The Insanity Defense: A Public Danger

[mystery-ak]

The Insanity Defense: A Public Danger

If certain individuals by virtue of their mental condition pose a continuing and unpredictable threat, then the appropriate response is permanent removal from situations where they can harm others.

Jim Cardoza | April 15, 2026

On August 22, 2025, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who had fled her country because of the Russian invasion, was stabbed from behind three times while seated on a train. The perpetrator, Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., was arrested and charged with first-degree murder but was later determined to be mentally incapable of standing trial.

Cases like that of Iryna Zarutska bring into sharp focus the gap between abstract theories and concrete consequences. Here is what happens when dangerous individuals intersect with systems more concerned with process than protection. This tragedy is more than a loss of life; it underscores a recurring pattern of sheltering the criminally insane from logical consequences.

The phrase “criminally insane” somehow diminishes the threat they pose and rests on a profound misunderstanding. If anything, such a designation ought to sharpen our awareness of that threat. A person who commits violent acts within the bounds of rational calculation may be deterred by consequences, constrained by incentives, or rehabilitated through changes in circumstance. But a person who commits those same acts without regard to reality itself -- untethered from reason, immune to ordinary incentives -- presents a far more intractable danger.

Yet modern discourse often moves in the opposite direction. Once the label of insanity is applied, the conversation shifts almost immediately from protection to treatment and from accountability to sympathy. This is not because the facts have changed, but because the narrative has. The perpetrator is no longer seen primarily as a threat to others but as a victim of his own condition. The victims of his actions, meanwhile, fade into the background.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/04/the_insanity_defense_a_public_danger.html

[DefiantMassRINO]

In Dem eyes, the perps are more equal than the victims and the public.

What does animal control do with an aggressive animal that lacks self-restraint or cannot be controlled when it presents a threat to the public? ... they put it down.

Euthanasia is not the answer, but allowing them to roam free in the hopes they'll take their meds and that they'll eventually control themselves is not the answer either.

Letting a lion loose at a children's playground is a bad idea.  Allowing human predators to prey upon us is also a bad idea.

[Smokin Joe]

Okay.

Crazy.
and
Violent.

Do you really want that on the streets?

We used to remand them to mental health for a long (indefinite) stay at a secure facility.

[The_Reader_David]

The view expressed is absurd.  What is potentially a public danger is not remanding a person found not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity to a secure psychiatric facility until such time as psychiatric treatment renders him or her harmless in the estimation of multiple psychiatric professionals, including both those providing the treatment and some not involved in the treatment with a mandate to err on the side of protecting the public.

The defense per se is a perfectly reasonable piece of well-established law.

[Fishrrman]

I believe that if a person who is obviously mentally incompetent commits a dangerous criminal act, that is all the more reason to remove him from society.

And if it's a capital crime, I believe the incompetent should face the same penalties as a [so-called] "competent criminal". That includes the death penalty.

Why?
If a rogue, violent dog attacks someone, that dog will likely be put down. I see a mentally-incompetent killer  to be MORE of a threat to society than the dog, actually. All too often, the incompetent (also dangerously insane) will be incarcerated for a short period, then released and free to be crazy and kill or injure again. How many times was the black who killed Ms. Zarutska arrested, confined, released?

It is "the act" (i.e., the crime) which should be punished, regardless of whether the criminal is sane and lucid or incompetent and insane.

Mental capacity should have NOTHING to do with it.
Do we dwell over the mental capacity of a pit bull who mauls a child?

I daresay we do the obvious... we eliminate the animal.
So should we do the same with the nonthinking "animals" amongst us that happen to be in human form...