RE: question about memes

From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Sun Mar 17 2002 - 13:21:36 GMT

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    From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
    To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Subject: RE: question about memes
    Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 08:21:36 -0500
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    Good morning Kenneth,

    My impression is that in the US if a person is condemned for criminal
    insanity, that they remain in prison for the criminally insane and are not
    released until they 'prove' they are healed (or their sentence runs out?). I
    don't know ehether this is followed in practice, given the general policy of
    releasing criminals and people with mental problems into the general
    population, but this has been the apporach for at least a couple of
    high-visibility cases that I know about: Hinckley, who shot Reagan, and
    Dennis Sweeney, who assassinated Al Lowenberg. Hinckley has asked several
    times to be released, and his doctors simply post their diagnosis that he is
    still sick.

    Do you know how release-upon-healing is handled in Belgium?

    best regards,
    Lawrence

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
    > Of Kenneth Van Oost
    > Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2002 6:21 AM
    > To: kennethvanoost@myrealbox.com
    > Subject: Re: question about memes
    >
    >
    >
    > ----- Original Message -----
    > From: Lawrence DeBivort <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
    > > The insanity defense has always intrigued me, as it seems to
    > suggest that
    > > the greater and more bizarre the crime, the more credibility
    > the claim of
    > > insanity would be. Might this not simply encourage petty criminals and
    > > killers to exaggerate the nature of their crimes so as to lay the
    > groundwork
    > > for an insanity plea? It is no wonder that juries are skeptical, and, I
    > > think, properly so.
    >
    > Lawrence,
    >
    > Yes, but the difference, at least here in Belgium, insane people
    > get treated
    > and walk away freely after a few years ( healed !?). In that sense the in-
    > sanity plea is the best, possible avaible to get Yates of the hook.
    > The plea is the closest one the defense will ever get to get an acquittal.
    >
    > And I don 't think petty criminals will encourage themselves to plea for
    > insanity, though.
    > We had here, a few weeks ago the Pandy- case. Father and daughter,
    > mixed up in incestious relationship, allegedly killed 6 family-members and
    > let disappear their bodies by dripping them into an acid bath of some
    > toilet- destop- product.
    > Exaggerated, no it works, insanity- plea no !
    > The defense argued that there were no bodies found, so no crime was
    > committed.
    > But father and daughter were comdemned. You need some bias to plea
    > insanity....
    >
    > Regards,
    >
    > Kenneth
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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