Attias insane?!

[The Deuce]

For those of you who don't know the story, here is the readers digest version.

David Attias (Father Produces the Sopranos) drove his brand new SAAB down a residential street in Santa Barbara at 60+ while stoned and killed 4 people. It was a Friday night and the streets are always packed with college kids.

He was found guilty of murder but ruled insane at the time of the crime. Now I used to live on the street he did this, and there is no way anyone should be going that speed at any time. (Chris it was Sabado Tarde in IV, but you knew that)

What gets me is that he will never have to do real jail time. Just an "indefinate" stay at a state mental hospital. Lets hope they try some shock therapy.

Reports speculate that he will be released when "he recovers from his mental illness" probably not for 10-15 years. Could be sooner, could be never.

All I'm saying is if he gets out, he prays he doesn't run into an UCSB Alumni, especially me. Somebody may just have a little insanity defense of their own.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[Mr 5 0]

I know nothing of this story but it just shows, again, that the insanity defense is always going to be a problem in our justice system.

Insanity can be faked and you can always find - or pay - a psychiatrist (or two or three) to find someone 'insane'. This may have been the case in the David Attias case you cite here. I have no idea of course and we don't want to put truly insane people in prison when they need other kinds of help and confinement but I fear that too often the insanity defense is a sham used to keep guilty people out of the prison cell they deserve, or in this case, the gas chamber.

Even commitment to a facility for the insane is not always foolproof.

About 13 years ago in CT a man of about 39 who had murdered his mother or father (or both, I've forgotten) and had been commited to a facility for the criminally insane for 24 years managed to receive 'trustee' privileges and was able to walk around the grounds, unsupervised.

Big mistake.

One fine summer day he walked off the grounds, got on a bus to the downtown area (Meriden) and went straight to a sporting goods store where he bought a big hunting knife. I have no idea where an inmate in a facility for the criminally insane got the cash but all the same, he had it and now, a large knife.

The man then casually walked into the crowded downtown area (it was noontime) and at random, lunged at an 11 year old girl and attacked her with the hunting knife, stabbing her about 30 times in a mad frenzy until passersby were able to pull him off and subdue him.

She died on the spot from her wounds - bled to death in a few minutes. The man was put in a more secure facility - forever - and a few heads rolled at the facility where he was given trustee status.

The girls parents sued the state. The stae quickly settled and the parents of the child received a few million dollars but lost their daughter forever to a madman with a knife that was allowed to run around as a trustee although he had murdered as a teenager and was obviously delusional and dangerous.

Insanity is a tricky business. easy to fake, sometimes just as easy to hide and either way it can mess up the justice system when fakers go free (practically) or when the truly insane are not guarded and taken as the serious threat they are.

Now, the Supreme Court has ruled that persons with an I.Q. below 70 - legally retarded - cannot be executed for murder, no matter how many people they've killed.

That's fine but I just hope they never allow these low-I.Q. murderers to go free at some later date or allow them to be placed in some facility with half-hearted security so they may escape and kill again.

As I said, insanity and it's ramifications really makes justice hard to find, much less apply correctly. It's always a guess, at best, and many criminals probably game the system while a few truly insane people may be jailed when they need a different kind of confinement.

We do what we can but my faith in the justice system is only as strong as my faith in humanity, and that's become somewhat attenuated these days.

[PKRWUD]

Yeah, that about made me puke when I heard that last night. That punkass M.F. kid needs to get his head beat in. I've seen the video tape, of him freaking out on the street before the cops took him down, a hundred times. He destroyed dozens of cars, killed 4 or 5 people, and crippled others. If he ever does get out, he had best hope and pray he doesn't walk across the street in Ventura, cause if I see him, I can already tell you that I'll have the same "insane" urge he did. I used to party in I.V. all the time! He took a great place, and turned it into a major tragedy. I didn't know any of the people up there at the time, but I still took what he did very personally.

BTW, Duece, when did you go to UCSB? I used to date one of the DJ's at KTYD in '88-'89 (Terrie Richards).

Small world, huh?

Take care,
-Chris

[The Deuce]

Chris,
I graduated June 2000. Still can't believe I had an ocean view for half the time I was there. So I was gone when it all went down, but still had a lot of friends there. Some of them walked up on it shortly after the cops. Really screwed a couple of them up.

For some reason I can't recal, I made a trip back up before the cars were gone. Totally changed the way people look at the place.

That's cool about the DJ. I really miss SB stations, KTYD the octopus. Can't get stuff like that in the LA market.

Take it easy,
Mike

[PKRWUD]

I would have freaked if I had gone up there and seen the damage in person. My memories of IV are great ones, and I wouldn't be able to handle seeing what that bastard did. Hell, the last time I was up there was for Halloween several years back. I got a queen size bed foam pad, wrapped it around me in a circle, cut a hole for my face, added a cardboard mailer tube, and went as a human bong.

That place is so damn cool. I hope Attias rots.

Take care,
-Chris