Wednesday, April 26, 2006

[Roy] Martians at the Supreme Court

[Posted by Roy]

Nice to see that the Supreme Court reviewed Eric Clark's case. He's the Texas kid who developed schizophrenia and killed a police officer, thinking the officer was an alien. Unfortunately, the Washington Post reports that the Court will probably interpret the case very narrowly, thus not affecting many of the states that have reduced or eliminated the ability to use insanity as a mitigating factor in criminal trials. (So, maybe they'll render an opinion that all citizens have the right to sanity, and require true access to mental health treatment for all US citizens? I must be delusional.)

Hmm, I note that CCHR (Citizen's Commission on Hubbard... no, Human... Rights) testified at the hearing (CCHR is a Scientology-driven organization). Now that's Supreme Irony: an organization founded on the belief that aliens are among us testifying that Mr. Clark's defense (that he thought the police officer was an alien) does not justify an insanity plea... in fact, that there is no such thing as insanity. At least they are internally consistent. (but don't they have a conflict of interest?)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does this mean they believed the police officer really was an alien? Doesn't it matter if he was a good alien or a bad alien? I mean really, no matter how insane you are, you still don't shoot My Favorite Martian.
--Hard to resist, even if it is a serious topic

Anonymous said...

Be careful about saying negative things about scientology. They might send Tom Cruise to jump on your furniture.
Its concerning that the Supreme Court is considering testimony from the CCHR. Are they considered an expert source? Sad.