Dealing with the violent mentally ill -- the system isn't working [View All]

[theHandpuppet]

I'm posting an excerpt from this article in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Obviously the existing system for dealing with the violent mentally ill failed here, and 93 year old Ida Martin paid the price.

I don't know what the solution is, but when those who are found "not guilty" of violent crimes by reason of insanity, then they can't be released into society without strict monitoring. Nor can you expect those who must be on medications to do the rational thing and take those medications as directed. I personally know a family who for years lived in abject terror of a schizophrenic and violent family member who shuffled in and out of psychiatric hospitals and each time he was released, refused his meds and became violent.

I assume the laws differ from state to state but I'm sure this issue is a complicated one -- at what point do you tread on the rights of the violent mentally ill at the expense of others? Was there simply a failure to monitor offenders such as James House? Did the police drop the ball when, as the article states, they "noted House was involved in a July 22 incident there where he was found walking near his Losantiville Avenue apartment wearing a bandana and carrying a steak knife. They took the knife away from him and let him go."? But if he committed no crime, you can't really hold him.

Like I said, I don't know what the solution is but the current system isn't working. Mr. House has once again entered a not guilty plea.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091102/NEWS0107/311020035/0/SPT0101/Man-indicted-in-death-of-woman--93

Man indicted in death of elderly woman
James House III was indicted Monday following his arrest for the Oct. 20 fatal stabbing of a 93-year-old woman.

A Hamilton County grand jury indicted House, 28, on a charge of aggravated murder, carrying a maximum sentence of life sentence without the possibility of parole.

House is accused of stabbing Ida Martin to death on the sidewalk near her Roselawn home. He was arrested the next day.

<snipping>

House was released June 1, 2008, from a mental facility where he spent 10 years after a similar incident where he stabbed a woman in 1998 but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. All court oversight of House ended a year later, this June.

Martin’s death sparked a debate over House’s case between judges. Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Ralph “Ted” Winkler said he recommended House be monitored by the Probate Court after he was released from the state-run mental hospital, but that court declined to accept the case because no one deemed House a danger to himself or others.... MORE