Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

Thought for the Day

We — all of us — are no more than one trau­matic brain injury away from com­mit­ting cap­i­tal murder.

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About The Author

Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

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6 Responses to “Thought for the Day”

  1. David Tarrell says:

    Along these lines, have you seen “the look­out” with Jeff Daniels and the kid from Third Rock, who’s grown into a very good actor? I haven’t fin­ished it yet, but so far it a good but painful story about the after­ef­fects of a brain injury.

  2. Ron in Houston says:

    On see­ing sev­eral crim­i­nals being led to the scaf­fold in the 16th cen­tury, Eng­lish Protes­tant mar­tyr John Brad­ford remarked, ‘There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.’

    Many peo­ple feel this is what pop­u­lar­ized the phrase, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

    It’s a good sen­ti­ment to keep in mind.

  3. Mark Bennett says:

    David, I always appre­ci­ate a movie rec­om­men­da­tion from some­one in the indus­try; I’ve ordered it. Thanks.

    Ron, fail­ing to rec­og­nize that there, but for the grace of God (a/k/a for­tune, luck), go we all, is hubris.

    And we all know where that sto­ry­line ends.

  4. J says:

    Spo­ken like a true enabler, Mark.

  5. Rorschach says:

    Except if it were due to a brain injury would we not plead not guilty by rea­son of insan­ity? There­fore if our defense holds we would not have com­mit­ted cap­i­tal mur­der because by being insane, we would be inca­pable of com­mit­ting such a crime. That begs the next ques­tion, just because some­one is inca­pable of appre­ci­at­ing the nature of the crime (and is there­fore inca­pable of com­mit­ting such a crime) does not mean that they are safe to unleash upon the com­mu­nity. Therein lies the prob­lem of the civil com­mit­ment process today. Peo­ple who should not be allowed to attempt to man­age their own affairs are forced to do so because the sys­tem refuses to com­mit those indi­vid­u­als the way they would have been in the past. Many become a dan­ger to them­selves or oth­ers or both. There­fore the deaths of both the men­tally ill and their inno­cent vic­tims lies heav­ily on the cur­rent lack­adaisi­cal atti­tude towards the com­mit­ment of the insane. Instead of liv­ing their lives out in rel­a­tive safety where they are cared for, fed and med­icated as needed, they are instead forced to live under bridges, forced to self-medicate with alco­hol and/or street drugs, and eat out of dump­sters, all the while being at the mercy of the ele­ments and oth­ers. How has the sys­tem served their needs by de-institutionalizing them?

  6. Mark Bennett says:

    J — Horse­shit. We’ll deal with this more later.

    Rorschach — Insan­ity is a very nar­row rule, which applies only when the men­tal dis­ease or defect ren­ders one inca­pable of dis­tin­guish­ing right from wrong. Some­one who can still dis­tin­guish right from wrong, but can no longer resist the impulse to do wrong, is not insane.

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