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Using Truth Serum To Confirm Insanity
xclr8r writes "James Holmes representation did not enter a plea today in with regards to the Aurora, Co. Movie theater shooting so the Judge entered a plea of not guilty for James that could be changed at a later date by Holmes' attorney. The judge entered an advisory that if the plea was changed to Not Guilty by insanity that Holmes would be subject to a 'narcoanalytic interview' with the possibility of medically appropriate substances could be used e.g. so called truth serums. Holmes defense looks to have initially objected to this but as the previous article seems to infer that some compromises are being worked out. This certainly raises legal questions on how this is being played out 5th, 14th amendments. The legal expert in the second article states this is legal under Co. law but admits there's not a huge amount of cases regarding this. I was only able to find Harper v State where a defendant willingly underwent truth serum and wanted to submit the interview on his behalf but was rejected due to the judge not recognizing sufficient scientific basis to admit the evidence."
If he's willing to submit to drug-enhanced interrogation, he's certified crazy!
Neddy: "You're mad, mad I tell you!"
Bluebottle: "Little does he know that I'm as sane as the next man."
Eccles: "Little does HE know that I'm the next man!"
Sure it's a pretty well known fact that the more I depress your CNS the less you are going to be capable of rationalization and higher thought to answer a question "creatively". However such an undertaking is not reliable or scientific at all, because there is a point at which I can get you to agree with and pretty much answer anything I want you to. Sigh. Americans and their obsession with torture. After all this is just torture in another guise, instead of using pain to interrogate, I am shutting down part of your brain. Either way you are being forced to confess and give testimony against yourself. Whatever happened to I dunno, finding EVIDENCE?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
How can he be meaningfully represented by an attorney when he's too stoned out of his gourd on pentathal to be sure which disembodied voice is the lawyer and which is the interrogator?
Are they willing to grant blanket immunity to anything else he might confess? Given that the doses of pentathal used make the person compliant, how do they distinguish an inconvenient truth he might tell from a fabrication he tells because it seems like what the interrogator wants to hear? There's a reason it's not actually used anymore. Perhaps the judge takes TV much too seriously!
I'd claim it undermines my faith in the criminal justice system, but that ship sailed long ago.
Many people found Hitler to be quite charming in person.
You can't seem to look into any infamous crazy serial killer without comments from shocked neighbors and friends who talk about how normal he seemed.
James Holmes representation
Sounds like the name of a law firm. I assume what was meant was "James Holmes's representation."
did not enter a plea today in with regards to the Aurora, Co. Movie theater shooting
Whut?
The judge entered an advisory that if the plea was changed to Not Guilty by insanity that Holmes would be subject to a 'narcoanalytic interview'
Too many "that"s.
with the possibility of medically appropriate substances could be used
Either "with the possibility that..." or "...being used."
Holmes defense
"Holmes's defense"
but as the previous article seems to infer that some compromises are being worked out.
This one's hard to parse. Is it "but as the previous article seems to infer, some compromises are being worked out."? Also, which "previous" article? I wouldn't be surprised if you've got "infer" and "imply" mixed up as well, but as I can't work out which article is being referred to, I can't check this.
This certainly raises legal questions on how this is being played out 5th, 14th amendments.
Err, yes, it does. Wait, what?
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You can't seem to look into any infamous crazy serial killer without comments from shocked neighbors and friends who talk about how normal he seemed.
I always wonder whether the culprit in some infamous deed was also shocked. Could it be that any of us "normal" types could find ourselves committing an outrage, even though we think we really are the nice quiet boy everyone thinks we are? Or do cold-blooded killers know they are such, and just keep it hidden for years?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hitler was charismatic, but nobody thought he was "normal". They just thought they could use him longer than he could use them.
"Eh, you never know what you're capable of. I never thought I could shoot down a German plane, but last year I proved myself wrong." - Abe J. Simpson
"He is so stupid. And now back to the wall!" Moe Szyslak
So the next time they find a body lodged underneath a house with 600 bullets in it, we can use this on the police officers involved? "Sorry guys, we were on patrol and found a kid who backtalked us. We chased him and shot him hundreds of times, then planted a weapon on his remains."
Or is this only for use on non-cops, non-government and non-ruling-class?
He had roomates (news said he didn't), there was at least one other person there dressed in all black holding weapons (news never mentioned this but eye-witness testimonials revealed that this is the case),
The eyewitness sees or thinks he has seen a second man armed and dressed "in black" in a darkened theater where every motion is in the shadows, colors are muted, all is confusion and his sight lines were restricted.
Initially, few in the audience considered the masked figure a threat. He appeared to be wearing a costume, like other audience members who had dressed up for the screening [of "The Dark Knight Rises."]
Some believed that the gunman was playing a prank, while others thought that he was part of a special effects installation set up for the film's premiere .
It is also alleged that the gunman threw two canisters emitting a gas or smoke, partially obscuring the audience members' vision, making their throats and skin itch, and causing eye irritation.
Witnesses said the multiplex's fire alarm system began sounding soon after the attack began and staff told people in theater 8 to evacuate One witness said that she was hesitant to leave because someone yelled that there was someone shooting in the lobby and that they shouldn't leave.
2012 Aurora shooting
In Aurora, Holmes lived on Paris Street in a one-bedroom apartment, in a building with other students involved in health studies.
James Eagan Holmes
Seventy wounded. Twelve fatally. Ten dead at the scene.
That implies ballistic evidence that would make it obvious almost immediately whether there was more than one gun man.
> He obviously has to be insane
Legal insanity is a very narrowly defined state. There are all kinds of things the lay person would consider insane that don't automatically qualify as legal insanity.
I think that is the root of the problem with this case - definition of legal insanity is so technical that enough people in the legal profession in colorado have assumed that it is mechanical -- press a 'button' in his brain and get an aswer, same way every time.
If any actual psychiatric doctors have signed off for this plan, I would expect them to be far from mainstream in their field.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There is a generally dysfunctional relation between the electorate and the government it chooses. And if there is no government to effectively rule, other, unelected people will fill in the void. There is only one way out of it: Stop the delight in seeing the government fail. Hold everyone elected responsible for everything that happens in the government and also for everything that doesn't happen. He was elected to do a job, and deliberately failing at it should never be a recommendation for another term. Never cheer for people running on a platform of governmental failings. They are hired by the electorate to do their task in government, and not for putting blame on someone else.
Heinlein makes an interesting point, though I don't like the suicide aspect. The reason we have plea-by-insanity is it's "inhumane" to punish people for being crazy.
Here's my thing: It's eugenics. It's all eugenics. Criminals? We jail criminals to keep them out of society, not to rehabilitate them. Hopefully they die in there without breeding. Murderers, we execute--remove from society, remove their social influence and hopefully they don't breed either. The insane? Why would we not execute an insane murderer? Do you want to treat him so he can be "normal" and make more genetically brain damaged little children who can murder more normal, sane people and then get treatment too, until they've slowly eroded our society and replaced it with a bunch of insane people?!
Justifiable homicides: Self defense, defense of others, severe coercion (someone is going to murder you/your family--yeah, sucks, we have all kinds of funny ideals about how you should go to the police, but what then? Your 10 year old daughter gets murdered by having her vagina pulled inside out slowly with fishhooks, while you're duct taped to a chair to watch... no, people fall to psychological pressure; go find the real criminal).
Unjustifiable homicides: Vengeance, thrill, insurance money (greed), etc.
I don't care if you're nuts. If you are prone to kill people, we need to get rid of you.
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> He obviously has to be insane
Legal insanity is a very narrowly defined state. There are all kinds of things the lay person would consider insane that don't automatically qualify as legal insanity.
Yep. Specifically, you need insanity that negates the intentional aspect of your act. As was explained to me by my criminal law professor, if your dog tells you to kill the mailman and you do, you're insane and believing in a talking dog, but you intended to commit murder. If, however, you go to offer your mailman a banana and it goes off and shoots him, you're insane and think a gun is a banana, but you never intended to commit murder.
Truth serum does not fucking work, period, at all. This has been known for many decades now. If it worked, we would've been using it against Bad Guys in Secret Prisons, and we're not. We're not because it doesn't fucking work and everyone knows that.
Except apparently the people in this court room.
Actually, there is one compound that might be considered effective as a "truth serum", and that's scopolamine. Read up on the way it has been used by criminals, for instance this link:
http://digitaljournal.com/article/324779 or this one: http://rense.com/general38/frug.htm or just google it.
I have personal experience with this drug, having been involuntarily dosed with it once, and it's effects were scary indeed, in a way no other substance has ever come close to matching. Essentially it wipes out your short-term memory completely, and I do mean completely. You start to say something but by the end of the sentence you literally can't remember what it was you were trying to say. You have no idea where you are or how you got there, and you tend to believe whatever you're told if there's someone there to "helpfully" fill in the blanks. People empty their bank account to strangers, give up passwords and PIN numbers, it's crazy. The thing is, it's only short-term memory that's affected, everything else is still there. So I don't see any reason why you couldn't be questioned about past criminal behavior as easily as your financial secrets. Having experienced this stuff first hand, I have no doubt it could be used as a truth drug, given the right setting and an experienced interrogator. That said, I'm absolutely against the whole idea and believe this is a treacherous road for the legal system to be going down. Voluntarily or otherwise, chemical interrogation has no place in American courtrooms.