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Judge approves use of 'truth serum' on accused Aurora shooter James Holmes

James Holmes the individual doesn't have to prove anything or say anything - his attorneys do.

James Holmes doesn't have to take the stand or say a word to anyone about why he did what he allegedly did.

true, but if they want to convince a jury he is insane he will have to speak to the shrinks. he can stay silent about it, but that is not going to get him looking insane. he was not a crazy mute before it happened, so that whole idea would get destroyed by the prosecution. Silence is not going to help him, and it would actually show he knows what he is doing. You are arguing a completely different issue which has much different legal ramifications. If you commit a crime and are not pleading insanity as a reason why you did it then silence is a great thing for reasonable doubt. he is claiming something, and obscuring that claim does him no good, or the defense if you want to be technical about it. The defense wants him to be declared insane at the time. the state has the opportunity to question that claim. This is court, not an interrogation. if you make an argument in court the opponent has the opportunity to bring up evidence to invalidate it. to make a claim is not invoking your fifth amendment. It is inherently making a statement which the prosecution can attack.
It's not weather Holmes defense is viable it's weather or not it's relevant and that is for a jury to decide.

yes, and that means the jury will be presented with counter arguments to the defendant's state of mind. You don't just get to make a claim on either side and have it not responded to. His defense team will have their own opportunity to present their evidence he was insane at the time. His rights are not being violated by allowing the prosecution to argue against that claim. that is what actually goes on in court. Since he is not being compelled to plead guilty, which is in fact what he is doing if he goes with insanity, then your entire argument becomes void. he is not claiming innocence with a insanity plea, and that is the very simple part you are missing here.
 
What a ridiculous ruling.

Why would such a thing even be necessary? They caught him with guns and ammo. He had freaking red dyed hair so he was relatively easy to pick out in a crowd. They know that his apartment was all booby trapped. He's guilty. Put him in front of a jury and get the damned verdict.

Well the defense was testing the ability for their client to plead insanity and the judge decided to use the truth serum to detect if he would qualify for an insanity plea. This judge is a moron who, like Deuce said, might have seriously jeapordized this case for the prosecution.
 
Lol! I love how transparent judges are these days. How in the hell is the truth serum constitutional? I swear. Don't even bother people, the state is forcing the guy to help them.
 
being from texas you should appreciate this. if he is insane they cannot execute him. I will also note that he is not pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, he is pleading guilty by reason of insanity. You don't need a jury or a verdict to be reached to plead guilty at any time and be convicted. I know you have watched a bunch of lawyer shows and think he will just walk free because he proves he is insane, but it simply is not true. once you establish you are insane in a legal sense you are no longer under your own control. They are not going to release a person who hosed down a movie theater with bullets with a prescription on outpatient status. if he is insane, he goes to a max security booby hatch.

It comes down to the fact that drugging someone for the purpose of forcing him to be witness against himself, which prosecution would seek to use against his plea, prior to reading the verdict, is unlawful. Him being released certainly had never entered my mind as a possibility.

btw... I’m not sure why I would inherently appreciate something because of where I live, and I don’t watch lawyer shows.
 
Very uncomfortable with the idea, for several reasons.

Medical privacy and due process.... and the dubious effectiveness of so-called "Truth serums" in the first place.
 
I think this whole fiasco is an issue of weather or not he spends the rest of his life in a mental institution or a prison...

now you are getting it. The defense wants him in an institution. It would probably be the best thing he could hope for. They also want to take execution off the table. Both of which are accomplished by a insanity plea. I am not terribly bothered by the idea that the prosecution using means to determine a state of mind defense to be a lie. You already admit to doing the crime when you make the claim so self incrimination becomes a non-issue. Then it just becomes an issue over why you did it and whether or not that excuse is valid. In that case lying becomes a major issue, and making an argument over the defendant's attempt to lie becomes a major part of that. if he is sane lying would be a way to mitigate punishment, which is a argument for the jury to decide if it is valid.

the defense is making the claim and now they are going to have to argue it. I don't see anywhere that a claim cannot be argued against in court. What I do see is your right to make that argument in court, which involves a counter argument. If he was pleading not guilty i would agree that a truth syrum is not only unreliable, but also a huge violation of his rights. however, he is pleading guilty.
 
true, but if they want to convince a jury he is insane he will have to speak to the shrinks. he can stay silent about it, but that is not going to get him looking insane. he was not a crazy mute before it happened, so that whole idea would get destroyed by the prosecution. Silence is not going to help him, and it would actually show he knows what he is doing. You are arguing a completely different issue which has much different legal ramifications. If you commit a crime and are not pleading insanity as a reason why you did it then silence is a great thing for reasonable doubt. he is claiming something, and obscuring that claim does him no good, or the defense if you want to be technical about it. The defense wants him to be declared insane at the time. the state has the opportunity to question that claim. This is court, not an interrogation. if you make an argument in court the opponent has the opportunity to bring up evidence to invalidate it. to make a claim is not invoking your fifth amendment. It is inherently making a statement which the prosecution can attack.


yes, and that means the jury will be presented with counter arguments to the defendant's state of mind. You don't just get to make a claim on either side and have it not responded to. His defense team will have their own opportunity to present their evidence he was insane at the time. His rights are not being violated by allowing the prosecution to argue against that claim. that is what actually goes on in court. Since he is not being compelled to plead guilty, which is in fact what he is doing if he goes with insanity, then your entire argument becomes void. he is not claiming innocence with a insanity plea, and that is the very simple part you are missing here.

James Holmes defense can (and will) put the best defense possible together. At the end of the day it will be up to the jury to find him guilty or determine that he is insane.. However Holmes has no responsibility to help the court hang him.

At the end of the day I don't think any of this matters considering he will end up in a prison or mental institution for the rest of his life. Not to mention if they find him sane and give him the death penalty he will either die in prison of natural causes or get offed by other inmates before he sees the death chamber...
 
While I am against setting a president like this, I am not certain it is a violation of the 5th amendment. If he is pleading guilty by reason of insanity he HAS to talk to a court appoint psychiatrist anyway. Is THAT a violation of the 5th amendment?

I am still against it, though.
 
While I am against setting a president like this, I am not certain it is a violation of the 5th amendment. If he is pleading guilty by reason of insanity he HAS to talk to a court appoint psychiatrist anyway. Is THAT a violation of the 5th amendment?

I am still against it, though.

IMHO, forcing him to take this drug before the interview is do different than extracting information from torture. It is unreliable and unconstitutional.
 
Unless every person claiming insanity is given this "truth serum", why is he being singled out?

Very uncomfortable with a person having to take a serum to prove they are something.
 
now you are getting it. The defense wants him in an institution. It would probably be the best thing he could hope for. They also want to take execution off the table. Both of which are accomplished by a insanity plea. I am not terribly bothered by the idea that the prosecution using means to determine a state of mind defense to be a lie. You already admit to doing the crime when you make the claim so self incrimination becomes a non-issue. Then it just becomes an issue over why you did it and whether or not that excuse is valid. In that case lying becomes a major issue, and making an argument over the defendant's attempt to lie becomes a major part of that. if he is sane lying would be a way to mitigate punishment, which is a argument for the jury to decide if it is valid.

the defense is making the claim and now they are going to have to argue it. I don't see anywhere that a claim cannot be argued against in court. What I do see is your right to make that argument in court, which involves a counter argument. If he was pleading not guilty i would agree that a truth syrum is not only unreliable, but also a huge violation of his rights. however, he is pleading guilty.

I don't see the difference between a state hospital and a state prison...

IMO, Holmes would live longer if he was given the death penalty - in a situation like that he would at least end up on a 24-7 lockdown wing. If he gets life they may throw him into gen-pop and then the wolves will eat him. Jeffery Dahmer is a perfect example of what happens to high profile prisoners when they are thrown in general population. How long did he last? a month or two?
 
"**** you, 5th amendment!"

Will be one of the easiest appeals ever, and the guy will walk free because of this idiocy.

I thought the Constitution was obsolete and illegitimate cause it was written by a bunch of rich, white slaveowners. My how things change.
 
I thought the Constitution was obsolete and illegitimate cause it was written by a bunch of rich, white slaveowners. My how things change.

That's just your willful partisan misinterpretation. But have fun arguing with your own imagination.
 
"Truth" Drugs in Interrogation - https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol5no2/html/v05i2a09p_0001.htm

Great read about this method. I'm not sure if / what new information has come to light since this was written in 1993, but I would think the below conclusion would still hold true.

The salient points that emerge from this discussion are the following. No such magic brew as the popular notion of truth serum exists. The barbiturates, by disrupting defensive patterns, may sometimes be helpful in interrogation, but even under the best conditions they will elicit an output contaminated by deception, fantasy, garbled speech, etc. A major vulnerability they produce in the subject is a tendency to believe he has revealed more than he has. It is possible, however, for both normal individuals and psychopaths to resist drug interrogation; it seems likely that any individual who can withstand ordinary intensive interrogation can hold out in narcosis. The best aid to a defense against narco-interrogation is foreknowledge of the process and its limitations. There is an acute need for controlled experimental studies of drug reaction, not only to depressants but also to stimulants and to combinations of depressants, stimulants, and ataraxics.
 
Intent is what matters. What you did and why you did it is extremely applicable to a charge and a defense.

Here are a couple of mock examples of my point.

Someone could slap me across the face and when I punch them back in the head for being stupid I could kill them... Would I be guilty of murder if my intent was just to punch them and not kill them?

Now lets use the same scenario - a guy slaps me across the face, I pull out a gun and shoot him in the face. Am I guilty of murder?

Same scenario - I hate a guy who I know will slap me, I concoct a plan for him to slap me just so I can shoot him.

The end in all these scenarios ended up with a guy dead but is the intent the same in all of them? no.

My point being insane is no excuse for pleading not guilty of a crime. pleading guilty and insane is ok if it can be proven a person is insane.

In your example. IMO, you are still guilty of murder. Of course, intent ( or insanity) would be taken into account on determining punishment. In both examples , you still committed a crime.
 
"Truth" Drugs in Interrogation - https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol5no2/html/v05i2a09p_0001.htm

Great read about this method. I'm not sure if / what new information has come to light since this was written in 1993, but I would think the below conclusion would still hold true.

There is an acute need for controlled experimental studies of drug reaction, not only to depressants but also to stimulants and to combinations of depressants, stimulants, and ataraxics.

Or they could just, you know, not ****ing do that.
 
My point being insane is no excuse for pleading not guilty of a crime. pleading guilty and insane is ok if it can be proven a person is insane.

In your example. IMO, you are still guilty of murder. Of course, intent ( or insanity) would be taken into account on determining punishment.

Is it possible to enter an insanity plea without admitting guilt?
 
Or they could just, you know, not ****ing do that.

Yeah I definitely disagree with that part. I was referring to the points about it being a poor method of integration.
 
Is it possible to enter an insanity plea without admitting guilt?

I don't know. What I have been stating is I disagree with the not guilty by reason of insanity. Our laws should be changed to allow only guilty but insane pleas.
 
The point is being missed here - the commission of the crime is not at issue - the defense is set to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, in effect, admitting the crime but not intent or mental capacity to know it was wrong.

I believe from my reading of the article that the court is allowing the defense to enter a "truth serum" test as evidence, as part of their plea but also allowing the prosecution to be part of the testing. It sounds to me that the defense has agreed to the deal which makes it acceptible legally. The only issue at trial, from what I've read, is whether or not he will be held in a mental institution for the rest of his life or if he will be subject to the death penalty upon conviction. He's never going free.

He was allowed to leave the hospital for supervised visits with his parents in 1999, and longer unsupervised releases in 2000.[3] These privileges were revoked when he was found to have smuggled materials about Foster back into the hospital. Hinckley was later allowed supervised visits during 2004 and 2005. Court hearings were held in September 2005 on whether he could have expanded privileges to leave the hospital. Some of the testimony during the hearings centered on whether Hinckley is capable of having a normal relationship with a woman and, if not, whether that would have any bearing on what danger he would pose to society.
On December 30, 2005, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley would be allowed visits, supervised by his parents, to their home in Williamsburg, Virginia. The judge ruled that Hinckley could have up to three visits of three nights and then four visits of four nights, each depending on the successful completion of the last. All of the experts who testified at Hinckley's 2005 conditional release hearing, including the government experts, agreed that his depression and psychotic disorder were in full remission and that he should have some expanded conditions of release.
After Hinckley requested further freedoms including two one-week visits with his parents, as well as a month-long visit, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman denied that request on Wednesday, June 6, 2007; he did not deny the request out of a concern that Hinckley was not ready.[clarification needed]
On June 17, 2009, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley would be given the ability to visit his mother for a dozen visits of 10 days at a time, rather than six, spend more time outside of the hospital, and have a driver’s license.[17] The court also ordered that Hinckley be required to carry a GPS-enabled cell phone to track him whenever he was outside of his parents’ home, and he was forbidden to speak to the news media.[17] This was done over the objections of the prosecutors, who said that he was still a danger to others and had unhealthful and inappropriate thoughts about women. Hinckley recorded a song, “Ballad of an Outlaw,” which the prosecutors claim is “reflecting suicide and lawlessness.”[18]
It was reported in March 2011 that a forensic psychologist at the hospital had testified that “Hinckley has recovered to the point that he poses no imminent risk of danger to himself or others.”[17] Hinckley returned to court in the spring of 2011 for further direction[17] and was granted additional family visits in May 2011.[19] On November 30, 2011, a hearing began in Washington to determine Hinckley’s future.[20]

John Hinckley, Jr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
 
If the precedent is set, it would apply to all cases. As terrible as this crime was, he should have the right to a fair trial and to avoid self incrimination.

Well let it apply to all cases related to mass murderers man!
 
Hi there.

Tungatjeta to you too.

It clearly says in the Amendament that if the matter is concerned about public danger then it is alright to do so. Now this is a mass murderer, let neuroscience handle this!

Or let me have him! Let me have him!

:rock:gunsmilie:hammer:
 
Tungatjeta to you too.

It clearly says in the Amendament that if the matter is concerned about public danger then it is alright to do so. Now this is a mass murderer, let neuroscience handle this!

Or let me have him! Let me have him!

:rock:gunsmilie:hammer:

Not to interfere with your Internet bravado, but what danger does he pose in custody that some truth serum will fix?
 
Not to interfere with your Internet bravado, but what danger does he pose in custody that some truth serum will fix?

Would make a point to future mass murderers that there shall be no escape to pleading for insanity for them for they will be cleansed of their lies with the use of the "truth serum."
 
Would make a point to future mass murderers that there shall be no escape to pleading for insanity for them for they will be cleansed of their lies with the use of the "truth serum."

Lol like THAT is the reason mass murders commit those murders. Because they care about pleading insanity
:roll:

These people are Intent to do what they do regardless of their punishment. Do you know what type of mind it takes to shoot a kid multiple times at close range in the face? Do you REALLY think they are worried about pleading insanity or not?
 
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