Slippery Slope

I know this isn’t uncommon, but unfortunately we often don’t pay attention until it happens in our backyard.

Omaha psychiatrist attacked at Lincoln Regional Center dies

Dr. Louis Martin spent the last 18 years examining the minds of the criminally insane.

Thursday, he died from the severe brain injuries that authorities say he suffered at the hands of one of those patients.

Dr. Y. Scott Moore, a fellow clinical director at the regional center, said Martin was tirelessly dedicated to his patients...

"He was very concerned for his patients," Moore said. "He leaned over backwards to make sure he had made an honest evaluation of a patient.

"He was extremely careful — and very empathetic with his patients. This was his life."

Ultimately, it was his death, too.

Eric F. Lewis, 35, had been charged with first-degree assault in the attack on Martin. Lewis, one of Martin's patients at the regional center, had made several vows that he would not be force-fed medication for paranoid schizophrenia.

After Martin testified at a hearing two weeks ago, a Douglas County district judge ordered that Lewis be forcibly medicated so he could regain his competency to stand trial on charges that he sexually assaulted two Omaha women.

Upon his return to the regional center, Lewis wrote an 11-page letter saying he wouldn't take his medicine.

The morning of July 22, a State Patrol investigator said, Lewis then piled his belongings at the front door — and ambushed Martin as he walked inside.

It was an attack that regional center officials say they couldn't have predicted or prevented — despite a history of threats and assaults by Lewis. That history included two assaults on patients at the regional center and a third assault in which he is alleged to have jumped and attacked a Douglas County inmate.

Society has the right to not fear an attack by a person with a history of schizophrenia, who has exhibited violent behavior in the past. But the person suffering from schizophrenia has the right not to be forced into a medicated state against his will. Where on this slippery slope do you draw the line? Or do you?

Death Penalty for Schizophrenic Murderer Blocked

Death Penalty for Delusional Murderer Blocked - New York Times

HOUSTON, June 28 — Enforcing its edict against execution of the insane, a split United States Supreme Court today overturned the death sentence of a delusional Texas murderer who insisted he was being punished for preaching the gospel.

In a sharp rebuke to lower courts, the justices ruled 5 to 4 that the defendant, Scott Louis Panetti, was not shown to possess sufficient understanding of why he was to be put to death for gunning down his wife’s parents in 1992...

In a harsh dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas called the ruling "a half-baked holding that leaves the details of the insanity standard for the District Court to work out." He was joined in the minority by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, and Samuel A. Alito Jr...

In an interview with The New York Times last November, Mr. Panetti, clutching verses from scripture, declared, "The devil has been trying to rub me out to keep me from preaching." Until restrained by a guard, he started to strip off his prison uniform to show scars from burns he said were inflicted by demons and healed by President John F. Kennedy with coconut milk after the sinking of his torpedo boat in World War II.

Folks, this is scary. Even for Texas it's obvious this guy shouldn't be executed. Look at the vote - a 5 to 4 vote with the dissents coming entirely from the conservative side.

We often don't fully realize the long-term impact a president can have. The nominations of radically conservative justices almost allowed this man to die. It would have been a criminal act, and as Americans in our system we would all have been complicit in his death.

Get active. Be an advocate. Demand compassion and tolerance in our elected officials and their appointees. As individuals we CAN make a difference.