During law school, I worked at a number of capital defense agencies. I am very, very, very anti-death penalty. The only time I ever said, out loud, "Kill the bastard!" was when I read a case in which the murderer had killed a guy, then swung the victim's cat around by his neck till he was dead, and thrown it in a fish tank. It's killing pets that gets to me.

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This logic goes a long way towards explaining the blame-the-victim attitude that is so prevalent towards adult rape victims, among other things.

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If she killed her child, I'm sorry that makes her a monster in my book.

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I guess that sometimes people need to place blame, it's human.

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See rant below.

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IMO she is not insane, she is massively personality disordered. I think she knew exactly what she was doing.

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I agree with your assessment, though. She probably has some mental issues and major personality disorders, but I believe she knows right from wrong.

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Plus, you get a do-over that way, right?

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I wish that the girl in this case had that chance, I really do.

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[www.pbs.org]

You can be mentally ill (depressed, bipolar, or whatever) and still be found guilty if you knew that your actions were morally wrong and punishable.

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When you have no scope of the consequences of your actions, you cannot see your actions for what they are.

For example, schizophrenia can cause all sorts of delusions we can never understand in its most extreme state. This woman may easily not have understood the gravity of her actions, and may in fact have associated the very intricacies of what she was doing with another thought process (real or imaginary) altogether.

It doesn't excuse the act and/or ease the pain, but it does help to know that this is not about understanding how anyone could do this or think that the young girl deserved it, but rather realising that her killer may not have believed the girl deserved to die had she known any better.

I am speculating to a high degree, of course, but I can't see anything other than mental illness being the large contributing factor.

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As a mother of a 2 year old...the idea of hurting a child, any child...but especially my own just isn't something I can even comprehend. I just can't.

Maybe it's mental illness, but to me that's almost like giving her pass. Of course shes mentally ill she fucking killed her daughter. You kill someone, something is mentally wrong with you. But, I think she's just an evil mean baby killing bitch.

I don't know if there is more to the story, it just seems to get more and more bizarro and heartbreaking. But, I do hope that we can figure it out very soon.

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I think Casey's repeated irresponsible behavior - dropping out of HS, stealing from her grandparents and from her own child's bank account, lying to her parents about having a job, etc. show a pattern of bad behavior, but I haven't seen anything that really shows schizophrenia. I'm no expert in mental illness or anything, but she seems cold and calculating to me.

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I always find myself trying to personally understand the mental state of the criminal as well as the victim, for my own sanity and understanding of this often terrible world of flawed humans. For those who react otherwise, the lack of ability to wholly place a blame (which is a normal, human reaction) seems hard to deal with.

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And as for the case regarding men V. women as killers... i completely agree that it's a terrible truth where society is concerned, but personally I think about men and women equally in this instance.

I think, though, when it comes to cases of victim and perpetrator (allegedly) being mother and daughter, that's when I'm convinced that mental issues must be involved to a degree. That's a personal justification though, most likely.

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Still kind of pisses me off that women get off on murder charges. Like that pastor's wife who shot her husband in the back? Yeah, out of jail and has custody of her 2 children. Grrr.

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Yeah, I think, as much as I have pride in the justice systems in the US and Britain (for the most part), we're still using humans with human emotions and human need to justify actions to judge people on. It's tricky, that's for damn sure.

(Also, i totally know you weren't calling me out ;))

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I was a really good sleeper (through the night at two weeks), but when I was a few months old I started having the night terrors. The doctor told my parents to just let me scream it out -- basically nothing was wrong and nothing could comfort me. So my my poor first-time parents had to listen to me scream and scream and scream, with no cause and no solution. My dad said at that point, he understood how some parents could hurt kids. When you just can't get them to SHUT UP or listen to reason or do what you want, there's no escape. Throw low intelligence, emotional problems and a lack of a support system on top of that, and you can snap. The "inherent innocence" of a cute little face is overwhelmed.

My dad never, EVER laid a hand on my sister or me in anger, but he did understand how it could happen. Kids can be as stressful as they are adorable, and for people who are predisposed to violence, it's not that fast a trip from caretaker to killer.

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I have never and would never hurt a kid on purpose. I don't plan on having kids, because I don't think I have a good level of patience with them. I don't know what to think of the case, because clearly this woman is not right in the head. I think it just wasn't that long a trip for her, like you said.

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