Re: Pat Ritter. Books
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:38 pm
'Dynamic OMR Stories' - Story 31:
The Dawn Of Insanity
When is a person deemed to be insane? This question arose many times when I investigated crimes involving people who thought God told them to murder the other person or to do them harm.
I remember clearly an investigation which happened many years ago involving a father and son who lived on a property. At the time the son had been released from a mental institution to visit his father who was dying of cancer.
During his visit over Christmas the son fatally shot his father while the father watched television. He admitted to killing his father, to put him out of his misery. At the time he honestly thought he did the right thing when God told him to do it.
Later when the son appeared in the Supreme Court, he pleaded ‘not guilty’ on the grounds God told him to murder his father. His admission to hearing voices in his head demanding he shoot his father to stop him from suffering.
The detective asked this question, ‘if a policeman was standing beside you, would’ve you killed your father?’ His reply, ‘no, it would be wrong to murder someone in front of a policeman.’
The jury found the son guilty of murdering his father. His answered, he knew it to be wrong shooting his father if a policeman was standing beside him, he had the capacity to know how wrong to commit the offence. He received a life imprisonment for his actions.
Up until this time many persons escaped their punishment on the grounds of ‘insanity’. Detective Brown from the Criminal Investigation Branch in Adelaide posed this question to a suspect during a murder investigation.
If Detective Brown didn’t ask this question, perhaps more persons would’ve escaped punishment by admitting to being insane at the time of the offence. This always puzzled me when in my work as a detective because if a person claimed they were insane, the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the person was sane at the time they committed the offence and knew what they did wrong.
Detective Brown’s initiative and clarity when questioning his offender about a policeman being present at the time certainly placed the onus of proof back onto the offender to prove they were insane at the time of the offence.
Word count:390
IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE OF THESE STORIES CLICK ONTO THIS LINK: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/501597.
The Dawn Of Insanity
When is a person deemed to be insane? This question arose many times when I investigated crimes involving people who thought God told them to murder the other person or to do them harm.
I remember clearly an investigation which happened many years ago involving a father and son who lived on a property. At the time the son had been released from a mental institution to visit his father who was dying of cancer.
During his visit over Christmas the son fatally shot his father while the father watched television. He admitted to killing his father, to put him out of his misery. At the time he honestly thought he did the right thing when God told him to do it.
Later when the son appeared in the Supreme Court, he pleaded ‘not guilty’ on the grounds God told him to murder his father. His admission to hearing voices in his head demanding he shoot his father to stop him from suffering.
The detective asked this question, ‘if a policeman was standing beside you, would’ve you killed your father?’ His reply, ‘no, it would be wrong to murder someone in front of a policeman.’
The jury found the son guilty of murdering his father. His answered, he knew it to be wrong shooting his father if a policeman was standing beside him, he had the capacity to know how wrong to commit the offence. He received a life imprisonment for his actions.
Up until this time many persons escaped their punishment on the grounds of ‘insanity’. Detective Brown from the Criminal Investigation Branch in Adelaide posed this question to a suspect during a murder investigation.
If Detective Brown didn’t ask this question, perhaps more persons would’ve escaped punishment by admitting to being insane at the time of the offence. This always puzzled me when in my work as a detective because if a person claimed they were insane, the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the person was sane at the time they committed the offence and knew what they did wrong.
Detective Brown’s initiative and clarity when questioning his offender about a policeman being present at the time certainly placed the onus of proof back onto the offender to prove they were insane at the time of the offence.
Word count:390
IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE OF THESE STORIES CLICK ONTO THIS LINK: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/501597.