Vince Weiguang Li, 40, had been charged with murdering 22-year-old Tim McLean on a Canadian Greyhound bus on July 30, 2008.Psychiatrists testified that Li was schizophrenic and "did not know what he was doing when he killed McLean. I guess it's obvious that no sane man would do what he did. His mental health is to be evaluated within 90 days, and then...Li had repeatedly stabbed McLean, who had been asleep on the seat next to him, sawn off his head, removed his internal organs, pocketed his nose, tongue and an ear, and taunted police and bystanders with the severed head.
Police said in court documents Li "appeared to smell, and then eat parts of Tim McLean's flesh" and "lick blood from his hands" as they surrounded the bus...
Thereafter, he may be released or confined to a secure psychiatric hospital for treatment.
And they taser to death a guy with an open stapler?
ReplyDeleteAt first it appears that the Insanity plea is way to get away with it...until you find out that people who plea insanity do one and half times as much jail times as people who are found guilty. You are not given a set time but you are locked up until they say you are sane. In prison you can get time off for good behavior. In a mental institution if you act up we can medicate you and keep you really far down. You have far less freedom in a mental hospital than in prison. A lawyer does not offer an insanity to get his client off easy. A guilty sentence is almost always less than an insanity sentence. So those of you who are worried about justice, this guy is getting a much worse deal than if he went to trial.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, drHoward is right. Here in Canada he'll get the rubberroom treatment. He'll be so pumped full of largactil and lithium and their bland cold food in two weeks he won't exist as the same person. He seems eminently placed to volunteer with any shock-treatment equipment that needs firing up and he may be asked to donate his frontal lobes to science too. He's never getting out of there and slim chance he does in many years he won't be a human anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhat should we do, send crazy people to prison rather than to facilities able to properly deal with them?
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