Guilty verdict reached in "American Sniper" killer trial

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/02/24/ju ... ing-trial/
A former Marine was found guilty late Tuesday of the 2013 shooting deaths of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the author of "American Sniper," and his friend Chad Littlefield.

he was given the sentence of life in prison with no appeal. I thought that since the trial was in Texas, they would hang him.

Kill civilians with surgical precision: You're a hero.

Kill the guy who kills civilians: Life in prison.

Justice is blind.

I really hope he gets mental health care in prison, because even though the jury didn't give him a pass with his insanity defense, this guy is obviously three or four cans short of a six pack.

The problem is jihadists with bomb vests strapped on are not really civilians but savages.

A "civilian" setting up to fire on a convoy with an RPG has given up his protection as a civilian.
They guy with the rifle that stops him and several others like him IS the hero.

I don't all the facts. Only the two dead soldiers and the killer know what happened for sure. However, it sounds like the killer was psychotic. I don't think it is fair to hold someone accountable for something they did when they were literally out of their heads. You can't really distinguish right from wrong when you are psychotic. I hope the sentence is reversed on appeal.

I'm not certain, but I believe the US newspapers were never told the details of how the killings took place. Those details were probably revealed in the court proceedings.
On a personal note, if someone is capable of pointing a gun at me and firing it, they are not insane.

Really hard to get a judgment for mental illness.
Snipers and drones make it easier to kill.you don't have to look your foe in the face.Makes it easy to depersonalize others.They become a target and not another human being.So now you have endless war,most vets that experienced hand to hand combat will mention the horror of killing another being.Now that horror is removed.

He still deliberately killed someone. I don't buy this copping an insanity plea BS.
Hang him.

Actually, snipers often (or usually) do get a very good look at who they are about to kill. That's one of the biggest reasons they have to be psychologically screened before being selected for sniper school. They don't want whacko killers, but guys that can calmly apply a technical skill.

If you knew any thing about military history, snipers go all the way back to the American Revolutionary War.
They are not a recent invention.

Snipers go back even further, from archers in trees, to spear-throwers, to slingers, and all the way back to the first person to fling a rock at someone's head from a place of concealment.

Sniping is not unique to America, nor even likely to the historical age.

In fact, a British sniper had had the chance to pop George Washington, but had thought it would have been ungentlemanly.

IIRC, because he would have had to shoot him in the back, and that just wouldn't do. Oops...

The issue is that so many seem to believe that giving someone mental health treatment necessarily means not holding someone accountable for their actions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Proper mental health treatments means that individual prisoners and/or suspects who have special needs with regards to mental illness get these needs met. It is about both giving them proper treatment and ensuring the safety of others around them. And in many cases, giving suspects and/or prisoners proper mental health treatments means drastically lowering the possibility that those with mental health needs, which does include those on the autism spectrum, end up causing such violence and loss of life in the first place.

If anything, I think proper mental health treatments make it less attractive to use mental illness as a sort of get out of jail free card. Because then, if someone is classified as mentally ill, they will spend substantial amounts of time getting treated for it along with others who also have severe mental health issues. In most cases they will spend at least as long there as they would in conventional prison. So someone who wants a get out of jail free card is not gonna be inclined to use mental illness. And without these mental health centers, it seems like the possibility of mentally ill suspects getting back on the streets increases, as does the attractiveness of mental illness as a get out of jail free card.