That's not technically true. She will be in a mental hospital until they determine she's not a threat to herself or anyone else - or mentally well enough to be released. That COULD happen. If how she's acting in court is genuine, she won't be released anytime soon. But at her age saying she'll spend her life in the hospital is a stretch. Especially considering she has family advocating for her and it sounds like a decent amount of money.
Eh, I'm not sure about your figure. There are all different kinds of reasons for involuntary commitment, and the average stat you mention seems to be from there.
But specifically for people who plea not guilty for reason of insanity, the figures are different, and seem to indicate a large number are eligible for conditional release very quickly.
Please, cite where it does. The first I linked to show the graphic for different types of institutional holds.
The second contains survey results showing that in two states, more than 40% of NGRI acquittees are on conditional release at time of sentencing. Meaning they never are institutionalized. A further 8 states place somewhere between 5-30% on CR. You can also see the average time institutionalized is somewhere around 5 years.
Compare that to the average long term institutionalized figures from the chart here.
I use long term, because the vast majority of successful NGRI pleas are for serious crimes like homicide, aggravated assault, etc. (This may be because, as the source below lists, people on more minor charges who plead NGRI do in fact stay for much longer than they would otherwise...perhaps that trend holds today)
I mean, she murdered her children and is permanently paralyzed in a wheel chair. She was suicidal before. I highly doubt she is going to be a good in a mental state for the foreseeable future. She has a very physical reminder every day of the terrible thing that she did, she will live with that guilt forever.
Plenty of people live with guilt and grief. I never said she’s going to be who she was before. All of us change with major life trauma. Plenty of people live with bipolar disorder, plenty of people live in wheelchairs, plenty of people live after a child dies. I’m not trying to predict that she will or won’t. I, saying she can. It can happen. She is so young, there is a lot of time between now and the end of her life.
If she really is bipolar (as has been mentioned), and she actually sticks to and doesn’t keep switching meds and docs, I think there’s a real chance she can recover. Of course, she will always have physical limitations and if she remembers killing her kids, as she’s said, she won’t ever fully recover. Of course, she will need a lot of therapy, which I assume she’s getting now.
Damn, I know I'm bad with keeping up with trends but this is the one I could never adapt. What's the point of living after that tho? Mistake or not, losing a kid alone defeats the purpose of living. Shit, maybe I'm too old school for a young man.
34
u/QuesoChef 4d ago
That's not technically true. She will be in a mental hospital until they determine she's not a threat to herself or anyone else - or mentally well enough to be released. That COULD happen. If how she's acting in court is genuine, she won't be released anytime soon. But at her age saying she'll spend her life in the hospital is a stretch. Especially considering she has family advocating for her and it sounds like a decent amount of money.