Woman kills 3 week old baby, eats it

[usafmedic45]

A Confession: I, too, pledged my life in service to healing. Though I know logic tells me within that pledge there would be Zero room to take ANY life for ANY reason, I have no doubt given the proper circumstances, YES, I too would take the life of another human being. I am, however, totally opposed to the State taking life for any reason, especially for the gross immorality of taking a life! It follows, then, that I'm saying I agree the INDIVIDUAL, under certain circumstances has the right, and maybe even the OBLIGATION to take someone's life.

So how is it any different for a group of your peers (the "state") to determine someone deserves to die versus you deciding that you have an "maybe even an obligation" to take the life of another? Remember the "state" is you, I and every other citizen who might be called to jury duty. It's not a mandate that someone be put to death which is why there is a penalty phase after a conviction.

AND HERE'S A (GRISLY) SCENARIO FOR THOSE OF YOU MOST FERVENT ABOUT TAKING THE LIFE OF THE WOMAN REFERRED TO IN THIS THREAD.

You're posing an ethical conundrum that is not valid. There is no comparison between participating in an execution (which I would do without hesitation in a case like this) and failing to do your duty. Thanks for trying to make it seem like there is some comparability between the two but you need to learn how to properly put together an ethical construct before wading into a debacle of a debate like this one.

That said, I know some people who would "show code" or "slow code" the perp ("Damn...I just couldn't get her intubated....couldn't see the cords!"). It's basically the same moral judgment we make when we decide to work a cop shot through the head and while still alive at the moment obviously going to die versus working the :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored: who shot him who is "more viable". Perhaps the better analogy would be "slow coding" a patient who they don't want to survive to suffer anymore (a terminal cancer patient who has been in intractable pain), but the family demands "everything" be done, only in this case it's an argument about societal value versus the alleviation of suffering.

Like it or not, those sort of moral distinctions get made all the time...as one of my colleagues puts it "apparent societal worth is often a factor in the triage decision when you don't have enough caregivers". We treat kids before adults, colleagues before criminals, etc. What you're talking about is an extreme example of that sort of "value-added triage".

Personally, I would at least try to save the patient. It's what I'm there to do after all.

 

[reaper]

I was trying to find out if they ever declared that woman insane or not but stumbled across this: http://pysih.com/2009/08/03/otty-sanchez/

That's just funny. 64% of voters think she deserves to rot in hell. LOL

By the way, no she was not insane according to the prosecution's expert. The final hearing will be in November.

http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11193356

"Camara said a jailhouse evaluation indicates Sanchez is functional and mentally aware because of medication she is taking. But he said the report also suggests Sanchez, who is charged with capital murder, was not mentally stable at the time of the killing."

There is your whole answer right there!

 

[usafmedic45]

"Camara said a jailhouse evaluation indicates Sanchez is functional and mentally aware because of medication she is taking. But he said the report also suggests Sanchez, who is charged with capital murder, was not mentally stable at the time of the killing."

There is your whole answer right there!

There is a biased statement. You're relying upon something coming out of the mouth of her defense attorney. Also keep in mind that "mentally stable" and "legally not responsible for her actions" are two separate things. I think these statements by her attorney are simply an attempt to contaminate the pool of potential jurors with half-truths and misconceptions.

Like someone said in the original debate on this thread, you show me a person who kills and eats another person that is "mentally stable".

 

[RESQ_5_1]

Actually, from a "cost analysis" standpoint, it is more cost effective to keep someone incarcerated for life than to put them to death. After you calculate all the court fees, lawyer's fees, time in court, etc from the appeals process. Plus, the purpose of incarceration is to rehabilitate and deter future crimes. By putting someone to death for a particular crime is supposed to act as a deterrent for anyone else considering committing the same crime. But, it seems that doesn't work. So, Capital Punishment is simply a vehicle for vengeance. To mete out a punishment on those that society feels deserve to die. Now, who are all of the people that support the death penalty to decide who should live and who should die? What absolute power do you hold to deem one life unworthy and another worth allowing to continue?

This is why I am against the Death Penalty and the Mob mentality of those that do support it.

I recently had a patient (who has since passed) diagnosed with 8 brain tumors. Although she was more easily agitated, she wasn't at the same level of the Schizophrenics I have cared for in the past.

 

[Onceamedic]

AND HERE'S A (GRISLY) SCENARIO FOR THOSE OF YOU MOST FERVENT ABOUT TAKING THE LIFE OF THE WOMAN REFERRED TO IN THIS THREAD.

Call of an unknown nature to a private residence. PD on the scene usher you into a bedroom. On the bed is a 3 month old baby, decapitated, obviously dead and with noticeable multiple bite marks out of its face and torso.

Sitting up, leaning against the bed and unconscious (according to the PD) is the mother and suspected perpetrator. Shallow breathing; lips turning blue, BP 86/68 she has a number of knife wounds on her arms, torso and neck. There is much blood on the floor and even though a Police Officer has a bandage placed in position on her neck and holding it tight, there is still blood oozing out from it. Oh, yeah...you took note of the above but spent most of your time trying to believe that you really were seeing pieces of her child dripping from her mouth and in little chunks all over her.

Here's your chance, Lifesavers in favor of capital punishment. You know someone's got to take care of this mess. What would you do?

I would take care of the patient. I want to add that I hear a lot about the career ending call from my co-workers. Each individual has a slightly different one, but most involve kids. This one would be the one for me.

 

[EMSLaw]

If she is so crazy she does not know better, she'll likely not know any better when it comes to the chair.

If she's so crazy that she didn't know better, and she can prove that (the burden of proof in an insanity defense is initially on the defendant), then she's not guilty by reason of insanity (or whatever the state may call it. Guilty but insane. Not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Etc., etc.)

That's the classic formulation of the insanity defense, the so-called M'Naughton rule, "The defendant was laboring under such a defect of the mind that at the time of the crime he or she did not appreciate the nature or consequences of his actions or whether the act was right or wrong." See, generally, McNaghten's Case, 8 Eng. Rep. 718 (H.L. 1843). It's actually a fairly nuanced area. But you can be nutty as a fruit cake and not be legally insane. One fun part of the law is that if you acted under an insane delusion, then you are accountable under the criminal law as if the facts were as you delusionally believed they were - so if you thought the person you killed was one of the body snatchers coming to eat your brain, then you acted in "self-defense" and are not guilty by reason of insanity.

Before everyone goes screaming, remember that a lot of states changed their insanity pleas after the attempted assassination of Ronald Regan, and it is very difficult to establish legal insanity. Also, it's very likely someone who committed a crime like this would spend a very, very long time in a state forensic hospital, so while she might escape the death penalty, she won't be back on the street any time soon.

Anyway... If she is legally sane, this is a case that cries out for the harshest possible punishment.

 

[Luno]

OMG, the other "other" white meat... Sorry, couldn't help that one.

 

[bunkie]

Got to page four and wanted to stress the difference between PPD and Postpartum Psychosis. It's likely the woman had the latter with the extent of her crime.

Women with a personal history of psychosis, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia have an increased risk of developing postpartum psychosis.
http://www.pregnancy-info.net/postpartum_psychosis.html

Lumping women who suffered from PPD into the same group with women who do things like this is pretty offensive and doesn't help the guilt they already feel for the emotions they couldn't help.

 

[SES4]

OMG, the other "other" white meat... Sorry, couldn't help that one.

LMAO. I literally LOL'ed when I read your response Luno.

 

[foxfire]

While everyone is jumping all over the mother and what she did.
Where was the family in all this?:glare: They must have seen the signs. If they knew she was mentaly unstable, so why did they allow the baby to stay with the woman alone? :glare: They need to get there head checked for leaving a defensless baby with a known mental nut case.
The whole thing is repulsive. I feel sorry for the little tyke to have died is such a way. :sad: imagine how the other children have been affected by this. They are going to need some big time counceling.

The Lord has a special place for babies in heaven.

 

[usafmedic45]

Actually, from a "cost analysis" standpoint, it is more cost effective to keep someone incarcerated for life than to put them to death.

Only because we do it in entirely the wrong manner. You give me twenty bucks and I'd be happy to do any of the following to her myself after she's sentenced to death:

I figure if they have you dead to rights (pun intended) for a crime- DNA, a confession, film of you doing it, etc- then you should have zero appeals and you should be executed the next morning at dawn.

As for the chance of executing an "innocent" person, I have this to say to you: Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. For those who don't read Latin, it translates as "Slaughter them all! Surely the Lord can discern his own." Welcome to the origins of "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out".

So, Capital Punishment is simply a vehicle for vengeance. To mete out a punishment on those that society feels deserve to die.

There is nothing different with punishing someone by taking their life versus life imprisonment. The logic of your argument falls apart when you look at the fact I could just as easily argue that it's excessive or heavy-handed to punish someone by taking away their freedom in a situation like this one where there is no hope of rehabilitating the person. Therefore, why not just give her the key to the city of San Antonio since it would simply be vengeance to lock her up for life? All punishment is vengeance if you want to truly stop and put some thought into it.

There's that great scene in the movie The Punisher where Frank Castle explains his motivations: "This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it's an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment." (SOURCE: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330793/quotes)

At least from my perspective, this is a coldly calculated decision based upon her value as a poor excuse for a human being and blight upon this society versus the crime she committed. The reasons she deserves to be punished to the fullest extent allowed under the law and that means death in the State of Texas.

By putting someone to death for a particular crime is supposed to act as a deterrent for anyone else considering committing the same crime. But, it seems that doesn't work.

No true student of capital punishment or for that matter, criminology, uses that argument anymore. It hasn't been a real deterrent since we stopped hanging people as a public spectacle. Actually it probably stopped being a true when lynch mobs fell out of favor. Nothing says "Don't commit a crime or else" quite like the lingering possiblity of your neighbors hunting you down in the middle of the night and stringing your sorry *** up. Unfortunately it started being used for other purposes....and well, let's not go there.

What absolute power do you hold to deem one life unworthy and another worth allowing to continue?

It's called the duty you have as juror to apply the law as it is written and not as you would wish it to be.

Now, who are all of the people that support the death penalty to decide who should live and who should die?

That's why we let 12 people decide you deserve to die versus one. If can't get the equivalent of 8.3% of your peers to believe you're not a worthless sack of crap, then perhaps you really do deserve to die. All it takes is one person with stances like our own little bleeding heart savior of all the downtrodden on a jury to completely blow a conviction against someone who is obviously guilty as sin, let alone get a death sentence. It's kind of like the reverse of that promise God made to Lot regarding Soddom(you find me one good person in the city and I will not destroy it) only here it is "You should me one limp-wristed wuss on a jury and I'll show you a murderer who gets off lightly."

Oh and just to beat anyone who is planning on calling me a horrible person for saying these things, I offer this:

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

151 Posts Deep and we need to invoke Godwin's Law
(even if that really is your ancestor... LOL)
USAF, I thought you were better than that...
Mind you, everything you say is correct
(other than your reference to Lot and Soddom - he never asked for one good person, he asked for 50 and dwindled that down to 10 when it became clear that he could not find even that many)...
but... oh wait... watch out... here come THE LOCK...​

 

[Sasha]

As for the chance of executing an "innocent" person, I have this to say to you: Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. For those who don't read Latin, it translates as "Slaughter them all! Surely the Lord can discern his own." Welcome to the origins of "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out".

If it was ever you, or a family or friend of yours who is wrongly accused and sentenced to death, I highly doubt that would be your slogan!

 

[usafmedic45]

If it was ever you, or a family or friend of yours who is wrongly accused and sentenced to death, I highly doubt that would be your slogan!

Yes, but the chances of that are minimal at most. Most people convicted are, in fact, guilty. Unlike you, I do have faith in our justice system. You are basing your ideas off of news reports and the way you apply the slanted and skewed data makes me strongly question whether you've ever taken a class on logic, statistics or the like. By making that statement you exhibited several classes deductive fallacies.

1. A base rate fallacy- you are selecting for a minority of cases where the person was wrongfully convicted. Even among the small subset of cases that are overturned on appeal, most are overturned based not on exculpatory evidence but on procedural error or evidence that calls into question the conviction but does not outright imply the person definitively did not commit the crime.
2. Wishful thinking. Do I even need to explain this one? Just in case I do, it's when you formulate a stance based upon what is appealing to you from an emotional aspect versus forming opinions based on fact. I'm not sure why you think it's more comforting to let a lot of guilty people go free to avoid making a couple of mistakes and taking out a few people who, while they may not have committed the crimes they are being executed for, probably did something else that would excuse the oversight(s) resulting in their execution (this stance I am taking, by the way, is an example of the "just world phenomenon" which is another logical fallacy according to some), but more power to you.
3. A selection bias due to the way you "collect your data", so to speak. Ignoring contradictory evidence or "cherry picking" the best cases to support your stance are not going to stand up under close scrutiny.
4. Subjective validation- basically your statement has to be true because you want it to be true, regardless of the evidence. See people who continue to believe in ghosts, aliens, etc despite rational explanations to the contrary and zero evidence to support the stance.
5. The availability cascade (or availability bias) which is the scientific way of describing that old adage about "If you repeat something enough times, it becomes fact." This is the case with the "vast numbers of exonerated death row inmates" you hear about on the news.

Also the fact that you assume that I would without question assume that someone- simply because they are a "friend" or family member- is innocent even when the evidence says they are not is tantamount to character assassination in my book. I may be a cold, insensitive :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored: a large percentage of the time in your opinion, but that has more to do with a failure of the observer to truly understand the nature of the subject. Above all things- love, loyalty, faith- I place value on rational thought and evidence. There is no relationship in this world that cannot be shattered by significant enough events and most people would rank capital murder as one of those "significant enough events."

It makes me a little angry that you would assume I would abandon my beliefs solely to protect someone else from paying for their crimes. Hell, if my brother murdered someone in cold blood, I would volunteer to put the needle in his arm. But then again, I doubt most kids have the life experience to understand this sort of reasoning....

 

[silver]

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi
that doesnt really solve the problem at all. It in my opinion if capital punishment was used more it would just make murder a novelty.
Besides the fact many inmates, considered to have lost all their "freedom" (even though ethical decisions get made even when incarcerated), can still flourish in life post-crime. It just takes an investment on our own part...
prime example is helen prejean and her works with death row inmates.

 

[usafmedic45]

Besides the fact many inmates, considered to have lost all their "freedom" (even though ethical decisions get made even when incarcerated), can still flourish in life post-crime. It just takes an investment on our own part...

A small minority do. Most criminals don't "flourish" except in the sense that they "flourish" right back in the criminal element that they were in before being sent to prison. You make regulations, laws and tailor punishments to the most despicable person to commit a crime because you have to be just and apply it even handedly (otherwise it is not justice by the technical definition). Since most people are not able to be rehabilitated it makes sense to spend the money and expend the effort in areas that are going to makes differences such as programs to minimize the chances of new criminals being spawned (and no, I don't mean sterilization programs...) through giving them better options to lead law-abiding lives and on improved law enforcement efforts to eliminate the criminal element in those areas with serious problems thereby removing them as "role models". The only advantage to a man on death row finding Jesus is the fact that he is going to be standing before him very shortly.

prime example is helen prejean and her works with death row inmates.

Oh, you mean helping them "find Jesus" so they can try to look better when they try for clemency? Remember most of those individuals are opportunistic predators and con men at heart so I don't see the fact that a large number of them have conned a good-hearted woman in efforts to save their own skins is exactly a prime example of anything other than why we have to be cautious about any aspect of dealing with such creatures.

 

[firetender]

There is no comparison between participating in an execution (which I would do without hesitation in a case like this) and failing to do your duty. Thanks for trying to make it seem like there is some comparability between the two but you need to learn how to properly put together an ethical construct before wading into a debacle of a debate like this one...

...Personally, I would at least try to save the patient. It's what I'm there to do after all.

My point, in part, is if it's wrong to kill it's wrong to kill. For you, for me, for anyone. AND If I must take a life to save a life, I might, AND no, a state that says it's wrong to kill doesn't have the right to kill.

I heard a number of medics screaming for the poor woman's head and hiding behind the state, urging it to do their bidding and kill the woman in revenge for her evil acts.

In the absence of a full transcript of the trial (that has not even happened!) according to the laws of the land, the woman is innocent. I heard final judgments when the woman hasn't even completed her hearings. With passion that strong, I figured, okay, who's got strength of conviction enough to say I'm so sure she's guilty, I'll pull the plug myself?

And as far as an "ethical construct" goes:

You are pledged to save lives.

To participate in an execution (as you say you'd do)

IS failing to do your duty.

 

[usafmedic45]

And as far as an "ethical construct" goes:

You are pledged to save lives.

To participate in an execution (as you say you'd do)

IS failing to do your duty.

Actually I didn't pledge anything- we are not subject to the Hippocratic oath and technically we are not beholden to any code of conduct while off duty (other than the "no illegal activities" clause most states have regarding licensure and certification and since it's legal in most states to execute people....). It's a common fallacy that we in EMS tend to take a little too far in regards to the "never off duty" or "we made a pledge to protect human life". It's a job. Get over yourself if you think otherwise. We are under no obligation other than to do our duty while on duty and the rest of the time it matters as much if I'm the headsman for a third world despot if I so choose as it does if you decide to go out and blow away a few rats at the dump with your buddies while drinking some beers. We all have our hobbies. As long as I'm not executing people while on the clock for the hospital I work at or for the EMS agencies I've been involved with, I am not failing to do my duty in the slightest. Thanks for playing.

My point, in part, is if it's wrong to kill it's wrong to kill. For you, for me, for anyone. AND If I must take a life to save a life, I might, AND no, a state that says it's wrong to kill doesn't have the right to kill.

I see it differently. I believe the person surrenders their right to protection under the statutes prohibiting killing the moment they act in a manner that violates the laws society has deemed sufficiently severe to warrant being consider capital offenses. Therefore I don't view it as "killing" to execute someone anymore than I see it as "murder" to kill someone who is an immediate and eminent threat when they break into your home or killing an enemy soldier before he does the same to you. Either way you've elminated a threat and delivered an appropriate punishment.

There is a difference between "killing" (homicide) and "murder" (or manslaughter) which you are failing to see. We aren't supposed to kill except in a narrow set of circumstances which society deems acceptable:
-Protection of our own life or that of someone else
-Protection of property (in some states)
-Judicial execution

Just because you have a moral problem with making such distinctions does not mean that I have a problem or am a bad person or a sellout to my professions because I can nor does it mean I am violating any moral or legal standard to which I am beholden.

 

[usafmedic45]

Did anyone ever hear what happened with this case? Has she gone to trial yet?