August 26, 2007

Blaming Twinkies

Blaming Twinkies

The man accused of attacking BU Professor Elie Wiesel is reportedly
"receiving counseling and medication to treat bipolar disorder, defense lawyer
John M. Runfola said." Runfola said the incident "came about as a result of a
psychiatric condition and not anti-Semitism and hatred." (Terence Chea,
"Wiesel's assailant to face hate case," Boston Globe, Associated Press, August
22, 2007) Flip Wilson blamed the devil. Lawyers blame mental illness.
Here is one more example of pervasive irrational "belief" among lawyers,
prosecutors and police. There is no evidence of a causal connection between
accusations of mental illness and crime. Lack of facts never stopped lawyers
from making it up as they go.
Psychiatry permits judges to avoid accountability. Psychiatry is a
lucrative system of punishment without due process protections. Permitting
charlatans in the psychiatric industry to declare the reason for crime lightens
the load of judges and lawyers.
Creating illnesses and predicting the future is an art form which has no
place in the courts which claim to be a place for rational justice.

Roy Bercaw, Editor, ENOUGH ROOM

Wiesel's assailant to face hate case
Lawyer blames mental illness
Boston Globe
By Terence Chea,
Associated Press
August 22, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO -- The man accused of stalking Nobel laureate and Boston
University professor Elie Wiesel and dragging the Holocaust scholar out of a
hotel elevator earlier this year was ordered yesterday to stand trial on hate
crimes charges.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled there was enough evidence to try Eric
Hunt, 23, on six felony charges including attempted battery, stalking,
kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, and false imprisonment of an elder.
Each charge carries a hate crime allegation.

Wiesel, 78, who chronicled his experiences as a Jewish teenager at two Nazi
death camps in the book "Night," told authorities he was accosted in February by
a young man who asked him for an interview at San Francisco's Argent Hotel, then
dragged him off an elevator.

Wiesel began screaming, and the man fled. Hunt was arrested later that month.
Police said someone posted remarks on an anti-Semitic website claiming to have
perpetrated the attack.

Hunt has pleaded not guilty. He is being held in a psychiatric unit of San
Francisco County jail, where he is receiving counseling and medication to treat
bipolar disorder, defense lawyer John M. Runfola said.

Runfola said the incident "came about as a result of a psychiatric condition and
not anti-Semitism and hatred."

Hunt was ordered to appear at a Sept. 4 hearing to enter a new plea and receive
a trial date.

The judge also set a Sept. 6 hearing for lawyers, mental health specialists, and
a judge to determine if Hunt's case should be handled in Behavioral Health
Court, which seeks alternatives to incarceration for mentally ill offenders.

The district attorney's office reserves the right to decide whether the case
should go to the alternative court system, and prosecutor Alan Kennedy said
yesterday it is inappropriate for Hunt's case.

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