Millikin professor had dark secret: He killed his family 46 years ago

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

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Chicago Sun-Times

[TNF]

That's...bizarre. If he was declared insane at the time of the slayings and is of sound mind now, I mean, I don't see why he would pose a threat to the students he's teaching. No reason to fire him since it's all said and done, I suppose.

[minionofmidas]

That's...bizarre. If he was declared insane at the time of the slayings and is of sound mind now, I mean, I don't see why he would pose a threat to the students he's teaching.

Especially since he didn't slay any students during the intervening years.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

That's...bizarre. If he was declared insane at the time of the slayings and is of sound mind now, I mean, I don't see why he would pose a threat to the students he's teaching.

Especially since he didn't slay any students during the intervening years.

More or less this. If he was to be tried for murder, he would have been tried back then.

[barfbag]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

[Cory]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

So, do you not believe in the legitimacy of insanity pleas at all, or do you just take exception to them in murder cases, or in this case in particular for some reason?

Obviously it's concerning to learn that one is learning psychology from Merricat Blackwood and the college has good reason to reconsider his place there, but the idea that being legally insane--assuming the initial verdict was correct that he indeed was at the time--'isn't an excuse' for crimes committed in that state betrays either (EDIT: Lewis rightly points out that what it actually betrays is such that this sentence really should use the inclusive or) a woeful misunderstanding of what legal insanity definitionally is or a profound lack of the quality of mercy.

[barfbag]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

So, do you not believe in the legitimacy of insanity pleas at all, or do you just take exception to them in murder cases, or in this case in particular for some reason?

Obviously it's concerning to learn that one is learning psychology from Merricat Blackwood and the college is within its rights, morally if not necessarily legally, to reconsider his place there, but the idea that being legally insane--assuming the initial verdict was correct that he indeed was at the time--'isn't an excuse' for crimes committed in that state betrays either a woeful misunderstanding of what legal insanity definitionally is or a profound lack of the quality of mercy.

If he is insane to the point he killed his family, then he should be kept in prison and away from society. He shouldn't be allowed to just go out and do it again.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

So, do you not believe in the legitimacy of insanity pleas at all, or do you just take exception to them in murder cases, or in this case in particular for some reason?

Obviously it's concerning to learn that one is learning psychology from Merricat Blackwood and the college is within its rights, morally if not necessarily legally, to reconsider his place there, but the idea that being legally insane--assuming the initial verdict was correct that he indeed was at the time--'isn't an excuse' for crimes committed in that state betrays either a woeful misunderstanding of what legal insanity definitionally is or a profound lack of the quality of mercy.

If he is insane to the point he killed his family, then he should be kept in prison and away from society. He shouldn't be allowed to just go out and do it again.

He seems to have functioned more or less fine for the past thirty-nine years, unless there's more to this pile that we don't know about. In any case I'm more concerned with Cory's characteristically troubling apparent blanket pronouncement about insanity pleas than with the specifics of this instance.

[Cory]

So, do you not believe in the legitimacy of insanity pleas at all, or do you just take exception to them in murder cases, or in this case in particular for some reason?

Obviously not. It's just that people who are crazy enough to kill their entire family should probably just be incarcerated for life or just put down.

[Consciously Unconscious]

Normally, I would say he should be tried.  But he was deemed sane, and he hasn't hurt any of the students.  In thirty years, he surely had a chance.  Unfortunately his career is now probably over.

[© tweed]

I don't support trying people for crimes 4-5 decades old, no.

[© tweed]

we can paraphrase Meursault: who at some point hasn't wished their family to be dead?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

wasn't he tried already? 

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

Actually, it is...  Texas defines homicide: "A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual."

An insane person won't have the understanding of his actions, and thus there's no mens rea, and no conviction.

[Cory]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

Actually, it is...  Texas defines homicide: "A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual."

An insane person won't have the understanding of his actions, and thus there's no mens rea, and no conviction.

No I mean in real life. Not legal technicality. This guy literally killed his entire family. He should be put down. There is no place for him in society

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

Actually, it is...  Texas defines homicide: "A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual."

An insane person won't have the understanding of his actions, and thus there's no mens rea, and no conviction.

No I mean in real life. Not legal technicality. This guy literally killed his entire family. He should be put down. There is no place for him in society

So we should "put down" those who have no place in society?  Define "no place".

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

Actually, it is...  Texas defines homicide: "A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual."

An insane person won't have the understanding of his actions, and thus there's no mens rea, and no conviction.

No I mean in real life. Not legal technicality. This guy literally killed his entire family. He should be put down. There is no place for him in society

So we should "put down" those who have no place in society?  Define "no place".

Inks, Cory is an admitted eugenicist.

Cory, I wish I could say that saying things like this makes you a bad Democrat, or a Democrat-in-name-only, but the sad thing is, that's not actually true. There's very much a place within the Democratic Party for your positions, but it's an ugly place and a lot of what's wrong with the party and the contemporary American 'left', such as it is, in general. The only thing you seem interested in, at least in any positive sense, is advancing a set of scientific and pseudo-scientific agendas and narratives into areas where no scientific and pseudo-scientific agendas and narratives have gone before, on grounds that are utilitarian to the point of outright bloodlessness, somewhere between completely unconcerned and actively gleeful at the collateral damage thus wrought on preexisting cultural and humane values. You don't seem particularly concerned with taking a critical attitude towards class or sex (but I may have missed this; if this is incorrect, I apologize), and your attitudes towards race, particularly as it relates to crime and punishment, and mental health, particularly as it relates to crime and punishment, are atavistic, filled with calumnies against black bodies and unwell minds more suited to the most unselfconscious set of Southern Senators of old.

You're certainly not alone in any of this, and it's not really identifiably Old Left or New Left in the American context at all. If anything it's the attitude of an unlucky Liberal Imperialist who fell through a wormhole from 1890s Britain into the wrong place, or an attitude from an alternate history in which Liberal Imperialism in more or less its original form persisted and managed to internalize the language of the most strident, immoderate, and unhelpful liberal and in some cases socialist or communist attacks on religion on its way from its proper habitat to the present day. Or just a sort of (terms used as shorthand and thus not a hundred per cent accurate) anti-religious neoconservatism or punitive Trotskyism. The Other isn't there to be either met and understood as Other (pace many forms of leftism) or assimilated as reflected Self (pace many other forms of leftism and some of rightism), but to serve as a figure of fun at best, and to be warred against without quarter when it's particularly annoying to one's own sensibilites. Certain of the paeans you've made to the cultural power and glory of the West seem to have more points of contact with the geopolitical realities in The Lord of the Rings than those in real life. There's a very specific society that is right and meet and good and just and proper, and that which is not--those who are not--in conformity with it are expendable, and acceptable targets for state-sanctioned killing or worse. The self-righteousness involved is the least of the problems with this.

(To those who say I'm at least as self-righteous as Cory if not more so: Of course I am. This is, for my psychology, the natural outgrowth of considering my beliefs better than his, and if I didn't consider my beliefs better than his I wouldn't hold them. I admit that said self-righteousness is as much personality flaw for me as for anybody else, but again, it's the least of the problems I see in the worldview I'm describing.)

If I'm to give one piece of constructive criticism, it's not so much to change any of these aspects of your worldview, as I'm not sure you can and I think your perspective is in some ways valuable if in my opinion awful, as to make more of an effort to understand those who disagree with you as something other than the Enemy. I still remember the first time we discussed gene therapy, human genetic engineering, eugenic abortion, and related issues. That time you treated my objections as those of a lunatic who was out to make people suffer, rather than as somebody who happens to value diversity of experience more than you and normative functioning less, who's perhaps more prone to naturalistic fallacies than you and less prone to category errors. I'd hate to see how that conversation would have gone between you and somebody who's a comparably strident reactionary on those issues.

And no, of course Professor St James shouldn't be tried, except possibly in the Court of Awful Assumed Names. That would be double jeopardy, at least in spirit (probably legally also, since it seems like he would have had to be tried in 1967 in order to be found insane).

[Silent Hunter]

No - he is already been tried and 'sentenced' for it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

No (normal)

[dead0man]

Has anyone considered that his parents and sister were assholes that needed to die?  I can't decide on his fate until I hear the whole story.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Has anyone considered that his parents and sister were assholes that needed to die?  I can't decide on his fate until I hear the whole story.

I hadn't considered the 'deserved to die' part, being a squishy pacifist who doesn't believe in such things as I am, but I had considered that, legal judgment (which, again, seems already to have happened and thus can't and shouldn't happen again) aside, we can't really even cast a full moral judgment on the situation until we know more about it, yes.

I'm somebody who believes that to kill another person, taken as the act that it is, is always, always wrong--I'm a little extremist about this and certainly not a consequentialist of any kind--and hence that Professor St James by definition should not have killed his family, but I'm also somebody who believes in at least some degree of aggravation and mitigation; that real-life events are seldom 'pure', for good or ill; and that sometimes there really isn't a right solution, at least none that most people are capable of finding. jmfcst and I used to clash on that latter point.

But it's also very, very possible that he was just--and this is admittedly an odd thing to be saying 'just' about--a madman who slew his family and later got as much better from that as it's possible to get and made a new life for himself.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

Wouldn't that constitute a double jeopardy?

[minionofmidas]

Yes, tried for murder and what's left of his life in prison.

This. Being "crazy" isn't an excuse for murder. And no, it isn't.

So, do you not believe in the legitimacy of insanity pleas at all, or do you just take exception to them in murder cases, or in this case in particular for some reason?

Obviously it's concerning to learn that one is learning psychology from Merricat Blackwood and the college has good reason to reconsider his place there, but the idea that being legally insane--assuming the initial verdict was correct that he indeed was at the time--'isn't an excuse' for crimes committed in that state betrays either a woeful misunderstanding of what legal insanity definitionally is or a profound lack of the quality of mercy.

Actually, it betrays a dangerous combination of both.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why isn't just everybody happy that he could be rehabilitated and successfully integrated back into society as a productive member?

The alternative: There would be one psychology professor less in the world and instead the state would have allocated personnel and money on locking him away (and potentially executing him).

I don't see how this would have been the preferable outcome.

It's a story which provides hope more than anything else.