KEN RUEGG
VICTIMIZED BY MILLIONS
CRIMINAL INSANITY versus LEGAL INSANITY: What's the difference?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 "IF YOU WOULD STAND WELL, STAND STILL! PRECEDENT MAKES LAW!"                       -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, early 1900s.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      LEGAL INSANITY requires a TOTAL ABSENCE OF KNOWLEDGE of the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, or, in PRECEDENT established in law in NEW JERSEY, a MOMENT OF TOTAL LOSS OF CONTROL, which renders the defendant INCAPABLE OF ACTING UPON SUCH KNOWLEDGE, such knowledge being present at the time of the commission of the crime.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The concept of CRIMINAL INSANITY bears relevance to PSYCHIATRIC ISSUES, and ISSUES OF COMPETENCE TO STAND TRIAL, not guilt or innocence.*                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              THE ABSENCE OF CONSCIENCE IS NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME AS LEGAL INSANITY:                                                                                                                                 Conscience is totally impaired in the legally insane,** because they do not know right from wrong. But conscience can also be absent in those who have such knowledge, as in a culture having no use for conscience, its members nevertheless knowing certain behaviors to be criminal. These people know right from wrong, intellectually, but do not care, functional conscience being absent from their upbringing. Not caring about right and wrong, is different from not knowing right from wrong.                                                                                                                                      Those totally lacking functional conscience, but knowing right from wrong, are legally responsible for their behavior.                                                                                                                                                                  Functional conscience is absent in all those whose minds function without making moral judgements, including those in "non-judgemental societies".                                                                                                                                                    *most patients at state run prison hospitals for the criminally insane, are under sentence, having been found guilty of serious crimes after being judged competent to stand trial (i.e. they are legally sane!).                                                                                                                                                   **an exception being the above case covered in PRECEDENT.                                                                                                                                                           See "AN INSANE SOCIETY", and "FUNCTIONAL CRIMINAL INSANITY", under "contact".