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Crazy!=criminal
07 Aug 2008 03:36 pm
I'm disturbed by the way the case for Ivins as the Anthrax Mailer seems to rest so heavily on his obvious mental illness. It's not clear exactly what was wrong with him, but the main candidates are depression and bipolar disorder. Most depressed people aren't criminals, and most criminals aren't depressed; I'd rather the rest of the evidence seemed weightier.
http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/08072008/news/columnists/im_convinced_this_was_lab_rat_who_bit_me_123449.htm
Take a look at that article Megan. It is pretty compelling that this is the guy. I don't trust the Famous But Incompetents either, but it looks like they found the right guy.
Reality Slap: US prisons house plenty of prisoners who suffer from mental illness. You could look it up.
From Human Rights Watch:
"One in six U.S. prisoners is mentally ill. Many of them suffer from serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals."
ML&J,
So, when are we locking you up?
The issue is not the probability that someone with mental problems is a criminal, it is, what is the probability that the crime was committed by someone with mental problems.
As OJ's defense pointed out, many men abuse their wives or girlfriends w/o killing them. However, what the prosecution should have pointed out is that apparently 80% of the women that are murdered are murdered by a current or former husband or spouse. Given that we know that Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered, the chances are 4 out of 5 is that she was murdered by a current or former husband or boyfriend.
So in the anthrax case, given that someone attempted murder by anthrax, what is the likelihood that it was by someone who was mentally unstable? MoeLarryAndJesus's data would suggest that it is at least one chance in six.
Megan said that most criminals aren't depressed and that most depressed people aren't criminals. If one in six U.S. prisoners are mentally ill, this refutes -- or "reality slaps," to use your charming terminology -- her how, exactly?
Yancey Ward asks: "So, when are we locking you up?"
They'll have to catch me first.
Reality Slap: US prisons house plenty of prisoners who suffer from mental illness. You could look it up.
So you want to free this guy?
422 Years for a Rapist Who Tortured His Victim
Mr. Williams’s lawyer, Arnold J. Levine, sought a lesser sentence because, he said, his client suffered from severe mental illness. He said that Mr. Williams had not spoken with him in a coherent way for a year and seemed unable to comprehend why he was in court or what he was being sentenced for.
“I don’t think he has any clue what’s going on,” Mr. Levine said after the sentencing, adding that he planned to appeal.
He has Mental Illness because he is a amoral sociopath.
ML&J: The fraction of prisoners who are mentally ill may say more about the inability of the mentally ill criminals to avoid detection/conviction than about the mental condition of criminals generally.
Paul L quotes and writes: "Reality Slap: US prisons house plenty of prisoners who suffer from mental illness. You could look it up.
So you want to free this guy?"
No. Why do you ask?
How the hell did this guy keep his position with so many documented problems and such obvious instability, anyway?
How the hell did this guy keep his position with so many documented problems and such obvious instability, anyway?
Because he was a federal employee?
I remain suspicious here. They have admitted to getting the wrong guy previously, then they come out and finger Ivins after he's dead. Moreover, while I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist, the baseline here is an official story in which a federal employee took anthrax from a federal lab, mailed it out, and avoided being caught for several years. With that as a baseline, it's not quite such a stretch to wonder if other federal employees might have played a role. The difference between this and the typical conspiracy theory is that the typical conspiracy theory posits a degree of competence and careful planning that is unlikely. However, with this official story as a baseline one needn't postulate much additional competence or planning to get a conspiracy theory.
Finally, when the state says "It was just a bad apple, acting alone, in an isolated incident..." well, we've heard that story before.
Then again, it's entirely possible that he acted alone. I'm not convinced of anything here.
How the hell did this guy keep his position with so many documented problems and such obvious instability, anyway?
Because he was a federal employee?
I remain suspicious here. They have admitted to getting the wrong guy previously, then they come out and finger Ivins after he's dead. Moreover, while I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist, the baseline here is an official story in which a federal employee took anthrax from a federal lab, mailed it out, and avoided being caught for several years. With that as a baseline, it's not quite such a stretch to wonder if other federal employees might have played a role. The difference between this and the typical conspiracy theory is that the typical conspiracy theory posits a degree of competence and careful planning that is unlikely. However, with this official story as a baseline one needn't postulate much additional competence or planning to get a conspiracy theory.
Finally, when the state says "It was just a bad apple, acting alone, in an isolated incident..." well, we've heard that story before.
Then again, it's entirely possible that he acted alone. I'm not convinced of anything here.
How the hell did this guy keep his position with so many documented problems and such obvious instability, anyway?
Wouldn't it have been illegal to fire him? Under the Americans with Disabilities Act you can't fire people with mental problems unless the problems prevent them from doing their work properly. His, so far as his employers knew, didn't.
Accusations aired in the press vs the court? Been there, done that. Feds found their patsy the day he died.
Dan wonders: "Wouldn't it have been illegal to fire him? Under the Americans with Disabilities Act you can't fire people with mental problems unless the problems prevent them from doing their work properly."
If the problems led to him losing his security clearance he wouldn't have been able to do his job. I don't know what the standards are there, but I would guess this area is covered.
I'm just surprised they didn't try to pin this one on Richard Jewell.
There are plenty of good (i.e. reality based) reasons to doubt the FBI's conclusions here. Made up "facts" about the relationship between crime and mental illness isn't one of them.
It's 200 miles & 3 1/2 hrs from Ivins' home to Princeton, NJ where the letters were mailed from. All those years and millions of dollars and they couldn't come up with one shred of corroborating evidence that Ivins made the trip? Not guilty.
All those years and millions of dollars and they couldn't come up with one shred of corroborating evidence that Ivins made the trip? Not guilty
There is nothing even slightly odd about the idea of an intelligent criminal, especially a self-admittedly paranoid one, taking an evening's drive to carry out his mail-related crime in another city. Add in the fact that a seven-hour road trip doesn't leave any evidence (heck, I wouldn't even have to stop for gas) and the fact that Ivins had a recorded habit of driving long distances to mail pseudonymous letters. How does this add up to reasonable doubt?
Dan says: "How does this add up to reasonable doubt?"
So you think a case beyond reasonable doubt has been made here already? Seriously?
You're kidding. No one could be that stupid. Unless...
Do you think Dumbya Bush has been a good President?
It's not clear exactly what was wrong with him, but the main candidates are depression and bipolar disorder.
The way the news stories have come out, the main candidates appear to be among the personality disorders, particularly antisocial PD or paranoid PD. Granted, personality disorders are often co-morbid with depression and many have bipolar-like characteristics, but with two of his personal mental health therapists saying on record that he was a homicidal sociopath, then you can take antisocial PD to the bank.
This still looks very strange. There are indications of mild bi-polar disorder in the reports of his behaviour from the time in question, but nothing more extreme until he began to be under pressure from the investigators. Sending anthrax-laden letters does not, on the face of it, sound like behaviour that might be associated with mild bi-polar disorder.
The genetic tracking of the anthrax to Fort Derrick seems OK, except that we are told that samples were distributed from Fort Derrick to other workers. Given that, one would have expected the investigation to have concentrated on how and where the method for the extraordinary fine powdering of the anthrax was developed. It does not sound like something that could easily have been hidden from other workers at Fort Derrick.
The investigators talk of a pending arrest of Ivins, but what is lacking from the stuff now released is a case likely to stand up in court.
Without more direct evidence, it still seems uncomfortably likely that the investigators may have zeroed in on the wrong suspect as they worked their way by elimination through the other possibilities.
Didn't you hear? He did it because he was Pro Life--he may have read an article in his house about bad Catholics, and his wife's in a Pro Life organization. YOU CONNECT THE DOTTSSSSS!!!!
This garbage was on NPR last night, I swear.
I'm simply not competent to judge the validity of the scientific analysis of the anthrax. Most likely neither is anyone in the FBI. Their five-year persecution of an entirely innocent scientist because he grew up in Rhodesia and South Africa will live forever in law enforcement infamy.
I am unconvinced by the FBI's story.