I am a believer in the Hellenic faith. What this means is that unlike Christians or other monotheistic people, I believe in the Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece. This allows me to take an extra close look at personal responsibility and science.
As a believer in the Hellenic faith, you look to the Cosmos. This is the belief that everything is made up of scientific matter that is inter-connected. Therefore, in the ultra technical mode, or in I Heart Huckabee speak, “The universe is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
Now, taking my beliefs into account, let’s say I went on a sexual rampage and started making babies. I had five kids, and while mentally unstable, I was coherent enough to concoct a murder plan to rid the world of my kids. I would do so in honor of Zeus and with hopes of sending them to be little Gods on Mt. Olympus.
How long do you think it would take for them to bring back the electric chair for me? My guess is not that long. When I heard that Andrea Yates, the Christian mother who killed her kids to offer them to God before they could commit sin and face Hell, was found not guilty, I cannot explain how much faith I lost in the criminal justice system.
As a person who wanted to be a criminal justice professional in psychology and forensics, I feel we need to break this down a little bit. The charges in this case were for first degree murder. This calls for premeditation to be present. The former Mrs. Yates did, in fact, commit premeditated murder when she waited several days to drown her kids.
She admitted, on previous occasions, that she knew it needed to be done after her husband went to work, but before her mother-in-law showed up to help her with the kids for the day. She also admitted to trying to kill them before, but was stopped from carrying out the plan when her mother-in-law showed up. Obviously, this rules out the random act of insanity through rash, unplanned actions while ignoring the logical thought process.
It also technically rules out insanity. Insanity, by definition, means that a person does not know right from wrong. However, she knew not to try to drown her kids in front of other people, thereby proving she knew that Mommy was being a bad, bad girl.
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