Al's Morning Meeting

Defense attorneys had urged jurors to find that Yates' mental illness led to the children's deaths. Experts testifying for the defense said Yates drowned her children in an act of love to save their souls from eternal damnation.

Prosecutors did not dispute that Yates was mentally ill, but argued that her condition did not keep her from knowing right from wrong.

I don't think it is a stretch to suggest that this will spark a new round of calls for reform to insanity defense laws, as the John Hinckley case did. But one legal analyst says this case is so extraordinary that it may not touch off any real legal reform.

Within the last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the insanity defense in an Arizona case. That case was the product of several states trying to tighten the insanity defense after John Hinckley successfully avoided prison after shooting President Reagan.   

The notion of insanity as a defense has been around for centuries. CrimeLibrary.com explains:

The insanity defense has its roots firmly embedded in centuries of legal tradition. As early as the 13th Century, the English Lord Bracton established the principle of mental deficiency in human behavior. He said that some people simply do not know what they are doing and act in a manner "as to be not far removed from the brute" (Menninger, 1968, p. 112).

From that concept, "insanity" came to mean that a person lacks the awareness of what he or she is doing and therefore cannot form an intent to do wrong. Since there was no malice in the intent of his or her actions, then there could be no technical guilt. The standard for insanity in the courts was determined to be  such that a "man  must be totally deprived of his understanding and memory so as not to know what he is doing, no more than an infant, brute or a wild beast" (Melton, 1997, p. 190). This "wild beast" standard was the insanity requirement of England's courts for over a hundred years and any defendant who attempted to use the defense had to prove he or she lacked the minimum understanding of a wild animal or infant.

It wasn't until 1843, when a man named Daniel M'Naghten committed a murder that would alter forever the history of jurisprudence in the Western world.

What emerged was the M'Naghten Rules, which said a that a person was legally insane if he or she was "incapable of comprehending" because of a powerful mental delusion.

Here is a state-by-state rundown of insanity defense laws nationwide. Idaho, Kansas, Montana and Utah have no insanity defense.   

PBS' FrontLine produced a special report in 2002 about the insanity defense.

Several years ago, The Washington Post provided some background on the insanity defense. Here are some excerpts:

What is an insanity defense?
It typically refers to a plea that defendants are not guilty because they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they committed a wrong or appreciate why it was wrong. Some states also allow defendants to argue that that they understood their behavior was criminal but were unable to control it. This is sometimes called the "irresistible impulse" defense.

Why do we need an insanity defense?
It is an attempt to impose a moral check on a system largely designed to weigh facts and evidence. Thus, it allows judges and juries to decide some defendants aren't "criminally responsible" for their actions even though those acts might be a crime under different circumstances, just as a child who accidentally starts a fire shouldn't be treated as an arsonist.

Is the law the same everywhere?
Some states have abolished the use of an insanity defense, an action upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994. Some have amended their laws to include standards of "diminished capacity" or "guilty but mentally ill."  ...

Are insanity defenses often successful?
No, despite public perceptions to the contrary. One eight-state study of criminal cases in the early 1990s concluded that less than one percent of defendants pleaded insanity and, of them, only a quarter won acquittals.

"In the real world, it just doesn't happen," said Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran, who as lieutenant governor in 1983 chaired a task force that helped tighten that state's insanity defense.

Then why are they controversial?
Critics argue that some defendants misuse it, effectively faking insanity to win acquittals or less severe convictions. And often the trials involving an insanity defense get the most attention because they involve "crimes that are bizarre within themselves," said Baltimore defense attorney Cristina Gutierrez, who has defended a dozen such cases in as many years.

But studies by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law have concluded that "the overwhelming majority" of defendants acquitted by reason of insanity suffer from schizophrenia or some other mental illness, said Howard Zonana, a Yale University psychiatry professor and the academy's medical director.

Do people acquitted under an insanity defense walk free?
Rarely. In almost all cases, a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity prompts a judge to commit defendants to treatment centers until mental health officials determine they do not pose a danger to anyone. For some, that could be akin to a life sentence. ...

How does someone pleading "not guilty by reason of insanity" differ from someone deemed "incompetent to stand trial?"
The former term refers to a defendant's state of mind at the time of the crime; the latter refers to a defendant's mindset at time of trial. Usually, a trial will not proceed until a defendant is deemed competent to understand the charges and face accusers.

Is it used only in murder cases?
No, any defendant can invoke the defense. Lorena Bobbitt argued she was temporarily insane when she severed her husband's penis with a kitchen knife four years ago. A Virginia jury agreed; she was released after three months of psychiatric evaluation.

Who else used the insanity defense?
A jury rejected Jack Ruby's claim of insanity and sent him to prison for shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Almost 20 years later, John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan -- like Oswald, in front of a throng of television cameras -- but was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a mental institution.

The insanity defense didn't help David Berkowitz, New York's "Son of Sam" murderer who claimed to receive his killing orders from a neighbor's dog. A Pennsylvania jury found millionaire John DuPont guilty but mentally ill in the murder of a wrestling coach. Lawyers for Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski argued that he was insane, but Kaczynski himself resisted such a defense and pleaded guilty. Jeffrey Dahmer dismembered and ate his victims, but his jury failed to deem him insane.

Here are some other resources you might find useful:

• Bloggers react to the Yates verdict
• Court TV's exhaustive coverage
• These are the choices the jury had: Read the verdict sheet.
• Andrea Yates' hospital records
• The psychiatrist's assessment of Yates before the killings, which said she had a history of psychiatric issues, including suicide attempts and deep depression.

How flexible should school systems be if they want to be sensitive to students of many faiths? School calendars are increasingly reflecting the complexities that districts face when it comes to religious holidays. The Associated Press said:

In May, Muslim parents asked New York City's education department for days off on two major Muslim holidays, which some districts in Michigan and New Jersey already have granted. In January, a Long Island mosque petitioned New York Gov. George Pataki to consider the holidays when scheduling mandatory statewide testing. Last month, the state Legislature passed a bill that would take all religious holidays into account when scheduling the mandatory tests. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called it the first step toward recognizing Muslim holidays in public schools.

But also last month, despite a Muslim group's lobbying at every board meeting, the Baltimore County district in Maryland approved a calendar with a day off for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana, but none for Muslim holidays. The group had hoped the district's growing diversity -- 47.8 percent of students last year were minorities -- would be persuasive.

"Either I go against my faith, or I miss my schoolwork and have imperfect attendance," said 15-year-old Kanwal Rehman, who will enter 10th grade in Baltimore this fall. In January, her midterm exams fell during Eid al-Adha, one of the two most important holidays in Islam.

It can get complicated. When Muslims in the Tampa Bay region of Florida asked for a day off to celebrate the end of Ramadan, another local religious group perked up.

"There was discussion in the Hindu community if we should also push for a holiday," said Nikhil Joshi, a board member of the national Hindu American Foundation.

• ReligionLink
• Religion Newswriters Association
• Anti-Defamation League's "Religion in the Public Schools" page
• Poynter's coverage of religion and journalism
• BBC's Religion & Ethics news

Educating The Public About Funerals

MSNBC ran an interesting piece about the need for more public education when it comes to funeral planning. The story included this passage:

In the forefront of educating the public is the Funeral Consumers Alliance in South Burlington, Vt., a nonprofit organization founded in 1963. Along with monitoring industry trends and mediating complaints, the organization spends much of its effort alerting consumers to the existence what is known as the Funeral Rule, issued in 1984 by the Federal Trade Commission.

This rule requires funeral directors to itemize the costs of services like pick-up of the body, embalming, make-up, casket, flowers, viewing, the service at the funeral parlor or church, the hearse and the grave-site ceremony. But noncompliance is rampant and widespread, says the alliance's executive director, Joshua Slocum.

"It's a huge problem," says Slocum, who prices a typical funeral in this country -- excluding cemetery costs -- at about $6,500. "This noncompliance costs consumers millions of dollars and, even more importantly, manipulates them and denies them the choices the law is supposed to guarantee them. In any single metropolitan area in any state, if you give me a stack of price lists from funeral homes, about 75 percent of those general price lists have one or more Funeral Rule violations."

What's worse, he says, most people don't even know the Funeral Rule exists.

Thus many consumers, in addition to not knowing they are entitled to an itemized price list, are unaware they have the right to opt for, say, immediate burial or cremation without a ceremony, to refuse embalming or even to provide their own caskets.

The Federal Trade Commission points out:

The Funeral Rule, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, requires funeral directors to give you itemized prices in person and, if you ask, over the phone. The rule also requires funeral directors to give you other information about their goods and services. For example, if you ask about funeral arrangements in person, the funeral home must give you a written price list to keep that shows the goods and services the home offers. If you want to buy a casket or outer burial container, the funeral provider must show you descriptions of the available selections and the prices before actually showing you the caskets.

Many funeral providers offer various "packages" of commonly selected goods and services that make up a funeral. But when you arrange for a funeral, you have the right to buy individual goods and services. That is, you do not have to accept a package that may include items you do not want.

According to the Funeral Rule:

• You have the right to choose the funeral goods and services you want (with some exceptions).
• The funeral provider must state this right in writing on the general price list.
• If state or local law requires you to buy any particular item, the funeral provider must disclose it on the price list, with a reference to the specific law.
• The funeral provider may not refuse, or charge a fee, to handle a casket you bought elsewhere.
• A funeral provider that offers cremations must make alternative containers available.
  

ESPN's Pat Tillman Project (Multimedia)

ESPN has produced an extraordinary multimedia project on the death of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who volunteered to serve in Iraq. The site includes raw interviews conducted by reporter Mike Fish with eyewitnesses of Tillman's death playing over a map of the shooting scene where it all happened.

The story includes some extraordinary reporting. ESPN explains its methods:

For the past five months, in an effort to shed light on how Tillman died and whether there was an attempt to use his good name and valor for political purposes, ESPN.com has interviewed nine of the 35 Rangers who were engaged with Tillman in the firefight, more than 50 additional Army officials, politicians and medical and military experts, plus relatives of the principals involved in the incident.

Further, ESPN.com has examined more than 2,000 pages of documents that include investigative findings and maps -- documents the Army made available only to members of the Tillman family, which has shared them with a select number of media outlets. The names of soldiers and officers involved in the battle and subsequent investigations have been redacted by the Army, but through extensive interviews and reporting, ESPN.com has been able to confirm the identities of many of the individuals referred to in the documents, including those who played the principal roles.

Below is a sampling of the transcripts from the investigations. Names and other details were redacted by the Army. Please note, the documents contain descriptions of graphic violence and explicit language.

• Ranger with Tillman on ridgeline
• Ranger in the firefight
• Sergeant firing at Afghan fighter
• Ranger firing toward Tillman
• Medic who attended to Tillman
• Officer at forward operating base
• Officer who made fratricide announcement
• Critical events debriefer
• Officer involved in investigation

Behind the Motorcycle Deaths

Al's Morning Meeting reader Franke Santos, of Motorcycle Consumer News, dropped me some story ideas:

There was a recent NHTSA report [PDF] that showed that the rate of deaths of motorcyclists has increased over the last eight years. The reasons vary nationwide, but if someone were to pursue this story, here'd be my main points and main questions:

• State by state, has funding for motorcycle safety programs gone up or down in the period between 1997-2005?
• Has the helmet law changed in the last eight years? (Big caveat here -- passage of helmet laws frequently accompany a decrease in safety funding. Therefore I'd caution reporters against the conclusion that helmet laws automatically help decrease the number of deaths.)
• Have standards in state motorcycle safety programs been lowered? When I got my license about nine years ago, I thought I got a pretty good beginner course, which was intensive -- 16 hours of classroom, 12 hours on the bike. Our magazine recently (2004) did a huge piece [PDF] on the gutting of safety programs standards, but our piece only covered Pennsylvania, Idaho and Oregon.
• The average "starting" motorcycle's engine size has been steadily increasing over the last 10 years. Are motorcycle dealers really assessing a rider's skill level and matching him/her with the right motorcycle?
• I recently saw a commercial that was aired in Britain that urged car drivers to look out for motorcyclists. I've looked for a similar commercial or campaign stateside, and have not seen one.

 College In the Summer

The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times has a piece about how colleges and universities have become quite busy in the summer months. Some students like the slower pace, others take classes to graduate faster. Colleges like the idea of filling classrooms year-round.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.