Jared Lee Loughner's Mental State.

Well, that was a short hiatus!! I'm glad I didn't force the inspiration though--force never works. It fights the natural flow of the stream of life. Now, on with the new post!!

(Artists rendering of accused killer, Jared Lee Loughner, in court. Photo Credit: Associated Press)

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times

May 26, 2011

Reporting from Tucson—

A federal judge ruled Jared Lee Loughner mentally incompetent to stand trial in the Jan. 8 shooting spree that gravely wounded an Arizona congresswoman after two medical experts agreed he suffered from schizophrenia and for several years has been troubled by delusions and hallucinations.

They said on the news that they will "attempt" to make him fit for trial. If he's not fit for trial, then he clearly wasn't mentally fit when he committed the crime. However, if we dope him up enough, we can throw him in prison and exact our revenge on a mentally sick man??? How can he be thrown in prison, after treatment supposedly makes him "fit for trial" when he wasn't mentally fit at the time of the crime? I don't for one minute excuse his actions, and firmly believe he should be isolated from society, in a hospital, for the criminally insane, for the rest of his life. However, that said, how can he be convicted as a mentally fit man, after the crime was committed as an mentally unfit man? By that logic, a prisoner who committed a crime as a mentally fit person should be able to be acquitted, if he later develops a mental illness that renders him insane.

Being someone with a mental illness, you can't just "make it go away." Now, I'm not a danger to society, like Loughner, (nor am I defending him) but it seems our justice system, and much of America, (if not the world) is ignorant as to the fact that a mental illness isn't curable--at this present time. The last place we should put this individual is in prison, where he will only be agitated further, which could place the staff and other inmates in danger. I think it's safer for everyone to put him in a treatment facility where they have the medications, staff and experience with such cases. As distasteful as it may sound, he does deserve humane treatment. Just because he committed barbaric acts, doesn't give us the right to be barbaric in return. This isn't just a test of his sanity, but a test of how we will behave toward someone who has caused a lot of suffering. If we treat him with brutality in return for how he treated the Congresswoman, then we have just as much a lesson to learn about compassion as he does.

It scares me sometimes how vengeful people can be when they talk of torturing and tormenting prisoners for their crimes. I always look at people who speak that way in a different light. It makes me wonder what's going on in their heads!! It's scary how quickly their religious values and moral beliefs about laws and behavior go out the window when the target is a criminal. It's never ok to treat people in such a way--even if they are hardened criminals. Why? Because then we lose our humanity as a society--and within ourselves. If we behave that way toward criminals, then are we really that different from them?

~Peace to all beings~