American Sniper texts

[Bitter Clinger]

I was listening to a VA / medical expert comenting on the radio on the way home last night and he said that PTSD sufferers typically are only a risk to themselves.

If I heard correctly that Rousch had finished both Kyle and Littlefield with headshots, that was an execution. Evil is not insanity and certainly not PTSD.

[C-dub]

I wonder if this will help or hurt the insanity defense. I think it will hurt.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02 ... ttlefield/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

“I shot them because they wouldn’t talk to me.”

[jmra]

Looks like this guy will be going away for a long time regardless of the verdict. If found not guilty by reason of insanity (which I highly doubt) the court will have him committed for long term treatment.

[Jumping Frog]

Looks like this guy will be going away for a long time regardless of the verdict. If found not guilty by reason of insanity (which I highly doubt) the court will have him committed for long term treatment.

I think the road branches out roughly 10 years from now. He'll either be found guilty and executed about then, or he'll spend the rest of his life confined to a mental hospital.

[jmra]

Looks like this guy will be going away for a long time regardless of the verdict. If found not guilty by reason of insanity (which I highly doubt) the court will have him committed for long term treatment.

I think the road branches out roughly 10 years from now. He'll either be found guilty and executed about then, or he'll spend the rest of his life confined to a mental hospital.

I thought I read somewhere that prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty.

[The Annoyed Man]

Looks like this guy will be going away for a long time regardless of the verdict. If found not guilty by reason of insanity (which I highly doubt) the court will have him committed for long term treatment.

I think the road branches out roughly 10 years from now. He'll either be found guilty and executed about then, or he'll spend the rest of his life confined to a mental hospital.

I thought I read somewhere that prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty.

I think you might have a hard time getting a death penalty conviction in this case.

[Jumping Frog]

Looks like this guy will be going away for a long time regardless of the verdict. If found not guilty by reason of insanity (which I highly doubt) the court will have him committed for long term treatment.

I think the road branches out roughly 10 years from now. He'll either be found guilty and executed about then, or he'll spend the rest of his life confined to a mental hospital.

I thought I read somewhere that prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty.

I think you might have a hard time getting a death penalty conviction in this case.

Well then that is a shame.

[KD5NRH]

I think you might have a hard time getting a death penalty conviction in this case.

I'm sure that was Nash's reasoning there. Judge Cashon was the DA who sent Brandi Todd's attacker away for 20 years in spite of a more convincing "too crazy to know right from wrong" argument than I expect Routh to be able to put forth, but juries can be funny when you're asking them to execute someone who could be a little bit crazy.

[fickman]

PTSD is a huge topic that can include almost anything. It sounds almost impossible to quantify.

A good friend of mine was in the Marines during Fallujah (well, he did three tours in Iraq). He told me about some of the complexities regarding PTSD diagnosis.

The summary of it, when he was getting out of the service and working with a therapist (psychiatrist), he felt like he was encouraged to overstate the effects to ensure he got as much support as possible. He was young, naive, and probably did have some real PTSD, but that counsel to overstate it can have unintended consequences later in life, especially for things like CHLs or LEO / Federal agency employment.

It's a real mess - how to give our veterans the support they need without stigmatizing them, while not jeopardizing their future, but being able to identify the ones that might have real, deep ongoing issues and should have some sort of extra guidelines, but not inadvertently providing a disincentive to seek treatment. . .

There probably isn't a solution.

[The Annoyed Man]

I think you might have a hard time getting a death penalty conviction in this case.

I'm sure that was Nash's reasoning there. Judge Cashon was the DA who sent Brandi Todd's attacker away for 20 years in spite of a more convincing "too crazy to know right from wrong" argument than I expect Routh to be able to put forth, but juries can be funny when you're asking them to execute someone who could be a little bit crazy.

That's why I said that. Routh plainly understood the difference between right and wrong, and is post-shooting behavior bears that out. He plainly understood that he had done a bad thing. In other words, his moral filter is still intact; he just chooses to ignore it. So is he crazy? Plainly, he is. But he is not.....or at least was not delusional crazy. He heard no voices. He saw no hallucinations. He wasn't emotionally flatlined, he was upset.......and the reason he was upset was because of his perception that Kyle and Littlefield "wouldn't talk to me".

My guess is that they were extremely aware of his volatile nature (as indicated by their texting), and they were being cautious about not speaking too much so as to not set him off. The ONLY thing I can't figure out, which I posted before, is why Kyle didn't just scrub the mission, instead of continuing on to the range, and putting a gun in Routh's hands. I am a big admirer of Chris Kyle's but I think that he is dead because he made a colossal mistake.

[mloamiller]

Taking people with PTSD to a range is not a problem. Rousch is clearly got other problems besides PTSD.

But what I don't understand is that Kyle and Littlefield were exchanging these texts in Kyle's truck, on the way to the range......not after they got there. Why didn't he just pull off the road and say the outing was cancelled and they would have to reschedule got another time? If I was that worried, and Kyle was probably a better judge of those things than I will ever be, then why didn't he just scrub the mission? I would have. I just don't understand it.

We may be reading more into that text than was intended at the time, but is clear in retrospect. I'm sure we've all made similar comments about someone being "nuts", but in no way intended that mean they were dangerous (it has probably even been applied to me at times). If I was riding in a car with someone in the back seat who may have been rambling on about who knows what, I very well might have sent a text to my friend sitting in the front with me that the guy was "nuts." That wouldn't mean I was afraid of him, just amused.

I have to believe that, given his experience, if Kyle really had a sense that the guy was dangerous, he would have scrubbed the mission.

[C-dub]

The jury has reached a verdict. They should announce it tonight.

[C-dub]

Guilty of Capital Murder!!!

[mojo84]

Good!

[maximus2161]

I still feel life in prison for him is too easy. But this is what the outcome is and its better than him going into a mental hospital. I dont know. The whole thing is sad. I feel bad about for Chris Kyle and his family and for Chad Littlefield.