[no_butterscotch]

> when the simplest answer is that he's mentally ill and can't stop himself from engaging in compulsive behaviors

This is the new favorite reason to let people off the hook. Classifying themselves as ill to distance their own behavior. "It was Jekyll not Hyde".

[eschaton]

Where did anyone say he (or anyone else) should not be held responsible for his unlawful conduct?

Even in the so-vanishingly-rare-it-almost-doesn’t-exist-outside-fiction case of someone being found not legally culpable for a crime by reason of insanity, that almost always comes with things like compelled inpatient mental health treatment instead.

The Dan White “Twinkie Defense” was so astounding because for once something like that worked. (One guess as to why it happened to work for him, but here’s a hint: Cops celebrated when the verdict was announced.)

[nikanj]

Elizabeth Holmes is playing this very strategy https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/09/elizab...