random conversations...

[chrisau8r.livejournal.com]

x-posted, my journal and multiplicity

I was watching 60 Minutes last night and they were talking (GAH talking, NOT tawking, lol) about people who commit crimes while under the influence of drugs, and use that as a defence. All my flatmates thought this was stupid. The conversation steered to the same situation, but where the defendant was a multiple instead of high on crack or whatever.

Dat said that if it was us, he wouldn't wanna use insanity as a defence. He'd plead guilty, not guilty, whatever, and not bring the multiplicity into it. Because if we couldn't work together to stop one of us committing a crime, then we were all to blame.

What does everyone think? Obviously it's not quite the same in a system with next to no co-consciousness, but yeah...

Chris

Comments

[dour.livejournal.com]

This is unfortunately an area where our existing system of crime and punishment doesn't have the best of answers. But it does have analogies.

Thinking that it's your fault if you can't stop another peer from committing a crime, even if you're co-conscious and witnessing it as it happens, is wrong. It's no different than a situation in which one member of a group of friends, in front of all the others, suddenly decides to shoot someone. Not jumping on the man with a gun for fear of your own life, is not a crime. It may make you feel bad, powerless, but that doesn't make you guilty. Jumping on the man with the gun, and being thrown off, is even less a crime. Failure to stop the event, doesn't mean you caused the event. People are bullied into complacency all the time; it's called duress.

Sadly, I think an insanity plea really is the best answer. That's the only way to prevent a bunch of innocent parties for being sent in for a full prison term. The important part would be to have a good lawyer, and a therapist who you trust and who understands how to work with a multiple, who can act as expert witness and help guide the court's decision as to treatment.

Not necessarilly the case

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

I believe there are so-called samaritan laws in certain areas, which do require you to take action when a crime is being commited. These are controversial, assuming they aren't urban legend.

Also the circumstance is not exactly analogous. If you are in regular communication, for example, there is the possibility that you were aware prior to the incident, and could notify authorities, perhaps getting the treatment before any crimes were committed. Not doing anything in those cases could get you jail time in certain areas, as it may qualify you as an accomplice.

There are also other ways to stop the person from commiting the crime that is available to you, that aren't to most in a different body. Disabling thier control of the body, or even pushing them back while you front, are all ways that are generally not considered available to most other people, but are avaible in some multiple systems.

--Me

Re: Not necessarilly the case

[dour.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course, about prior awareness, and the possibility of disabling a peer. But I was assuming that there was no such awareness (or notifying the authorities was impossible), and that the peer in question was able to maintain control against any efforts of others. Both of which are not uncommon situations. The question is, after all, what to do in a situation where all (or many) of the others are genuinely innocent. If they're not, the question gets really easy to answer! ;)

Re: Not necessarilly the case

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

I've never heard that. There ARE Good Samaratin laws, but they are basically to protect people who DO help. Example: You're in an accident, I stop to help. You're unconscious, I check find no pulse no breathing and administer CPR. Unless I am grossly negligent or just totally f*ck it up, the laws prevent you from suing me for cracking a couple ribs. Or your family from suing me if you didn't make it.

This was set up becuase it WAS happening with increasing frequency, and oftentimes the result was that trained professionals would not stop for fear of being sued.

Re: Not necessarilly the case

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Professionals are not covered by those laws. They can still be sued although sometimes there's a law saying that their malpractice insurance will cover good samaritan acts.

Nor are you covered by the laws if you try to perform something you have not been formally trained in. For example, if your experience with CPR consists of watching old Rescue 911 reruns but you go ahead and attempt to perform CPR then the person can sue you for any damage you do.

Re: Not necessarilly the case

[el-gremmo.livejournal.com]

There are also "Samaritan" laws in other parts of the world, such as Israel. The man who shot Yitzak Rabin pleaded not guilty based on a law that allows you to commit what would otherwise be an act of murder in defence of a third party. The assassin believed that Rabin was threatening the life of someone, namely his nation, and pleaded he was acting under the protection of said law.

Of course, the judiciary thought otherwise.

- Gremlyn

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

It would depend greatly on the system itself.

--Me

[luwana.livejournal.com]

I have to say that if Selene were to go crazy and do something, I would feel incredibley guilty at not being able to stop her. I don't really know how I'd plead. Insanity might be the best route in my opinion. We're not innocent, but neither are we both guilty.

[egyptian-spider.livejournal.com]

We agree completely.

If we can't stop someone from doing a crime, we all should pay for it. *shrugs*

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

If an adult in a system did something, I don't think it'd be fair for the children to have to be punished right along with them...

[krystale.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think we should all be punished because the point of multiplicity is to protect. Risking jail isn't protecting. I would, however, use the multiplicity to get my sentance converted to someplace like a mental hospital. There at least I could learn about controling. But it's a moot point, none of us would ever commit a crime any higher than a ticket, and even that by accident.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"I would, however, use the multiplicity to get my sentance converted to someplace like a mental hospital."

... you're making the assumption that going to a mental hospital would be better than going to jail. It wouldn't be. People in jail have specific rights, and they know when they're getting out - people in mental hospitals do not.

Walk through those doors as "not guilty by reason of insanity", i.e. one of the criminally-insane, and you've kissed ALL your rights goodbye. They can (and will) keep you constantly heavily drugged; they can put you in 4-point restraints for any reason or none at all, for as long as they want; they can keep you in solitary confinement indefinitely - they can fry your brain with electricity, or cut it open and deliberately destroy parts of it, and you can't do anything about it; you've got no recourse of any sort. That's your "treatment", and if you've been committed, you have no say in it - your doctor decides, and you don't get to pick the doctor.

They can keep you there forever, y'know. After they've trashed your memory and crippled your motor functions, they can just put you in a nice quiet back ward with others like yourself, where you will have all the Thorazine and daytime television you could ever want, until you finally die of old age and/or neglect.

That's how it works, and don't believe people who'll tell you "oh, not any more; times have changed." They haven't changed, except that the drugs are more powerful, the surgery's done with lasers instead of icepicks, and the bureauocracy is much more skilled at covering their asses.

If you want a standard of comparison, ask people who've been in jail how scared they'd be of going back, then ask people who've been in mental hospitals the same question.

[thebkcam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to agree with this. One of us voluntarily checked us into a mental hospital last summer, seeking treatment for suicidal depression; but once they found out we were multiple, it became hell on earth. Seriously. Apparently electroshock is alive and well, though everyone calls it ECT now, as is drugging heavily, indefinite solitary confinement, and of course, automatic assumption that every problem, mental or social, is a result of the multiplicity and that all issues you may have with fellow inmates is your "perception" and nothing more (i.e., you imagined it, made it up, etc.) And that's from VOLUNTARY admission; from what he saw and told us about, the involuntary patients had it worse.

Really, in the event that one of us committed a crime-- unlikely, because I'm a big stickler for intrasystem awareness and collective responsibility --I'd rather take my chances with jail than a hospital.

You know

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm criticizing you in any way, but I'm starting to get angry at the number of people I know who checked in, or were forcibly checked in to a center.

Exactly what is expected of people for them to "function" in society, because it seems the saner people I know get locked up, and lets not discuss who not only don't get locked up, but end up "pillars of the community".

(Mind you, I consider myself a crazy muther fucker who they seem to not trust with any authority, so I guess I fall in the middle.)

--Me

[krystale.livejournal.com]

Regardless. I've seen the inside of a jail in some of our younger, wilder, less controlled days. I'd rather be doped up. It's a very personal preferance, hence the "I would" and "my sentance. Were I to commit a crime either myself or by not stopping one of my others I would rather my brain melt in a padded room than have to be in jail. It's probally even completly irrational, but I make no claim not to be. So yes, I think you're average person would be better off in jail, but I'd turn violent and then be hospitalized anyway.

It's a moot point, anyway, on this one part, however because I never, nor will any of my others, do anything to get me imprisioned anywhere. Thanks for your view however, it was a perspective I hadn't considered.

I know both

[spookshow-girl.livejournal.com]

The people who went to jail seem to be pretty okay. Most of the people in a mental home were really traumatized by the whole thing.

Some have had okay experiences, and I'm tangentally aware of the fact that prison isn't always a cakewalk.

--Me

[beyli.livejournal.com]

I've had opprotunity to speak with clinicians at a hospital that had wards for the criminally insane, and they pretty much said pointblank they didn't care about the mental state of some patients. They saw the inmates as weak folks who thought they could get an easy way out and thus decided there was no chance any of them would be reccomened for release. The folks didn't say anything about actually treating them for anything.

[whisperedones.livejournal.com]

Ditto to what Spookshow_Girl said. It really depends on the system.

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

o_O Guys, the insanity plea is very hard to get through. Additionally, it does not let you off the hook. You get put in a mental facility. You're still jailed, with all the not so lovely things that Elenbarathi has described above. Often times, you are in there LONGER than if you'd gotten the jail sentence.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

I share the view that if a multiple system member has committed a crime, the system should do the time.

I know that's in contradiction with some other principles of law, but myself I honestly believe that's the only way that a multiple system can continue to be regarded as a person under the law and permitted to do things like say, sign contracts (employment, mortgage papers, etc.). If you are going to say "well if Suzie did it Mary didn't" then how can Mary sign a mortgage based on Suzie's income? Or what if it's Paul who works? And how can that be proven?

Etc. You can't expect society & the legal system to treat multiples as single people when it's advantageous and as separate people when it's not.

You can use the corporation analogy, but there - boards of directors can go to jail for crimes employees committed, depending on the circumstances, so there it is.

Shandra

[bacskocky.livejournal.com]

Any sort of dissociative "disorder", the category that MPD fits into, is extremely difficult to get to fly in a courtroom. A crime of passion, where teh person was so pissed off that they killed someone, and then didn't remember doing it until days later is a difficult thing to prove. Tell a jury that you're a multiple, and if they don't laugh at you, they will most likely put you into the psych ward of a prison. A multiple, with teh way multiples are currently lookedat by society, cannot risk being subjected to teh treatments for schizophrenia that the government wards tend to insist on using.

You cannot expect leniancy just because you are a multiple. True, you have things you deal with that the rest of the population doesn't, but just because you are a multiple does not mean you should get away with something that one of the others in your system did, even if you DO end up just in a ward the rest of your life. (and from what I've heard abotu wards myself, you'd be better off just taking your chances without announcing you're a multiple and going to a regular prison)