But it should be widely recognized by now that unusual criminal behavior can be the result of serious mental illness. If a person became physically incapacitated through no fault of his own while driving a care and injured a pedestrian, we would not call that act murder. If that same person suffered a seizure and injured a bystander while in line for a movie, we would not think of calling that act assault. But when an individual suffering from a debilitating mental illness acts in an otherwise unpredictable fashion, we still attribute them with free will. The problem is that our society has not yet caught up with medical reality.
Mental illnesses have physical causes.
This is not one of those situations where we have a heart of a killer,'' said defense attorney David Rudenstein. Mental illness is not just an excuse. Both sides in the case recognize this woman has a problem. We applaud their enlightened approach to the law for putting the real needs of society over the base desire to see someone punished in the most horrific way possible for their crime. Copyright 1999 by the Iowa State Daily Publications Board.