New York – Levi Aron, who has confessed to kidnapping, murdering and dismembering 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky in Brooklyn last month in a crime that horrified the entire city, has one last resort: to claim that he was insane when he committed the crime.
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Having just been found competent enough to eventually stand trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Aron and his lawyers will likely now point to a history of “psychiatric disorders,” including hearing voices, in an attempt to plead NGRI (“not guilty by reason of insanity”). Yesterday, the Associated Press obtained the report of an evaluation that showed Aron to have an “apathetic” mood – as well as a schizophrenic sister, now deceased.
The insanity defense in criminal trials is nothing new. The Babylonian Talmud had this to say some 1,500 years ago: “It is an ill thing to knock against a deaf-mute, an imbecile or a minor. He that wounds them is culpable, but if they wound him they are not culpable.”
But even the Talmudic rabbis would have been baffled by the modern version of the insanity defense, which has become less about compassion for the mentally ill than a loophole for criminals to escape through.
Another imbecile. The uneducated public has zero competence to evaluate whether there is a legitimate insanity defense here. It is worse than stupid to feed this information to the lay public, and even dumber for someone without expertise in the subject matter to comment on it. I possess the same feelings of rage about the tragic and horrific murder. But the courts and the recognized professionals with the expertise will ultimately decide, not us John Q. Publics. I consider this op-ed idiotic, and the paper that printed this totally irresponsible.
This thug lawyer and his girlfriend know they have no other defense they will go with insanity, what other excuse could u come up with for such and evil animal…
Will a accepted plea of insanity result in permanent confinement or can it lead to his release some day? If it keeps him locked up forever then wouldn’t that be an acceptable punishment. Anything short of that would be unacceptable.
We are so quick and willing to judge people and then inflict the harshest punishment possible disregarding the fact that the whole point of punishment has always been to rehabilitate, true there are times when the person in question is so beyond rehabilitation that the death penalty is required however who are we sitting on our computers not even having met the defendant to make that call ?
When we commit an act which hurts another person emotionally or physically do we want to be treated with the same quick judgment without due process ?
His high priced, family sought after and paid for attorneys will no doubt supoena Levy Aron’s psychiatrist who presecribed the anti-psychotic medications to him prior to the grissly murder.
I think at this point it is way to early for anyone to editorialize on the this case. We do not have all the facts pertaining to the mental status of the accused. The only thing that is clear is that the accused is not normal and has a long history of being not normal and taking medications that might have allowed him to function with some degree of normalcy. As bitter is it might be to our collective urge for justice, the defendant may indeed not be criminally liable for the crime.
Why not let the system play out. Insanity is rarely a successful defense but sometimes people are clinically insane, i.e. John Hinckley Jr. who shot President Reagan.
The bottom line is that he will never be free again. In a state without capital punishment that is the most we could hope for.
i hate to say this, but… see i told you so…
you’ll see, this is just the begining, i hat to say this, but, he will go free
We all know sane people that murder and insane people that do not murder. This shows you that sanity is not the motivation of murder. Evil is the motivation. And evil should b eradicated
It’s not the Babylonian Talmud, but rather the Talmud. (It’s a Mishna in Baba Kamma. I understand they want to say Talmud rather than Mishnayos or something, but don’t stick in the word Babylonion if it’s also in the Yerushalmi.) I know that I’m nit-picking…
This monster is BEYOND rehabilitation…if I ended up doing something like this, I wouldn’t even be able to consider MYSELF fit to live…who CAN live with themselves after something like that????????
The question of insanity here in this case is whether he can Feel Pain. Pinch him, does he cringe? If yes, then he’s sane enough to feel some physical or emotional pain doesn’t matter which.
I am amazed at the ignorance of any knowledge of psychology, psychiatry, or Neuroscience, displayed by various posters. “Pinch him to see if he feels pain”???????????? “Monster”?????????? “How can he live with himself”?????????? Obviously someone making a comment like this is ignorant. People who are “insane” or “crazy” Do not process things the way normal people do.
we all know he was nuts..noone in their right mind can murder and dismemeber an 8 year child..the question is not if he was crazy..thats obvious. the question is if he knew right from wrong- if he knew what he was doing..i believe he knew exactly what he was doing. Why else would he give the poor boy drugs..i hope they lock him up and throw away the key.
If Chas VeShalom he got off free, then it is society that is certifiably insane
and he will no douibt have a miracle once he was let off and freed.
If his actions could not have been predicted and prevented the first time then certainly
a society that let him free would be responsible for anythning he did – the second time,
Even if he is granted the NGRI he will be incarcerated in a mental hospital, rather than a prison. He will still be locked away. However, instead of giving him a set time limit, he will be locked away until found “mentally stable” which could be decades from now. However, to get the NGRI, he needs to pass the M’Naghten rule which states that he had no idea the consequences for his actions AT the time of the crime. He should be offered the GBMI plea, which means guilty but mentally ill. The jury still finds him guilty but he is given mental treatment in addition to the prison sentence. That way, he can get some help. He gets no special treatment and is held accountable. He seems to be mentally ill (can’t diagnose a patient without seeing them though) and should be given some access to medications and treatment.
“apathetic” personality is what serial killers are made of. he showed no remorse. An insanity plea will never fly with the DA. He admitted knowing he did something wrong. He went to work as usual and performed his duties. Pretty shrewd and well thought out scheme as I see it. Guess we will never know what he was planning to do with the child. He panicked? Did he really think the family wouldn’t be looking for him?
Since half of our population,including myself, may qualify for insanity, does that give us the ok to do as we please?