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Dude BBQ's, Chows Down on GF, Ruled Sane(?) For Trial


phdhorn

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Man, I'm not a big fan of the handing out of "insanity pleas" like candy,  but this guy would seem to past muster.  Nevertheless, he gonna stand trial for illegal BBQ.  I'd hate to see "crazy" in Indiana.

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Man accused of murdering and eating his ex-girlfriend ruled mentally fit to stand trial

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Harriet Agerholm
The IndependentAugust 13, 2018
 
 
Joseph Oberhansley charged with murder, rape and abuse of a corpse in slaying of 46-year-old Tammy Jo Blanton: Facebook
 
Joseph Oberhansley charged with murder, rape and abuse of a corpse in slaying of 46-year-old Tammy Jo Blanton: Facebook
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A man accused of killing his former girlfriend and eating parts of her body has been deemed mentally fit to stand trial by a state psychiatrist.

Joseph Oberhansley has been in prison in September 2014, when his ex-girlfriend Tammy Jo Blanton was found dead in her home in Jeffersonville, in the US state of Indiana.

Mr Oberhansley is accused of breaking into Ms Blanton’s house, raping her, stabbing her to death, then sawing her head and body open to eat her brain, heart and lungs.

Despite the state psychiatrist’s decision, Mr Oberhansley’s competency can still be contested by his defence lawyers, according to prosecutors.

His fitness for trial has been questioned since his defence team requested an psychiatric assessment in February 2017, noting he was “suspicious, paranoid, uncommunicative and agitated”.

A judge consulted psychiatrists and ruled he was not competent in October 2017.

Mr Oberhansley said at a hearing on Thursday he wanted to fire his lawyers, claiming they were trying to “control” his mind, local news outlet the Courier Journal reported.

The defendant claimed two other men killed Ms Blanton, as he did during a police interview in 2014.

“I’m just so tired of dealing with all this stuff and being locked in this cage,” he said, ”I just want to be executed.”

Prosecuting attorney for Clark County Jeremy Mull asked the judge to set a date for a trial in the next six months, but the defence asked for a month-long delay before a trial is scheduled. The next hearing in the case was set for 21 September.

Mr Oberhansley is charged with murder, burglary and rape and faces up to the death penalty if convicted.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-accused-murdering-eating-ex-101555389.html

 

 
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Realize, as I am sure you do, that there are two components to "insanity" in criminal law.  The first being competent to stand trial, which references the mental state at present and for the near future.  And then there is not guilty by reason of insanity, which is a defense to the crime and references the mental state at the time of the offense.  The two are not necessarily related.

 

While the rule applicable to not guilty by reason of insanity is facially sound (incapable of understanding the wrong), it was developed at a time when we knew virtually nothing about psychiatry and psychology.  I'm not sure we know a whole lot more at present, but I think we can do better than carry forward a rule from mid-19th century England.  Considering how other laws have changed in that ~150 year span, it's rather astonishing how little criminal law has changed.

 

 

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An Indiana man accused of raping and killing his ex-girlfriend and eating parts of her dead body is now mentally competent to stand trial, a state psychiatrist said Thursday.

Joseph Oberhansley, 35, of Jeffersonville has been committed at the Logansport State Hospital since October, when a judge ruled that he wasn’t competent to stand trial for the 2014 killing of girlfriend Tammy Jo Blanton.

Prosecutors allege Oberhansley broke into the Jeffersonville home of Blanton in September 2014, and that he raped her, fatally stabbed her and ate parts of her body.

“This matter has been going on for four years now, and it’s high time that the victim’s family saw justice done,” Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy Mull said after the hearing.

The letter from the psychiatrist filed with Clark County Circuit Court noted that Oberhansley’s competency has been restored since he was committed there last October to undergo competency restoration. In some of his early court appearances after his arrest, Obserhansley had outbursts in court and said his name was Zeus.

Oberhansley’s attorneys requested in court Thursday to have a month to talk with him and form an opinion on his competency. During the hearing, Oberhansley spoke up, telling the judge he needed to fire his attorneys, according to the Courier Journal.

“They’re trying to control my thoughts,” he said in court. “They’re trying to control my mind.”

Judge Vicki Carmichael told him he needed to work with his attorneys, and scheduled another hearing on Sept. 21 to discuss the matter.

Prosecutors have previously said they will seek the death penalty for Blanton’s killing. Before his arrest in 2015, Oberhansley was free on parole for a previous killing when he was a teenager.



 

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The State of Texas found this guy competent to stand trial and a jury found him guilty, not insane.

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On March 27, 2004, Thomas stabbed to death his 20-year-old estranged wife, their four-year-old son, and her 13-month-old daughter in his wife's home. He used a different knife to murder each member of his family, which he explained to authorities was so he did not "cross contaminate" their blood and "allow the demons inside them to live." He proceeded to cut out his children's hearts and inadvertently removed a piece of his wife's lung instead of her heart. He stabbed himself in the chest but did not die, so he placed the organs in his pockets and walked to his house, later moving the hearts and piece of lung to a paper bag and throwing them in the garbage. He called his now-dead wife's parents and left a voicemail:

Um, Sherry, this is Andre. I need y'alls help, something bad is happening to me and it keeps happening and I don't know what's going on. I need some help, I think I'm in hell. I need help. Somebody needs to come and help me. I need help bad. I'm desperate. I'm afraid to go to sleep. So when you get this message, come by the house, please. Hello?

Five days after the murders, he removed one of his eyes with his bare hands. He was evaluated by three specialists, all of whom concurred that he suffered from some form of schizophrenia. After 45 days in a secured mental health facility, his caretakers ruled that his mental illness was mostly substance-induced and that he was fit to stand trial. The court convicted Thomas of murder on November 3, 2005 and sentenced him to death.

Thomas originally was placed in the Polunsky Unit, where the Texas state death row for men is located. He again attempted suicide, this time by cutting his throat. On December 9, 2008, Thomas removed his left eye, rendering himself completely blind. After removing his second eye, he ate it. He claimed the ocular ingestion was necessary to prevent the United States Federal Government from reading his thoughts.

The State is currently fighting with his attorneys over whether he's too insane to execute.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Thomas

Edited by DanRydell
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9 hours ago, DanRydell said:

The State of Texas found this guy competent to stand trial and a jury found him guilty, not insane.

The State is currently fighting with his attorneys over whether he's too insane to execute.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Thomas

Fuck, man. 

 

Yeah, I forgot too insane to execute.

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