Ohio man who sexually assaulted baby seeks mercy

[Douglas Carpenter]

89. I certainly have not compared it with tics and less serious compulsions. But I cannot in my wildest

Last edited Wed Apr 3, 2013, 05:46 PM - Edit history (1)

imagination conceive that anyone consciously chooses to have absolutely unnatural heinous desires that they know beyond any doubt will destroy themselves as assuredly as it would destroy others. I don't know how one can know whether a person such as this one is able to turn off their desires even if they choose to. But given that this involves something they would assuredly know would destroy their own lives, disgrace themselves way beyond the slightest hope of society's eventual forgiveness even as it ends the life in the most brutal of fashions of someone absolutely innocent - I would tend to doubt they had very much ability if any ability to turn off these dark and sinister forces that were driving them.

If one considered less heinous but nonetheless very serious crimes such as robbing a bank or killing for revenge - it is possible for a normal person to imagine the motivation. It is possible for a normal person to conceive of why someone might want to do such a thing especially if they were in a state of desperation or grave misfortune. But since this involves actions that no normal person would ever under any circumstances want to do - no matter their state of desperation or how painful life has treated them - I am left to conclude that a genuine pathology of some sort must be at work - a pathology that no one would consciously choose to have.