Another Example of The Power of One

 If you are a regular reader of this blog or you know me personally, you realize that I believe one person can make a significant difference in our society and that all of us are obligated, in our own ways, to do something for the betterment of us all. This is one reason why I became a journalist and author. 
There is no better example of how much an individual can change our nation than Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and the Harvard-educated lawyer who is the real-life hero of my fourth nonfiction book, Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice In a Southern Town.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling in (Graham v. Florida) that Bryan was instrumental in arguing. More on that later, but first, some background.

Death and Insanity, a Final View

Much of the information for this blog was taken from an article in the Wall Street Journal which can be read by clicking on the highlighted newspaper link.
I have been writing this week about persons with mental illnesses who have committed murders and how our legal system, the victims, and society deal with these crimes.
This blog is the final one in this week’s series and I want to share it with you because it presents yet another perspective on death and insanity.
Like Wednesday’s blog, today’s is about someone whom I admire. Joe Bruce and I met when I was giving a speech in Maine. You might have seen him on television because his family’s case has received a lot of attention.
Joe and his wife, Amy, lived in Caratunk, a picturesque town of about 110 residents nestled in the state’s northern hills.  Joe is a rugged, friendly man, who worked as a senior technician for the Maine Department of Transportation before retiring several years ago. Amy, served as the town’s treasurer. Their son, William – known as Willy – is the oldest of three boys. The family lived in a 100-year-old farmhouse that sits near the banks of a winding, rock-strewn stream.
To outsiders, their lives may have seemed picturesque, but something was wrong with Willy.

How do we define insanity?

 
Kelsey Patterson spent much of the 1980s in-and-out of mental hospitals in Texas. No one questioned that he had a severe mental illness –paranoid schizophrenia – that often caused him to become violent. 
In 1980, he shot and seriously wounded a co-worker. Patterson believed his food was being poisoned by the man even though they’d only met that morning.
Three years later, Patterson wounded another man during a delusional assault.
In 1986, Patterson assaulted yet a third victim.
Finally, on September 25, 1992, just days after his brother had tried unsuccessfully to get him committed to a psychiatric facility, Patterson fatally shot a businessman and his secretary.
He then put his gun down, stripped to his socks, and paced, shouting incomprehensibly until the police arrived.
There was no doubt that Patterson had committed two murders.
There was no doubt that he had a severe mental illness and was delusional at the time of the murders.
Did that mean he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions because he was legally “insane?”