Capital Punishment

I think sentencing people to death for sure scares them, but most criminals don't even consider getting that outcome. Killing someone obviously prevents them from killing again but its obviously not stopping everyone because we still have crime and murder. Also, I think a major weakness in this system is that we are killing someone because they killed someone/people. this doesn't make us better than them, it makes us just as bad. I think this is contradictory and if its not okay for citizens to kill someone it should be okay for anyone no matter what. bad bad bad bad

insanity defense

I think it is good to have the insanity defense especially for cases like Andrea Yates. If you were to put people like this in jail they could go crazy "warehouse syndrome" and possibly go on a killing spree! Jail already makes sane people go insane so who knows what could happen to already clinically insane people. The experience could probably be like war for a soldier and they could act the same as a person with PTSD. For me, I think the sanity of a person should definitely be brought into account in a criminal case, but only for those necessary and for people who would be medically diagnosed as psychotic. Going back to Andrea Yates, she truly believed she was saving her children from going to hell, so should she really be considered a criminal if she didn't know it was the wrong thing to do? But people who kill someone to benefit themselves or something like that, is not psychotic its just evil and morally wrong- they are fully aware that it is against the law but they do it any how. As far as my opinion on Andrea Yates I believe many things went wrong way before she killed her children. She should not have gone in and sent out of treatment so many times. She clearly had a problem that needed to be fixed before she could go home. She also should not have been able to spend any period of time alone with her children if they knew she was violent and crazy. I know it isn't the fault of anyone else because she was a grown woman who should be able to take care of herself but i think people should have been more cautious of her and what she could do in that state of mind. Her husband knew she wasn't on med's and didn't do anything about it which is completely irresponsible of him as her husband and the children's father. but she was also a nurse so she is aware that she needed her medicine and that it would help her so she should have done it. maybe if she was on her med's she wouldn't have been a horrible mom and wouldn't have to save her children..