Gabrielle Giffords confronts shooter Jared Lee Loughner in court

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51. I would not say that I object to live without parole in all cases.

And I do not think the scenario you addressed in your first paragraph would necessarily work out that way. A Time to Kill is a novel written to make money. I understand that Grisham is a lawyer, but he nevertheless takes liberties with legal realities and "sexes up" the judicial process to make his work entertaining. The reality is that people in situations such as those described above are brought up on murder charges quite frequently; and the mechanism for acknowledging that their acts had some justification is in reducing their sentences due to "mitigating circumstances." A scenario where the only options for addressing homicide were jury nullification or mandatory life without parole would not really be adequate.

Also, as to the mental health issue, I again wonder how frequently individuals are released from mental hospitals after having committed murders. Do you have any statistics that demonstrate that this is a significant likelihood?