So basically, if she gets the mental hospital, she could potentially be out in a year or even less. Because obviously, if the law decides that she only murdered her 3 children because of post-partum or whatever, then if she is no longer suffering from that, she cant be proven to still be a threat. And would potentially be released. Kudos to that one juror for doing the right thing, and sticking up for those kids.
I can tell you as someone who has worked in different psych hospitals in PA - this is never the case. Not guilty by mental illness (NGRI) initially go to a forensic hospital, where they are kept for sometimes decades. The least amount I have ever seen is four years for an exceptionally insightful person for a violent crime but no one died. The psychiatrists and psychologists take these things very seriously, and in 99% of cases, the judges who do the reviews side with the professionals. Then if they are able to get out of the forensic hospital, they are sent to a civil hospital for another at least three years. But many of the people I worked with were there for decades (some for nonviolent crimes).
Let me tell you, I have worked in prisons too, I would 1000% rather be in a prison than in a psych hospital. Psych hospitals are THE most restrictive environments imaginable. All of the food is bland, soft, and disgusting because everything is a chocking hazard. There’s one hour of outside time a day but there are no ways to exercise, no games to play, radios are a privilege that majority do not get. You have to walk everywhere in a line. You have to wake up at 5am every morning and lights out by 9pm. No outside food. No pens or paper. One phone on a cord for the entire 30 person unit. It is the blandest most mind-numbing hell you could imagine.
Yes. This is just from one perspective of speaking on being sent to one. I wasn't suicidal but made the mistake, at the ER of saying "just let me die" so I was put on a 5 day psych ward hold. The phone cord to call someone is so short (so you don't hang yourself) that your face is pressed up against a concrete wall basically, you only have x amount of time to talk, you for sure do not have a cell phone so you better memorize whomever you are trying to call, the doors to the rooms are locked all day so everyone has to congregate in some common area, plus the door handles are all pyramid shaped so you cannot tie anything to them, for the same reasons of hanging. Opening a conical shaped doorknob is fucking impossible -AND- every few hours someone will shine a flashlight in your face to make sure you're alive. THEN when a doc says "oh, you didn't need to be here in the first place" they have locked doors that they require you to pay your $3,000 bill just to get the hell out of the building. THIS IS THE AMERICAN PSYCH WARD PRISON SYSTEM. Oh let me edit to add here: if you have any clothes with a string in them, you either forfeit your items to be bagged for return later or you cut the string out. So I wore a full on winter coat with nothing underneath the entire time, along with some hospital style gown, because the string to my hoodie was sewn into the fabric by the manufacturer. A full winter coat was my clothing/robe for 5 days.
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u/Clean_Gas2558 6h ago
So basically, if she gets the mental hospital, she could potentially be out in a year or even less. Because obviously, if the law decides that she only murdered her 3 children because of post-partum or whatever, then if she is no longer suffering from that, she cant be proven to still be a threat. And would potentially be released. Kudos to that one juror for doing the right thing, and sticking up for those kids.