Quote:
Originally Posted by fschiff
Asking him about these things, he told me that 1) a person not fit to stand trial is probably in a very very bad way
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Back in 2000, when the events that form the important backstory of the campaign took place, an apparent total catatonic state that had lasted months was probably a reasonable reason to find Sherilyn Bell unfit to stand trial until she was responsive in some way.
The shady part is that she is responsive now and apparently has been for years. She may be delusional, schizophrenic, manic-depressive and even suffering from antisocial personality disorder or a range of other possible diagnoses, but she almost certainly meets the typically low bar that sanity boards usually impose on individuals accused of crimes to be tried at general court martial.
Either someone applied pressure or bureaucratic trickery to prevent regular re-assessments of her case or someone was falsifying records by certifying her as unfit to stand trial even after she became responsive to stimuli.
Granted, it may not be the biggest crime that our characters encounter in the campaign, but it's still something that bothers Taylor, my character, a lot. She's not locked up and deprived of all rights
because she committed crimes or even
because someone found her not guilty by reason of insanity and committed her to an asylum instead. That he could possibly deal with. But the fact that she's
illegally detained and has been for almost two decades makes him furious. She may or may not be guilty, but absent a trial, she
ought to be presumed innocent.
This may have something to do with his feelings for her and/or that while he made many attempts to see her after the initial incident, he eventually accepted explanations from various Army, DoD, HHS and VA officials that she was unresponsive and unavailable to visitors outside the family. He now feels extremely guilty over this and wonders if he could have changed anything by being more persistent, not allowing his commanding officer to talk him out of anything that risked violating various Espionage Act and UCMJ provisos, maybe even hiring a lawyer or bringing the situation to the attention of some human rights organisation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fschiff
and 2) "not guilty by reason of insanity" will pretty much guarantee you being in a mental institution for double the amount of time a conviction would have landed you.
Nuff said.
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Well, Sherilyn Bell has been in a mental institution for
17 years without being convicted of anything, with her outside communications totally restricted and enduring solitary confinement during long periods, with the exception of contact with supervising physician and other medical staff. Nor does she have any prospect of getting out without, perhaps, help from the PCs or the NPCs that employ them.