Not in the sense in which the law requires you to comprehend the consequences of your actions. An insane person could feel bad after killing someone because they respond with empathy after the fact, but still not have comprehended before the fact that what they were doing was going to kill someone. The latter, if established beyond a reasonable doubt, would mean they would not meet the legal comprehension requirement.
And, conversely, a psychopath could comprehend perfectly well before the fact that what they were doing was going to kill someone, but feel nothing because they don't care. They would still meet the legal requirement for comprehension.
> I think you're implying that somehow one has comprehension only before, and empathy only after.
No, I'm just saying that to establish legal comprehension, you can't look at empathy, because they're two different things. They might go together--in normal, sane people they almost always will go together, both before and after--but you can't rely on it, since the people you are going to ask the question about in the first place--the people for whom you might have to evaluate a possible insanity defense--are precisely the people in whom you can't rely on them going together.
In the US, the insanity defense is almost never used because it is so rarely successful and because the statutes are so high (especially since laws were passed in 1984 in response to the acquittal of John Hinckley, the man that shot President Reagan. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital instead and was released in 2016 (though there are strict rules around his release)).
The Andrea Yates case [1], was the last time I can remember it being argued in a high profile case. This was the woman that drowned her five children. She was convicted in her first trial (though the jury refused to give her the death penalty) and that was overturned a few years later, after one of the prosecution’s psychiatrist admitted to giving materially false testimony. She was found not-guilty by reason of insanity in the retrial and confined to a state mental health facility.
The Yates case is a good example of how high the burden of proof of an insanity defense is in a murder case. No one on either side disputed that she was severely mentally ill at the time of the killings. The state’s argument was that despite that, she knew the difference between and wrong enough to be legally responsible.
There was a whole bunch of stuff in that case too — and it is truly tragic situation for everyone involved (there were reports that after Yates was properly medicated in prison awaiting trial and found out/remembered what she did, she became highly suicidal/went into shock), and there is an argument to be made that she was not given the proper care by her doctors leading up to the murders - but my point is more to say, in what as an outsider, appears to be a textbook case for successfully using the insanity defense, it was still unsuccessful until appeal and retrial, in part because of the question of comprehension.
Almost certainly not. The statute for an insanity defense is extremely, extremely high. This isn’t the same as a murder trial or anything, but the standards a defendant needs to meet are usually at a level that would preclude the individual from being able to function in society, something Holmes has done quite well. Moreover, the government would really only need to be able to successfully argue/show examples where Holmes did, for example, know the difference between right and wrong.
My guess — and I’m not a lawyer — is that her lawyers are hoping to make this a mitigating factor as part of sentencing.
It would be that she was a young girl terrorized by her partner into doing terrible things. Its a defense that works better for pretty little blonde ladies than large, dark, homely men.
I read John Carreyrou's book on the Theranos debacle, and I know someone who worked there. At risk of violating the Goldwater Rule, I'd say Ms. Holmes has some serious psychological issues that make her incompetent, primarily her capacity for self-delusion. And not just the "I'll skip my workout today and run extra tomorrow" type of self-delusion that so many of us are capable of, I mean a truly bizarre distortion of reality as she sees it.
I also read an article about her childhood and family life. It was sad, overwrought with anxiety, and a formula for the exact kind of pathology she appears to have had at Theranos. Even if she had lost my investment capital instead of other people's, I'd still feel sorry for her rather than angry.
"The defense expert, Mindy Mechanic, is a California State University at Fullerton professor specializing in psychosocial consequences of violence, trauma and victimization, including violence against women, and often testifies in cases involving interpersonal violence,"
...which might give a clue as to what the mitigating mental issue could be. Obviously they are not going to say she's a psychopath.
Right. As I wrote in another comment, this seems to be a way to argue diminished capacity, probably by arguing that she was a victim of battered spouse syndrome. It’s the modern day Twinkie defense.
I think that's probably trivializing it. I happen to be reading the (or a) book about Theranos, "Bad Blood", and it seems like something worse might be the issue. Maybe not just with one person either. She founded the company at like 19. And had a relationship very early with Sunny who was like twice her age.
What is the decision procedure for distinguishing between a woman who is being taken advantage of and a woman who is exploiting those around her? If she doesn’t flag as an exploiter is our decision procedure useful?
I’ve read the book — it’s excellent. And I’m not arguing that Balwani isn’t at the very least, gross on a lot of levels. But that book and the other reporting (Rebecca Jarvis’ podcast for ABC News, Nick Bilton’s stories for Vanity Fair) seem to indicate that she was the boss/leader at Theranos. That isn’t to say there couldn’t be some bad things that happened in her relationships that led to diminished capacity defense, but the burden is on the defense to prove that.
Based on what we know right now, I think any claims that “I committed fraud because I was abused” — assuming that is the defense — trivializes the real men and women who suffer from abuse every single day and don’t do the things Holmes did.
The phrase "based on what we know right now" seems inappropriate to me. It's like when people talk about the covid epidemic based on the numbers that we have to date, implicitly assuming that there will be no new cases tomorrow. Even though we don't actually have tomorrow's information today, we can be sure there will be something coming.
We have no idea what they're going to say in the courtroom, not even the people who read Carreyrou's book.
Hell, we don't even know to what extent Covid is transmitted via droplets vs aerosols. "Based on what we know right now" is highly appropriate preface for claims about an uncertain future. I wish more people would use that phrase.
Thank you! And like you, I’m also here with the popcorn. #TeamDrama
I have a $500 bet that Holmes won’t serve any jail time (not that she won’t be convicted and putting aside any plea deals), so I have a vested interest in whatever her defense is as working. But on a personal level, I think she’s a terrible person and I’m just excited to watch the case unfold.
It's going to be interesting to see how the defence handle her apparently pretty rapid recovery to good mental health post-Theranos, i.e. new boyfriend, posting smiley selfies etc.
What I was trying to say is that there is sometimes an implicit contradiction when people say "based on what we know right now".
In a philosophical way, you could say that "based on what we know right now", the sun has always risen in the morning, but we do not know that it will rise tomorrow. But then, to plan as if it won't, is not really "based on what we know right now".
Claiming something or other will be different about the sun tomorrow might, seem plausible to one person and absurd to another; that can be debated.
But for it to suddenly vanish without a trace is not "based on what we know right now". Pretty much anything else is more likely.
What's the meaning of saying "we have no idea" as if someone was predicting it? I am not predicting it.
I don’t understand how noting that something is based on conjecture and not on any allegations in the public record (the earlier hearing that first made the mental health claims are under seal) is inappropriate. Of course more information will be made public in the future! You can disagree with my personal conjecture about what a defense will be — and I could absolutely be wrong, I’m not her attorney and I don’t work for the government. And that’s exactly why I’m making it clear that my personal opinion is based on the information we do have. You don’t have to agree with my opinion but it calling it inappropriate to even have one is weird.
I didn't see who was making any specific conjecture.
When you know there is going to be relevant information coming out, prejudging as if there isn't going to be, is just wrong. Not in the sense of injustice, but in the sense that there's no realistic chance of being correct.
I don't think that is a "weird" outlook. I am making no prejudgment on whether her actions were justified, just that context matters, and in this instance, context will be provided later.
The compulsive need to judge without information rather than waiting is "weird" to me personally, but I acknowledge and accept it's normal human behavior.
The age gap and his reputation for being an absolute tyrant also stood out to me. I wouldn't rule out some sort of abuse.
That being said, she also seemed to be a bit of a tyrant herself, and it's very possible she latched on to him at 19 to use his money and connections, and found it handy later on to have a co-conspirator as ruthless as she was who was willing to feed the falsehood treadmill.
It's possible your latter paragraph is correct, but she was primed by earlier experiences. In general, she could have a personality disorder and be a victim.
> Davila authorized the examinations after Holmes’ lawyers said they intended to introduce expert evidence from a clinical psychologist “relating to a mental disease or defect or any other mental condition of the defendant bearing on the issue of guilt.”
>
> The defense expert, Mindy Mechanic, is a California State University at Fullerton professor specializing in psychosocial consequences of violence, trauma and victimization, including violence against women, and often testifies in cases involving interpersonal violence, according to her university biography.
Ok, so my theory is that based on the expert her lawyers are calling, they are going to argue that Sunny groomed/abused Holmes over the course of their relationship (probably by calling attention to the age difference/power dynamic difference when they first met), which left her with trauma that led to her making the decisions she made.
So “Battered Woman Syndrome” [1] but applied to fraud instead of assault/murder.
If that’s the case, it really seems like they aren’t going to argue that Holmes didn’t deceive and commit fraud, but that her PTSD is a defense.
Novel. This may have worked in the 1980s, the era of the the Twinkie defense [2] and other ways of arguing diminished capacity, but I’m not sure it’ll be successful here.
It's pretty crazy how rich people get to argue they have mental health issues, but poor people can't. If she were a poor person that robbed a convenience store it would be straight to jail and no one would care about any past trauma.
I also think it's kind of BS to be honest. To me it feels like one step away from "the defendant is a psychopath that feels no remorse, so never developed the ethics needed to understand that murder is wrong, so they shouldn't be culpable."
It's rich people paying "experts" to skew the perception of what's right and what's wrong.
And yeah, if someone who doesn’t have enough to eat steals from a grocery store we throw em in jail. I’d venture most people in prison were traumatized at some point. Take into account their circumstances. This is an educated privileged woman who defrauded everyone around her for years. I expect her to get community service, frankly. The only reason she’d end up in jail is that she took rich peoples money.
I agree with your broader point even if I think this characterization is exaggerated. The system is skewed toward the rich; however, I do think sentencing should factor in the likelihood of re-offending, and I would intuit that rich people (especially white-collar criminals) are less likely to re-offend due to some combination of greater fear of prison ("more to lose") and damage to their reputation ("people don't tend to trust fraudsters multiple times" though there are exceptions to every rule). Poorer people are probably more likely to re-offend due to systemic issues, and at least in my major US city we have a perennial problem of violent gun offenders being released after only a few months or years only to re-offend (typically disproportionately in poorer communities, perpetuating the poverty cycle). I very much doubt that differences in likelihood of re-offending account for the entire sentencing disparity between rich and poor; however, to the extent that it contributes to the disparity, we shouldn't try to solve for that gap by lightening sentences on account of poverty, but by addressing the upstream systemic issues (notably, lighter sentencing often perpetuates systemic issues, as with my anecdote about violent gun offenders).
1st - is there actually a higher statistical likelihood of poor people reoffending? Rich people go to jail less often, so I’d imagine those that do might even have a higher rate.
2nd - if you wanted to drop the reoffense rate, as well as the offense rate, what would you do? Why aren’t we doing it?
1. I'm not sure. It's only my assumption, but it should definitely be verified. Obviously if the assumption is bad then my conclusion is no good.
2. Several broad categories of solutions spring to mind with their own tradeoffs:
2.1 Invest in rehabilitation. Difficulties are cost and probably political problems due to ignorance (or maybe I'm ignorant for my faith in rehabilitation?).
2.2 Longer sentencing (or rather require prisoners to serve more of their sentence more frequently, as opposed to early probation, etc). Downside is cost, ethics, and politics (a lot of well-meaning, typically upper- and upper-middle-class folks believe that longer sentences harms communities of color more than violent re-offenders, or rather they don't consider the costs of the latter).
2.1 - What does "rehab" constitute? Crimes of need are not likely to go away unless people's situation improves.
2.2 - We punish more people for longer than anywhere else in the world. Our prison population backs that up. (https://www.apa.org/images/2014-10-incarceration-chart2_tcm7...). Its absolutely not the case that we get better outcomes. There's no evidence to support that longer sentences will solve anything.
2.3 - Has its own problems - a nontrivial amount of people are put to death who are later exonerated. Its costly. Its also not an effective deterrent
2.1 you said we were talking about reducing recidivism, not reducing crime overall. To reduce crime in general, I mentioned addressing the systemic upstream factors like poverty and inequality.
2.2 Point blank if you imprison people they aren’t a threat to society while they’re being held. It’s not a good idea IMO, but you didn’t ask for my preferred ideas.
2.3 right, like I said: ethics
In general I think we’re agreeing, but your tone seems to suggest otherwise. Hopefully I’m just misreading.
>"however, I do think sentencing should factor in the likelihood of re-offending,"
This is very troubling thinking. The problem here is - not only are you sentencing them for future, 'possible' crimes but you are doing it on the basis of demographics - there are huge issues to consider here.
And what would it buy that isn't accounted for by using something more individual and predictive of re-offending -- like whether (and how frequently) they have offended in the past -- which is used in sentencing guidelines?
You’re confusing correlation with causation. Sentencing someone because they are likely to reoffend will affect poor people differently than rich people in aggregate due to aforementioned systemic effects but it doesn’t follow that someone is being sentenced on the basis of their individual poverty or wealth.
Holmes is reportedly looking to start a new company [1].
That’s necessary but insufficient conditions for her to re-offend, but if she doesn’t feel any significant personal consequences due to the fraud she committed at Theranos, why wouldn’t she try it again?
I don’t know Holmes, but one could conceive of a person being afraid to go through her ordeal again but with a high probability of being caught (how is the SEC and everyone else not going to watch her like a hawk?) and a high probability of a harsher sentence. Of course we could psychoanalyze whichever way, although I would guess she will behave better this time around.
I think there are probably a lot of people in jails and prisons who have undiagnosed mental illness, though.
I don't remember where I heard the following claim: a substantial rate of death row inmates in some study were shown to have prefrontal cortical abnormalities.
It's an interesting question if it's possible that understanding of the brain ever reaches a point where things of that nature can be detected and/or treated, either before or after a crime, instead of jailing people or sending them away.
It's worth noting that the right response probably isn't locking either of them up. There are a couple of different basic theories of imprisonment, and the US is on the extreme end of the spectrum philosophically (which is part of why it has the world's largest per capita prison population). Most western countries don't put people in jail to punish them, but either to rehabilitate them, or in the case that that's impossible, to protect society from them. For both individuals there are more effective solutions than imprisonment: Davila should be banned from being a corporate executive, and a person robbing a convenience store would probably needs a social worker and stronger welfare benefits. (I'm assuming a person doing it out of need rather than, say, being a kleptomaniac.)
I certainly agree that the US has a lot of room for improvement, but the US's policy on imprisonment is largely based on protecting society and deterring future crime (whether it succeeds in those aims is a separate question). Rehabilitation is part of protecting society, and while I agree that the US should invest more in proactive rehabilitation, it would be a mistake to ignore all of the great work we're doing toward rehabilitation (there are a lot of educational opportunities available to prisoners) even if the investment isn't yet world-class. Further, I want to ephasize your point that the disinvestment in rehabilitation is only part of the reason that the US has so many prisoners--the much more significant reason is that the US has distinct systemic issues on the front-end that create more criminals than many other wealthy western countries. "Rehabilitation" on the backend is probably not a feasible solution to closing this gap, but rather we need to focus on preventative causes that address the problem at its root--probably focusing on issues like inequality and poverty.
My understanding is that federal public defenders have a really good reputation. It's at the state level that they're given obscene workloads and laughable salaries. Forget superstar salaries, funding adequately-sized PD offices would be a massive improvement over the status quo.
Ordinarily, it wouldn't cost that much to have a decent public defender system. Unfortunately, the entire system is built around people pleading to charges, and if every single defendant had high quality representation, the resulting flood of actual trials would paralyze the system.
That's exactly what it is, but remember the government does this all the time. Even in their experimentation efforts of giving Sisyphus and having children eat radioactive material. They'll find psychologist to agree that something isn't morally wrong and use that as a basis for their experiments.
Usually successfully arguing that it was mental health gets you institutionalized anyway [0], so its not always as simple as saying rich people get to get off easy with the insanity defense. They've got to avoid the consequences of that as well, which they may or may not have a better ability to do with their wealth. Usually it seems they'll be able to get a lawyer good enough to get off not guilty.
Might work. Women are frequently seen as having low external agency so when they do anything impressive people look to find the man behind it and when they do anything bad, people do the same. Might work on a jury.
There's no doubt she has a mental defect, she's very obviously a psychopath. However it's the kind of defect that should always result in being put in jail, for the good of society.
> So “Battered Woman Syndrome” [1] but applied to fraud instead of assault/murder.
It's interesting how before she got into legal trouble, she was the poster child for the strong powerful woman, but now it turns out she was too weak to be anything but a victim ... or I'm supposed to believe.
you know the public defender legally has to do what you say right. you can insist on this psychological defense and they have no choice but to put it forward even if they think you're an idiot
Of course. But how successful is that argument going to be when the public defender is juggling a dozen cases or more at once, meets with the defendant a handful of times before trial (if you’re lucky you can talk to a paralegal), and doesn’t have the resources of either time or money to dedicate to your case?
Putting forward the defense is one thing. Crafting a compelling argument, writing an amazing brief that cites past case law and/or is persuasive enough to argue how something fits the required statues, and obtaining the best expert witnesses to bolster the argument is something else entirely.
The amount of nonsense spewed about the legal system here on HN is sort of astonishing. A PD has absolutely no ethical or legal obligation to do anything of what a defendant says except in regards to the defendant testifying - you can advise your client not to testify, but they have a right to. Otherwise the PD, or any attorney for that matter, decides what evidence to use, what witnesses to call, and what the theory of the case is.
And yes, I am attorney. No, this is not legal advice.
Edit: apologies for the harsh intro tone. I had a long day of wrestling with disagreeable judges.
This is false. If the defendant feels they are being deprived of their right to adequate representation they can very easily file a grievance with the judge and get a new pd. In a case like this ignoring important evidence like psychological trauma would be grounds for the judge to replace the clients representation. So no, the public defender can't just ignore what their client wants with regard to how to defend their case.
No its not. You are moving the goalposts. Obviously people can hire whatever lawyer they can afford and potentially change lawyers if they have a valid grievance that a judge agrees is a reason to allow it. They can also opt to attempt to defend themselves. In either case, the judge would probably tell you that its an incredibly stupid decision that you should reconsider in a very kind attempt to prevent you from ruining your life.
There's a significant difference between "I can make my lawyer do whatever I want them to do because the law says they have to" and "I can get a new lawyer if my current lawyer doesn't agree with me."
If a public defender demonstrates a pattern of failing to provide adequate representation then they can be reprimanded by the court which carries both a legal and ethical consequence. So the point about the attorney not being legally or ethically required to represent the client as they wish is simply false.
This means they have to put an honest and significant effort into defending you to the best of their ability. They are responsible for the quality of their work, which is why they don't generally let the clients dictate the details of how they work or the overall strategy because the clients don't know what the fuck they are doing in virtually all cases where a lawyer isn't on trial.
You keep trying to change the situations you are talking about and then pretend that they are the same.
Isn’t this post popular because it’s not really seen here as a real defense? Or, if it’s real for her, it should be real for others. Meaning, it’s exceptional.. meaning, not likely to be a successful tactic by a PD.
It should be a real defense for mentally ill people that have conditions that make them somehow less culpable for their actions, regardless of wealth.
I wouldn't be surprised if Holmes is a sociopath, she perpetually has a classic crazy person bug-eyed look that you only get from being constantly on coke, being a fanatical religious nut, or from being severely mentally ill. Additionally, in public she purposefully talks 100% of the time in a laughably fake deep voice that she thinks makes her sound more masculine and powerful. There's a podcast where she accidentally broke character for a couple of seconds and sounded like a normal woman. The rest of the time she sounds like Kylo Ren. That's supposedly another thing that sociopaths do.
Its crazy that so many smart people fell for her con. She was obviously a creepy, random lunatic trying really hard to pull off a Steve Jobs act. As a layperson it seemed pretty obvious that the technology she claimed to have invented was probably impossible. Shame on anyone that's actually in the medical industry that bought into it.
And then there's her criminal actions, the lying, and the complete lack of remorse.
Unfortunately for her pretty much no civilized society thinks that sociopaths shouldn't be held responsible for their actions. So unless she convinces people she has an unrelated mental illness (which is what the article makes it sound like she's trying to do), its not going to be a good defense.
Generally I think the defendant wouldn't be aware of this, or even realize that they are being deprived of their right to adequate representation. Not to mention, how will they know the replacement will be better?
Sure, but then we’re just talking in circles. The obligation to represent a client a certain way is dictated by the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPCs) promulgated by the state and federal bar associations. And what makes an attorney’s representation of a client adequate is additionally influenced by the area of law at issue and what makes a good or bad case theory/defense. Nowhere in any RPCs or in any case law is there a requirement that an attorney do what a client says, except in regards to letting a defendant testify if they want to.
Edit, to add: if it happens that what a defendant recommends comports with the RPCs and the best practices dictated by case law then an attorney would follow that recommendation... because it was required by an RPC or the best practice given the related case law, but definitely not because a defendant said it. If a defendant is giving an attorney pertinent legal advice then the attorney should probably look for a new job though.
> Where do I sign up or who to vote for so every American citizen gets a legal representation like this.
The legal system is built by the rich, for the rich. If money wasn't so powerful in systems like this, people wouldn't pursue it with the vigor that they do.
When you hire the best lawyers money can buy or when your case is high-profile enough that the best lawyers money can buy will do it for free for exposure.
The sad reality is that not every American will ever get legal representation like this. Even well-off Americans won’t get a defense like this.
So the more you steal the better legal representation you can buy. The corollary is that your sentence and the seriousness of your crime are reversely correlated.
It's a win-win but both wins are for the same person.
Seems like that. Generally speaking a soft criminal will go down fast - either being caught because he didn't get rid of that witness or being whacked by some psychopath. But if you are ruthless and amass as much money and power as you can as fast as possible by any means necessary then you have a good chance of buying yourself out of any trouble you find yourself in. Also people will be more afraid of you and help you rewrite history - so you end up as some nobleman if you're lucky.
"Affluenza" worked as defense for a white male. The defense is betting on the fact that practically anything will work for defense for a young white female.
It is the absolute truth. If you want to deny that a young white woman is treated differently then say, a middle age black man, you are not being honest. If in 2020 we are talking about the legal system the most important question is the race and gender of the defendant.
> (CNN)Widespread outrage has erupted over a California judge's decision to give a former Stanford University swimmer a six-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. Critics are blasting the decision as far too lenient.
> Prosecutors had asked that Brock Turner be sentenced to six years in prison for the January 2015 assault.
> Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program found that Black incarcerees received more severe charges, harsher sentences and less favorable outcomes than their white counterparts. They looked at more than a million cases, from the initial charges through the conviction and sentencing, and discovered disparities that could not be explained by logic or reason.
It's a famous example off the top of my head. The person I was replying to did not deserve anything more since they made such a ridiculous assertion to begin with.
If the state puts you on trial, do you automatically qualify for state-provided mental health services?
I assume incarceration also comes with psychiatric care. If I went to prison I’d probably need a lot of therapy even if I accepted my punishment. More, if I didn’t.
IANAL, but what I haven't seen mentioned here is that, in my understanding, in US federal court "diminished capacity" is not a defense against guilt, but only a factor that can result in a lower sentencing guideline.
This seems like a real Hail Mary from the defense, I'd be shocked if she is able to avoid jail time.
Well, if I'm putting on my rose glasses I'm just hoping that if she wins by this argument, she might just set a precedent for all the youth offenders of crime?
Why would this case be any different of say, someone that grew up in an extremely poor neighborhood and had most of their life working against them, and then turn to crime. Instead of just throwing such young offenders into jail for a long time, a lawyer might argue that this high profile case is a precedent for the young offenders - because they couldn't help themselves.
What is unfair here exactly? There hasn’t been anything close to a ruling. These hypotheticals in this thread are getting way ahead of reality here.
It sounds like the courts are preempting the defense strategy by forcing a gov psych review instead of one paid for by the defendant.
In criminal law cases it’s not an instant get out of jail free card if you’re found to have some mental issues. Nearly every lawyer brings up mental states in serious crimes. These judges aren’t stupid.
There are some people with medical degrees in this world who will say anything for money. Wealthy people pay these individuals to try to get them out of jail. Normal people can't afford that.
Even with jury trials, that's not really true, except that alignment with the jury verdict is required for criminal conviction (but not acquittal, or any civil judgement.) Because summary judgement/judgement as a matter of law/judgement non obstante veredicto is a thing, and even if one isn't issued in a particular case, it's because either no one petitioned the judge for it (unlikely) or the judge decided against it.
Eh. Rich people on trial don't tend to set a precedent for poor people. OJ didn't cause young people questionably accused of murder to get a fairer trial, and Weinstein/Cosby's faux sick act didn't help actually sick people.
Assuming this strategy works, or almost works, will a requirement need to be implemented that every year company directors must declare they are of sound mind, and have that signed-off by a medical expert (so they cannot claim that their mental unsoundness caused them to make a false declaration)?
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] threadBut...you're saying feeling bad is not a type of comprehension? That is, empathy is not comprehension?
Not in the sense in which the law requires you to comprehend the consequences of your actions. An insane person could feel bad after killing someone because they respond with empathy after the fact, but still not have comprehended before the fact that what they were doing was going to kill someone. The latter, if established beyond a reasonable doubt, would mean they would not meet the legal comprehension requirement.
And, conversely, a psychopath could comprehend perfectly well before the fact that what they were doing was going to kill someone, but feel nothing because they don't care. They would still meet the legal requirement for comprehension.
(Disclaimer: IANAL.)
No, I'm just saying that to establish legal comprehension, you can't look at empathy, because they're two different things. They might go together--in normal, sane people they almost always will go together, both before and after--but you can't rely on it, since the people you are going to ask the question about in the first place--the people for whom you might have to evaluate a possible insanity defense--are precisely the people in whom you can't rely on them going together.
The Andrea Yates case [1], was the last time I can remember it being argued in a high profile case. This was the woman that drowned her five children. She was convicted in her first trial (though the jury refused to give her the death penalty) and that was overturned a few years later, after one of the prosecution’s psychiatrist admitted to giving materially false testimony. She was found not-guilty by reason of insanity in the retrial and confined to a state mental health facility.
The Yates case is a good example of how high the burden of proof of an insanity defense is in a murder case. No one on either side disputed that she was severely mentally ill at the time of the killings. The state’s argument was that despite that, she knew the difference between and wrong enough to be legally responsible.
There was a whole bunch of stuff in that case too — and it is truly tragic situation for everyone involved (there were reports that after Yates was properly medicated in prison awaiting trial and found out/remembered what she did, she became highly suicidal/went into shock), and there is an argument to be made that she was not given the proper care by her doctors leading up to the murders - but my point is more to say, in what as an outsider, appears to be a textbook case for successfully using the insanity defense, it was still unsuccessful until appeal and retrial, in part because of the question of comprehension.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates
My guess — and I’m not a lawyer — is that her lawyers are hoping to make this a mitigating factor as part of sentencing.
Actually fits the profile of someone who sends an army of lawyers to intimidate a whistleblower.
I also read an article about her childhood and family life. It was sad, overwrought with anxiety, and a formula for the exact kind of pathology she appears to have had at Theranos. Even if she had lost my investment capital instead of other people's, I'd still feel sorry for her rather than angry.
"The defense expert, Mindy Mechanic, is a California State University at Fullerton professor specializing in psychosocial consequences of violence, trauma and victimization, including violence against women, and often testifies in cases involving interpersonal violence,"
...which might give a clue as to what the mitigating mental issue could be. Obviously they are not going to say she's a psychopath.
I'm not sure I understand the question overall.
Based on what we know right now, I think any claims that “I committed fraud because I was abused” — assuming that is the defense — trivializes the real men and women who suffer from abuse every single day and don’t do the things Holmes did.
Hell, we don't even know to what extent Covid is transmitted via droplets vs aerosols. "Based on what we know right now" is highly appropriate preface for claims about an uncertain future. I wish more people would use that phrase.
I, personally, have popcorn in hand.
I have a $500 bet that Holmes won’t serve any jail time (not that she won’t be convicted and putting aside any plea deals), so I have a vested interest in whatever her defense is as working. But on a personal level, I think she’s a terrible person and I’m just excited to watch the case unfold.
What I was trying to say is that there is sometimes an implicit contradiction when people say "based on what we know right now".
In a philosophical way, you could say that "based on what we know right now", the sun has always risen in the morning, but we do not know that it will rise tomorrow. But then, to plan as if it won't, is not really "based on what we know right now".
Claiming something or other will be different about the sun tomorrow might, seem plausible to one person and absurd to another; that can be debated.
But for it to suddenly vanish without a trace is not "based on what we know right now". Pretty much anything else is more likely.
What's the meaning of saying "we have no idea" as if someone was predicting it? I am not predicting it.
When you know there is going to be relevant information coming out, prejudging as if there isn't going to be, is just wrong. Not in the sense of injustice, but in the sense that there's no realistic chance of being correct.
I don't think that is a "weird" outlook. I am making no prejudgment on whether her actions were justified, just that context matters, and in this instance, context will be provided later.
The compulsive need to judge without information rather than waiting is "weird" to me personally, but I acknowledge and accept it's normal human behavior.
That being said, she also seemed to be a bit of a tyrant herself, and it's very possible she latched on to him at 19 to use his money and connections, and found it handy later on to have a co-conspirator as ruthless as she was who was willing to feed the falsehood treadmill.
I reserve my sympathy, as the length to which she and Sunny went to to intimidate and threaten people was chilling.
Ok, so my theory is that based on the expert her lawyers are calling, they are going to argue that Sunny groomed/abused Holmes over the course of their relationship (probably by calling attention to the age difference/power dynamic difference when they first met), which left her with trauma that led to her making the decisions she made.
So “Battered Woman Syndrome” [1] but applied to fraud instead of assault/murder.
If that’s the case, it really seems like they aren’t going to argue that Holmes didn’t deceive and commit fraud, but that her PTSD is a defense.
Novel. This may have worked in the 1980s, the era of the the Twinkie defense [2] and other ways of arguing diminished capacity, but I’m not sure it’ll be successful here.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_woman_syndrome [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie_defense
I also think it's kind of BS to be honest. To me it feels like one step away from "the defendant is a psychopath that feels no remorse, so never developed the ethics needed to understand that murder is wrong, so they shouldn't be culpable."
It's rich people paying "experts" to skew the perception of what's right and what's wrong.
2nd - if you wanted to drop the reoffense rate, as well as the offense rate, what would you do? Why aren’t we doing it?
2. Several broad categories of solutions spring to mind with their own tradeoffs:
2.1 Invest in rehabilitation. Difficulties are cost and probably political problems due to ignorance (or maybe I'm ignorant for my faith in rehabilitation?).
2.2 Longer sentencing (or rather require prisoners to serve more of their sentence more frequently, as opposed to early probation, etc). Downside is cost, ethics, and politics (a lot of well-meaning, typically upper- and upper-middle-class folks believe that longer sentences harms communities of color more than violent re-offenders, or rather they don't consider the costs of the latter).
2.3 Death penalty. Downside is ethics.
2.2 - We punish more people for longer than anywhere else in the world. Our prison population backs that up. (https://www.apa.org/images/2014-10-incarceration-chart2_tcm7...). Its absolutely not the case that we get better outcomes. There's no evidence to support that longer sentences will solve anything.
2.3 - Has its own problems - a nontrivial amount of people are put to death who are later exonerated. Its costly. Its also not an effective deterrent
Further reading: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/10/incarceration
2.2 Point blank if you imprison people they aren’t a threat to society while they’re being held. It’s not a good idea IMO, but you didn’t ask for my preferred ideas.
2.3 right, like I said: ethics
In general I think we’re agreeing, but your tone seems to suggest otherwise. Hopefully I’m just misreading.
This is very troubling thinking. The problem here is - not only are you sentencing them for future, 'possible' crimes but you are doing it on the basis of demographics - there are huge issues to consider here.
And what would it buy that isn't accounted for by using something more individual and predictive of re-offending -- like whether (and how frequently) they have offended in the past -- which is used in sentencing guidelines?
That’s necessary but insufficient conditions for her to re-offend, but if she doesn’t feel any significant personal consequences due to the fraud she committed at Theranos, why wouldn’t she try it again?
[1] https://www.eonline.com/news/1026009/after-the-1-billion-dow...
I don't remember where I heard the following claim: a substantial rate of death row inmates in some study were shown to have prefrontal cortical abnormalities.
It's an interesting question if it's possible that understanding of the brain ever reaches a point where things of that nature can be detected and/or treated, either before or after a crime, instead of jailing people or sending them away.
There’s solutions, just not realistic or affordable ones :(
Payed from the same side as the prosecutor? And the prosecutor just gets the 'normal' pay or millions too?
Those are normally Not the Superstars Defenders right? That's what we talk about here, if your rich you can afford the best Defender/Attorney-Team.
Your wrote that:
>A poor person that magically had the kind of lawyers Holmes uses would do just as well. Unequal access to legal resources is the root of the problem.
Ordinarily, it wouldn't cost that much to have a decent public defender system. Unfortunately, the entire system is built around people pleading to charges, and if every single defendant had high quality representation, the resulting flood of actual trials would paralyze the system.
[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/magazine/when-not-guilty-...
But at the same time, she started when she was very, very young, and was in that bubble from the start.
It's not a defence but I can see how someone gets caught up in a cultish situation like that.
It's interesting how before she got into legal trouble, she was the poster child for the strong powerful woman, but now it turns out she was too weak to be anything but a victim ... or I'm supposed to believe.
But can we like all get such good defence. Where do I sign up or who to vote for so every American citizen gets a legal representation like this.
Normally if you defraud somebody, you are going to prison for a long, long time very very quickly.
Putting forward the defense is one thing. Crafting a compelling argument, writing an amazing brief that cites past case law and/or is persuasive enough to argue how something fits the required statues, and obtaining the best expert witnesses to bolster the argument is something else entirely.
And yes, I am attorney. No, this is not legal advice.
Edit: apologies for the harsh intro tone. I had a long day of wrestling with disagreeable judges.
No its not. You are moving the goalposts. Obviously people can hire whatever lawyer they can afford and potentially change lawyers if they have a valid grievance that a judge agrees is a reason to allow it. They can also opt to attempt to defend themselves. In either case, the judge would probably tell you that its an incredibly stupid decision that you should reconsider in a very kind attempt to prevent you from ruining your life.
There's a significant difference between "I can make my lawyer do whatever I want them to do because the law says they have to" and "I can get a new lawyer if my current lawyer doesn't agree with me."
This means they have to put an honest and significant effort into defending you to the best of their ability. They are responsible for the quality of their work, which is why they don't generally let the clients dictate the details of how they work or the overall strategy because the clients don't know what the fuck they are doing in virtually all cases where a lawyer isn't on trial.
You keep trying to change the situations you are talking about and then pretend that they are the same.
I wouldn't be surprised if Holmes is a sociopath, she perpetually has a classic crazy person bug-eyed look that you only get from being constantly on coke, being a fanatical religious nut, or from being severely mentally ill. Additionally, in public she purposefully talks 100% of the time in a laughably fake deep voice that she thinks makes her sound more masculine and powerful. There's a podcast where she accidentally broke character for a couple of seconds and sounded like a normal woman. The rest of the time she sounds like Kylo Ren. That's supposedly another thing that sociopaths do.
Its crazy that so many smart people fell for her con. She was obviously a creepy, random lunatic trying really hard to pull off a Steve Jobs act. As a layperson it seemed pretty obvious that the technology she claimed to have invented was probably impossible. Shame on anyone that's actually in the medical industry that bought into it.
And then there's her criminal actions, the lying, and the complete lack of remorse.
Unfortunately for her pretty much no civilized society thinks that sociopaths shouldn't be held responsible for their actions. So unless she convinces people she has an unrelated mental illness (which is what the article makes it sound like she's trying to do), its not going to be a good defense.
Edit, to add: if it happens that what a defendant recommends comports with the RPCs and the best practices dictated by case law then an attorney would follow that recommendation... because it was required by an RPC or the best practice given the related case law, but definitely not because a defendant said it. If a defendant is giving an attorney pertinent legal advice then the attorney should probably look for a new job though.
The legal system is built by the rich, for the rich. If money wasn't so powerful in systems like this, people wouldn't pursue it with the vigor that they do.
The sad reality is that not every American will ever get legal representation like this. Even well-off Americans won’t get a defense like this.
It's a win-win but both wins are for the same person.
"Affluenza" worked as defense for a white male. The defense is betting on the fact that practically anything will work for defense for a young white female.
> Prosecutors had asked that Brock Turner be sentenced to six years in prison for the January 2015 assault.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/us/sexual-assault-brock-turne...
https://www.theroot.com/a-judge-asked-harvard-to-find-out-wh...
I assume incarceration also comes with psychiatric care. If I went to prison I’d probably need a lot of therapy even if I accepted my punishment. More, if I didn’t.
The mind is a bunch of fingers.
This seems like a real Hail Mary from the defense, I'd be shocked if she is able to avoid jail time.
Why would this case be any different of say, someone that grew up in an extremely poor neighborhood and had most of their life working against them, and then turn to crime. Instead of just throwing such young offenders into jail for a long time, a lawyer might argue that this high profile case is a precedent for the young offenders - because they couldn't help themselves.
It feels really unfair, though.
It sounds like the courts are preempting the defense strategy by forcing a gov psych review instead of one paid for by the defendant.
In criminal law cases it’s not an instant get out of jail free card if you’re found to have some mental issues. Nearly every lawyer brings up mental states in serious crimes. These judges aren’t stupid.
There are some people with medical degrees in this world who will say anything for money. Wealthy people pay these individuals to try to get them out of jail. Normal people can't afford that.
Even with jury trials, that's not really true, except that alignment with the jury verdict is required for criminal conviction (but not acquittal, or any civil judgement.) Because summary judgement/judgement as a matter of law/judgement non obstante veredicto is a thing, and even if one isn't issued in a particular case, it's because either no one petitioned the judge for it (unlikely) or the judge decided against it.