The fellow who lived immediately behind us in the Denver suburb where I grew up brutally murdered his wife and another man in a fit of jealousy. He escaped punishment by being found non compos mentis. He spent a remarkably short time in a mental hospital and then was released to marry someone else, get a job and start life anew.
The two people he shot to death are still in their graves. And their loved ones (including the Mom's two kids who I knew well) continue to grieve their loss.
I was pretty sure that such miscarriages of justice were not isolated occurrences. And, sure enough, here from the Durango Herald comes comes another look at how bizarre and ineffective is the American justice system.
Phillip A. Paul in 1987 was declared criminally insane for killing an elderly woman after voices in his head told him she was a witch. Instead of being straitjacketed and locked away as might be depicted by film or fiction, Paul in the last two decades has spent time living and working in downtown Spokane, fathered a child, created music videos and racked up $85,000 in credit card bills.
His escape during a recent field trip to a county fair exposed a little-known truth: The criminally insane often live among us, with little or no supervision. “Why was he allowed to take such a trip?” an incredulous Gov. Chris Gregoire asked. “Why did they go to a location that was so heavily populated with families?” That’s a question many in Washington are asking after the Sept. 17 escape, including the escapee’s own brother. “He is in a bad mental state,” said Tom Paul of Sunnyside, Wash. “Why would you load him up on a bus and take him to a fair?”...
But no one should be surprised. Thousands of people have been declared criminally insane in the United States over the decades, and at any given time, large numbers of them are not in custody. Paul was among 31 patients from Eastern State Hospital on the field trip to the fair. All were from the forensics unit, meaning they had been committed to the hospital because of a crime...
The AP story also includes this relevant observation: "A 1996 study of 43 forensic patients at an outpatient treatment program in Chicago found that eight had been arrested or committed new crimes after being released from a mental hospital."
