Accused Michigan Uber shooter to use insanity defense: prosecutor

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

The Michigan Uber driver charged with murdering six people during a shooting spree in February plans to use insanity as a defense in his trial, the prosecutor in the case said on Monday.

Jason Dalton, 45, is charged with shooting eight people, killing six of them, over a five-hour period on Feb. 20, between driving customers for the Uber UBER.UL car service in Kalamazoo, Michigan, about 150 miles (240 km) west of Detroit.

He faces 16 charges, including six counts of murder that can bring life in prison.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting said on Monday that Dalton's attorney, Eusebio Solis, told prosecutors and a Kalamazoo County judge that he intended to file a motion to use the insanity defense during a Monday pretrial conference.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-shooting-idUSKCN0YS2EP

---

World | Mon Jun 6, 2016 6:37pm EDT
BY JUSTIN MADDEN

[IronLionZion]

1. As terrifying as it may be

In the US, terrorism is based on skin color first

[Blue_Tires]

9. brilliant find...

[Festivito]

2. Superficially he looks mean moreso than deranged. Due his day in court tho.

I'm against death penalty, but would be for life in forfeit. That is if he cannot for some reason be held, he dies rather than being released.

He should be subjected to psychological investigations within limits as part of his sentence.

[ck4829]

3. The thing I've always wondered about this...

"Insanity" of course means that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to an illness rendering them unable to separate right from wrong, reality from delusions.

But...

Jason Dalton didn't shoot at people with a banana, but with a gun, he has never indicated that he believed he was shooting at aliens or machines disguised as people, and he was high functioning enough to maintain a marriage, a family, a household, and a job.

He doesn't seem that separated from reality.

[Xithras]

5. One does not need to believe that people are robots to be separated from reality.

Schizophrenia, in particular, can be summed up as an inability to correctly interpret reality.

One of my college roommates developed schizophrenia his sophomore year. As part of his disease, he became convinced that he had been reincarnated, and that this entire world was designed to punish him for some great wrong he must have done in a previous life. He genuinely believed that everyone on Earth was a real person, but that we were all designed to play some part in his suffering. Everyone from his own mother, to his roommates (including me) to total strangers walking down the street were instruments of his torture. He could weave fantastic stories about how a billion people in China existed solely to pollute the air and water, to trip up his asthma and make his life that much more miserable. And he genuinely believed every word of it.

He went home the summer before his junior year and tried to kill himself. While he survived the attempt, he withdrew from college and we never saw him again.

[ck4829]

6. There are many types of delusions and bizarre thinking

The roommate does sound like he was truly ill, but I think that if Dalton has a delusion, it's only that he thought if he would keep driving or acting like how he did between shootings then he wouldn't be caught and that he is trying to avoid the consequences for his actions today.

Blaming acts of violence on mental illness serves to obscure the fact that the mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators and adds to the stigma they already unfairly face. He has passed several mental health evaluations, he shows he understands what he did, he has been deemed competent for trial, and so he needs to own up to what he did and face the consequences for his actions and he needs to also stop throwing temper tantrums like he did to the survivor of his killing spree, Miss Carruthers.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Well let's be honest here...

It's not like he has a one in a million chance of getting off any other way...

Ironically, last month marked the 170th anniversary of Michigan abolishing the death penalty, evidently the first state to do so...

[valerief]

4. White man with a gun. He'll get off. nt

[NobodyHere]

7. Cuz there are no white guyz in prison

[LanternWaste]

8. Your inference is inaccurate... most likely, purposefully inaccurate

Your inference is inaccurate... most likely, purposefully inaccurate to better validate your own bias.

[Demonaut]

11. but don't let your bias show..his point is valid as was valerief's