delayed his competency hearing by six months.
A horrified conservative writes on PJ Media in part:
“….because soft-on-crime authorities in Charlotte ensured he was always released on cashless bail after his 14 prior arrests, he was free to thrust his knife into a stranger on the subway. Unfortunately, woke medical and legal professionals continue to treat Brown as if he were the victim, a pitiable, crazy man with no responsibility for his actions, rather than as a serial criminal and sadistic killer. The new assessment that Brown is incompetent to stand trial could prevent trying him for the death penalty….”
Ethics Alarms has barely touched on the question of whether not guilty by reason of insanity verdicts (NGBRI) are ethical or even sensible. That’s a big failing, because this is one of the major ethics questions in criminal law, and one that is still unsettled. It may be beyond settling.
Ethics Alarms 
But aren’t we told by our betters that paranoid schizophrenics are not dangerous and they should be left on the street rather than institutionalized where they can be given medicines that treat the disease? Grrr.
A similar case is the killing of Tim McLean.
The killer did successfully plead insanity, and is a free man. Modern medicine has muddied the ethics here, if a person is considered innocent of their own actions, and is knownto be successfully participating in society as long as they continue their medications–is it just to execute them for the crime?
I just read up on it, and it seems he spent 7 years in a secure facility before being released. If he had no priors before that incident, showed he was keeping up with his medication, his therapy, and didn’t cause any issues in his facility, I have a hard time arguing with the doctors’ and courts’ decisions.
If we could be absolutely certain of lifetime incarceration or commitment to an appropriate facility, I would not need to apply the death penalty. Recent events do not inspire confidence that lifetime imprisonment means just that.
I’ve read that it’s actually pretty difficult to fake mental illness, at least far as criminal cases are concerned, hence the low success rate for that kind of defense. My understanding is that most people who fake it act like the crazy people they see on TV and the movies, and competent pyschologists/pyschiatrists are able to tell the difference. Plus actually succeeding in the insanity defense doesn’t mean you get off with no consequences. Instead it often means you’re put in a mental institution instead of prison.
With that being said, I believe the first priority of law should be to protect the rights of others. Those who cause harm to others should, at minimum, have that capacity to cause harm taken away. On a personal level, if somebody’s trying to kill me, my first priority isn’t to psychoanalyze him, my first priority is to not die. Even if he’s genuinely out of his mind, his delusion does not trump my right to life, so I will defend myself, even to the death if necessary. Should this person survive the encounter, I would expect the prosecution and the judge to think first about safety to the public. To that end, whether a violent offender be insane or not, he should not merely be released on probation, but instead put somewhere where he will not be a danger to anyone, and given whatever medication, or counciling he needs to understand the severity of his actions and choose to do better. If he does not follow through with repentance and reform, then he should not expect the same level of liberty and trust as that of a law-abiding citizen. If it’s clear he cannot be trusted with any level of human interaction (ie a serial killer), then society should not be obligated to support him in any way, but should instead permantely relieve him from the burden of living.