The de-coupling of actions and consequences permeates society's sensibilities; especially in the mainstream media and the courts. Associated Press writes off the Sept. 11 toppling of the Twin Towers as a "plane crash," without once mentioning in the account that Islamic jihadists were responsible. Then, the Seattle Times cleanses two recent reports (here and here) on the 2005 West Seattle murder of Newport High tennis coach Mike Robb of any mention of a newsworthy racial angle. That being...? See earlier Times reports (here and here) that the black killer Samson Berhe had said he aimed to slay a white man before he did precisely that.

Now that a judge has ruled Berhe competent to stand trial, his lawyer will still probably press an insanity defense. That's bad enough. But who even knows if the trial will really come off? As in the the case of excused quadruple murderer Leemah Carneh, the shrinks at Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, WA may here again reverse their findings and pronounce the defendant "incompetent" to face the music. The Tacoma News Tribune reports today how "mental competence" gamesmanship delayed for five years the trial of alleged child molestor Dean Erik Bagley. He had, incidentally, earlier been released after serving eight years on a 40-year murder conviction for killing a close friend of his then-teenage wife; whom he had also intended to kill. Now, even his defense attorney admits he is faking symptoms of mental illness, but this is claimed to be further evidence of real mental illness. Capiche?

The courts, politicians and state-funded mollycoddlers in white coats have created an alternate reality, where even the parents of an attempted murder victim of the Jew-hating Muslim-American killer Naveed Haq in Seattle believe the real problem was a lack funding for the mentally-ill.

Reviewing a book on the dangers of therapism - and putting things quite well - is scholar Theodore Dalrymple. He's a retired British doctor who worked in an inner-city hospital and a prison.

...."therapism," the idea that man is psychologically fragile and can achieve mental stability only by means of professional assistance, is comparatively new, and is in antithesis not only to the traditional American virtues of self-reliance and sturdiness in the face of adversity, but also to a couple of millennia of moral reflection....At stake is our whole conception of what it is to be human. The common-law tradition is that everyone is responsible for his actions unless the contrary can be proved. Therapism, which has already subverted law to a considerable extent, believes that wrongdoing is itself a symptom. Man is a feather, blown on the wind of circumstance. There, but for the grace of my environment, go I.

Perpetrators: the new victims. With apologies to The Kinks ("Lola"): it's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world.

But we get the government, and the local courts, we deserve. We need more prisons; state psychiatrists less often meddling in criminal proceedings; and more online government databases, extending down to the county level, on judicial decisions and important procedural rulings. People cannot make informed decisions in local judicial elections without proper data. There are clear rogues in the local judiciary, but they are generally hiding in obscurity. And quality candidates for county courts cannot be drawn when being a lawyer pays so much more.

Community leaders who claim to be concerned about violent crime must come to realize that such reforms are required if real justice is to be meted out to killers, and other violent criminals.

Or, we can sit back and watch more and more killers get off easy because of "insanity" claims, or escape punishment altogether because they're found "incompetent" to stand trial.

In which case, perhaps we're the ones who are really incompetent.

TECHNORATI TAGS: MENTAL COMPETENCE, CRIMINAL JUSTICE, MURDER, SAMSON BERHE, NAVEED HAQ, SEATTLE, LEEMAH CARNEH, KING COUNTY, WASHINGTON STATE, PRISON CAPACITY, THERAPISM, THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 16, 2006 04:06 PM