Actual 'get-out-of-jail-free' card? Too incompetent to be charged with rape, but can't be committed

[ck4829]

Because he is apparently not a danger to society.

"A convicted sex offender facing nearly two dozen charges of child sex abuse may be soon be set free because doctors says he's no danger to society even though he's not mentally competent for trial.

Lonnie Hyrum Johnson was charged in 2007 in Utah with rape, sodomy and aggravated sexual abuse of a child for alleged acts with his niece and her step-cousin between 2001 and 2006.

Each charge is a first-degree felony. If convicted at a trial, the 38-year-old Johnson would face life sentences for every count. Instead, it appears he will be freed sometime soon after a hearing Thursday afternoon.

Deemed incompetent for trial by a judge in 2008, Johnson has been institutionalized at Utah State Hospital in Provo, about 45 miles north of Salt Lake City, where doctors have been working to restore his mental capacity.

(BUT, he can't be made competent and is not dangerous.)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_incompetent_sex_offender

Says he suffers from a "cognitive disorder", that falls into the realm of amnesia, dementia, delirium, and other things. So, yep, just remember what a cognitive disorder is.

[HereSince1628]

1. I appreciate that this peeves you, and I accept that mistakes

are probably made when mental health professionals state that a mentally ill person isn't a risk to the community--mostly because it's impossible to predict which mentally ill or mentally well persons will commit violent or damaging acts.

In this case, there were mental health professionals who made diagnoses and a judge who reviewed the outcome of their work. The outcome has been tragic. But it's an error to generalize cognitive disorder into the sort of danger that you are implying.


Cognitive simply means a disorder in thinking. Many, if not most, psychological disorders involve problems associated with thinking. For example, agoraphobia--the fear of the out-of-doors is a cognitive disorder. Agoraphobics are not any more dangerous to society than any other member of the population.

Repeated sociological and psychological studies have been conducted to look at the danger mental illness represents. These studies keep coming back with the same answer...on average, the mentally ill, even those with severe mental illness (i.e. schizophrenia) are no more likely to harm others than the mentally well.

Person's with dissociative disorders experience episodes of being out of touch with reality. Their perceptions no longer represent reality but are informed by cognitive problems and produce what you would probably call delusions. It's fairly common for such persons to have amnesia about things that happen while in those states of mind. Amnesia whether in PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder or other stress related psychological disorders is a mechanism that the human brain employs to protect oneself from events that are psychologically stressful/traumatic. Having a psychogenic amnesia doesn't mean a person is dangerous to others.

[ck4829]

2. Yep, posting about stuff means you're peeved

Any other brilliant deductions you want to share?

[HereSince1628]

3. I think you were stating a grievance

The definition peeved: 1. A vexation; a grievance. 2. A resentful mood