Norway Prosecutor: Breivik is insane

[Lord Zentei]

I had thought that he had been declared sane earlier - apparently they have decided that he is insane after all. Now he can't be sent to the courts or to jail, but he can be locked up in a mental hospital for as long as they deem necessary (which might be forever). I suppose that is safer than risking his release after 20 years, which is the maximum sentence he could receive under law.

(CNN) -- The man accused of killing 77 people in a terrorist rampage that shook Norway last summer is insane and cannot be sentenced to prison or preventive detention, but can be confined to a mental hospital for the rest of his life, police said Tuesday.

Anders Behring Breivik suffers "grandiose delusions" and "believes he is chosen to decide who is to live and who is to die," Prosecutor Svein Holden announced.

Police said psychiatrists had determined that the 32-year-old man was psychotic at the time of the attacks and during 13 interviews experts conducted with him afterward. The doctors also found him to be paranoid and schizophrenic, police said.

The experts reached their conclusions after 36 hours of interviews with Breivik, police said.

The extension of Breivik's confinement under a compulsory mental health care order will be reviewed by a court every three years, police said. The court will consider whether he still represents a danger to society.

Breivik had not been told of the psychiatrists' findings, police said. His lawyers were expected to relay the news.

The decision underscores the difference between the justice system in the United States and that in Norway, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.

"In the United States, it is extremely difficult to establish successfully an insanity defense," he told CNN in a telephone interview. "You can be paranoid, yet still able to control your behavior and be legally responsible."

In cases like the mass killing in Norway, "there tends to be a tremendous amount of pressure from the public and maybe politicians as well to lock someone away for as long as possible, and bring justice to the victims," Fox said.

Breivik is accused of killing eight people in Oslo and 69 who were among 700 mostly young people attending a Labour Party youth camp on nearby Utoya Island.

He has pleaded not guilty but admits carrying out the attacks, the judge handling his case has said.

Breivik is described by authorities as a right-wing Christian extremist. A 1,500-page manifesto attributed to Breivik posted on the Internet is critical of Muslim immigration and European liberalism, including the Labour Party.

The manifesto predicts that a "European civil war" will lead to the execution of "cultural Marxists" and the banishment of Muslims.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in the aftermath of the attacks that his country had been fundamentally changed, but vowed that Norway would remain "an open society."

Oslo Mayor Fabian Stang said Norwegians would respond to the violence with equally powerful weapons: "We're going to punish him with democracy and love," he told CNN shortly after the killings.

Still, memories of the slaughter on the island, where many of the campers survived by hiding behind rocks, remained acute on Tuesday.

"I will always have mixed feelings when I go back, of course," Labour Party member Eskil Pedersen told a reporter. "I think about the 22nd of July and the dreadful things that happened that day, but I have been here every year and every summer since 2000. A lot of my time as a youth has been here on this island. I have very many good memories as well."

He said a memorial will be built there. "Our aim is to reclaim Utoya, take it back as an island, have activities, have a summer camp here," he said.

Relatives of some of the victims expressed disappointment at the decision on Breivik, a journalist from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp. told CNN. "They have looked forward to seeing him getting a sentence for the rest of his life for the acts he has committed," correspondent Tomm Kristiansen said.

Public reaction is mixed, said journalist Olav Mellingsaeter. Most people are surprised, not angered, by the findings, he said.

"We must trust that the psychiatrists have done a thorough job," a 30-year-old student told the reporter.

A 36-year-old woman said, "As long as he does not escape, I do not care where he's kept."

At his trial in April, Breivik will have the opportunity to present evidence, police said.

He has been in custody since his arrest on Utoya Island on the day of the killings, which marked the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II.

[Lord Zentei]

Hmmm, this was meant to go in N+P, could a mod please move it?

[Thanas]

Moved.

[evilsoup]

I had thought that he had been declared sane earlier

Last time it was the judge saying 'yeah I think this guy's sane', this time it's some court-appointed psychiatrists. So I guess the judge was just giving his opinion, instead of a binding announcement.

Hm. Has Breivik entered a guilty plea yet? I would assume so, otherwise siccing court-ordered psychiatrists on him is kind of begging the question..
EDIT: nevermind, I just read the article more thoroughly,

He has pleaded not guilty but admits carrying out the attacks, the judge handling his case has said.

Does insanity have any bearing on competency? I mean, normally lawyers are obliged to follow their client's instructions, but how does being certified 'insane' affect that? Is there some kind of state-appointed legal guardian, or what?

[Forgothrax]

I almost wonder if this guy is at all capable of rehabilitation, or if he's simply going to disappear into a mental hospital and stay there for the rest of his life. If it's the second, though, I almost feel sorry for him... I'd imagine the staff is going to have a very difficult time hanging onto professionalism.

[Serafina]

Insanity is a legal term. It basically says that a person what not able to comprehend the consequences of a specific set of actions at the time they were done due to some psychological disorder.
That psychological disorder doesn't necessarily affect other aspects of that persons life, nor is it necessarily applicable at another time. Unless declared otherwise, Breivik would thus have all the same rights (as he is able to utilize them) as any other person.

Also, a trial will still occur, so whether Breivik will "get away" with being sent to a psychiatric institution for the rest of his life or whether he'll land in a normal prison is yet to be determined.
Keep in mind that if he has a psychological disorder severe enough to remove responsibility from his actions, it is also severe enough that he won't be cured - and thus released from stationary psychiatric care - for a very long time, possibly the rest of his life.

[MarshalPurnell]

There have been no reports of Breivik having delusional stimuli or hallucinations, and the three-year timeframe and meticulous planning of his attacks is not really consistent with paranoid schizophrenia. I have not seen any reason at all to consider him anything but a dedicated political radical, just like an Al Qaeda suicide bomber or a Red Army Faction urban guerrilla. His world-view is marked with paranoia and xenophobia, but it is not an inherently delusional way of looking at the world and shares a coherence and sense of consistency that makes it an ideology. He certainly is not alone in his world-view, and while there are damned few neo-Nazis or white supremacists or Christian fundamentalists who would resort to violence in that manner, he isn't the only one. He's just been much more successful than other examples of right-wing extremists.

I am having a really hard time coming up with any standard derived from observed behavior whereby Breivik can be considered insane, but we may consider Osama bin Laden to have not been insane. At the least, the paranoia and delusions inherent in a radical ideology do not interfere with the ability to tell right from wrong, and Breivik's manifesto makes it abundantly clear he realized his actions would be considered horrible. He defended them as a political necessity to avert a worse outcome, the conquest of Europe by Islamic forces. Just as Hamas or Hezbollah or so on justify suicide bombing as a necessity to avert Crusader-Zionist destruction of the Arab people. It is an insane argument, but not the argument of a madman.

[Bakustra]

Well, actual psychiatric professionals determined that he's psychotic, and I'm pretty sure that they, having interviewed the man, would probably know better than a random guy on the Internet as to whether he shows signs of psychosis, which does not rely on the presence of hallucinations or even of delusions!

[Flagg]

I have a hard time buying that the guy is legally insane seeing as he set up car bombs as distractions in his extremely well orchestrated plan. But maybe Norway has a different basis for legal insanity than the US, or they are using their system to put him away for life?

[B5B7]

He may be psychotic, but that doesn't make him legally insane. I agree with the judge - he's sane. If he is put in a mental institution he could escape (being quite capable of complex rational planning, as shown by his prior actions). He belongs in a maximum security prison. Plus a sane man can fool psychiatrists.

[Flagg]

He may be psychotic, but that doesn't make him legally insane. I agree with the judge - he's sane. If he is put in a mental institution he could escape (being quite capable of complex rational planning, as shown by his prior actions). He belongs in a maximum security prison. Plus a sane man can fool psychiatrists.

The problem is that their maximum sentence for any crime is 20 years, so putting him away in an asylum indefinitely is a better option for society. But I tend to agree that the guy is not any more insane than any other terrorist.

[Stark]

He may be psychotic, but that doesn't make him legally insane. I agree with the judge - he's sane. If he is put in a mental institution he could escape (being quite capable of complex rational planning, as shown by his prior actions). He belongs in a maximum security prison. Plus a sane man can fool psychiatrists.

But not you, right?

I love the definitions of insanity thrown around the internet. 'Can escape' = not insane. 'Can plan' = not insane. 'Has ideology' = not insane.

What next? 'Is successful' = not insane? 'Runs a website' = not insane? I'm not sure any of this is on the coursework at medical school - someone call the university!

[Flagg]

He may be psychotic, but that doesn't make him legally insane. I agree with the judge - he's sane. If he is put in a mental institution he could escape (being quite capable of complex rational planning, as shown by his prior actions). He belongs in a maximum security prison. Plus a sane man can fool psychiatrists.

But not you, right?

I love the definitions of insanity thrown around the internet. 'Can escape' = not insane. 'Can plan' = not insane. 'Has ideology' = not insane.

What next? 'Is successful' = not insane? 'Runs a website' = not insane? I'm not sure any of this is on the coursework at medical school - someone call the university!

I think it's the level of complex planning that went into this that makes me doubt him being insane. But again, I don't know the legal definition of sanity in Norway, for all I know he fits it like a glove. I just wonder if he were an Islamic terrorist as opposed to right wing Christian terrorist if they would be tossing him into the nutter category.

[Simon_Jester]

Although I worry about the idea of a nation using mental hospitals as a substitute for life imprisonment, for the people they really want locked away forever. It strikes me as an injustice and a misuse of medical resources.

[B5B7]

He may be psychotic, but that doesn't make him legally insane. I agree with the judge - he's sane. If he is put in a mental institution he could escape (being quite capable of complex rational planning, as shown by his prior actions). He belongs in a maximum security prison. Plus a sane man can fool psychiatrists.

But not you, right?

I love the definitions of insanity thrown around the internet. 'Can escape' = not insane. 'Can plan' = not insane. 'Has ideology' = not insane.

What next? 'Is successful' = not insane? 'Runs a website' = not insane? I'm not sure any of this is on the coursework at medical school - someone call the university!

I see your point. People on the scene should have a clearer picture than those of us thousands of kilometres away. So, the psychiatrists are probably right that he is psychiatrically insane, but the judge would be also right as a court expert that he is forensically sane. However, I think Flagg hit it on the head. To put him away permanently requires a verdict of insane, and it is the prosecution pushing this, so everyone is probably happy to go along with this (including the defense as can state that their client is not culpable but mentally disturbed).

[Zaune]

I don't see how the fact that Breivik planned his murders with great care or posted a detailed and elaborate rationalisation for his actions has any bearing on the question of whether or not he's insane. All it proves is that he's not stupid.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I think it's the level of complex planning that went into this that makes me doubt him being insane.

Well look at it this way: There's a man who fervently believes a giant invisible doughnut hovers five hundred feet above a specific location in the Atlantic Ocean, and nothing anyone says can dissuade him. He's an accomplished structural engineer and spends the next several years building an insanely complex arrangement of rafts with motors hooked up to GPS systems, with an aluminum-framed tower in the center of it, designed to keep it all in one place in the ocean and reach the invisible doughnut. The man succeeds, climbs to the top, convinces himself he's eating it, and starves to death.

Sanity is not directly related to intelligence/skill, but it will impact how they are applied.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

By that definition of insanity, everyone who believes in a religion is medically insane. Do you believe that to be the case?

[Flagg]

By that definition of insanity, everyone who believes in a religion is medically insane. Do you believe that to be the case?

Exactly, it's such a broad definition that it's useless. The guy meticulously planned this thing, setting up diversions and ruthlessly gunning down people who he opposed politically. He's a terrorist, not a nutter. Unless you consider all terrorist or mass killers nutters, in which case Ted Kazinski should be in a mental hospital instead of federal prison. But again, I don't know how insanity is defined legally in Norway, so he may very well fit the legal definition there. But he sure as hell doesn't in the US, where you need to not know the difference between right and wrong.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

By that definition of insanity, everyone who believes in a religion is medically insane. Do you believe that to be the case?

Amazingly enough there are types and severity of insanity. My hypothetical was just pointing out that you could be highly intelligent and/or skilled, but also suffer from severe delusions to the point where they could put you at risk. As far as religion is concerned: Someone who believes there's a god behind certain indistinct feelings, believes in an afterlife, etc., I wouldn't call them insane, they're simply filling in gaps in existing knowledge with belief as opposed to replacing reasonably objectively verifiable facts with fantasy. However if they, for instance, believe an angel lives under their bed and gives them very specific instructions on how to tie their shoes, I'd consider that a sign that they lack sanity. Of course there's a lot of gray area between those extremes and I don't know where the exact crossover line is, which is why I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist.

As for why Breivik's considered insane while, say, Kazinski isn't? It's already been laid out in the thread, I didn't think I'd have to explain it: Those who examined him judged him insane. If Ted was examined, apparently that wasn't the conclusion his examiners came to. Two people can commit highly similar actions for completely different reasons. I'm not saying that only insane people commit terrorist acts, merely that insanity is apparently one possible cause for someone to commit terrorist acts. Until given convincing evidence otherwise, I'll go with the word of the professionals that have been directly interacting with Breivik.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why can't there be political motivations to the diagnosis? The "mental health" profession is hardly very scientific to begin with, which also leaves it open to implicit bias. I know for a fact Purnell based his comments on a reading of the DSM-IV criteria for paranoid schizophrenia and that reading in no way allows for Breivik's level of function. I also know as a fact from the very long years of serving as my father's personal assistant that only the accumulated wisdom of seeing lots of people is what makes an MHP different from any random person with the DSM-IV open in front of them. Is the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia really that different in Norway?

[Flagg]

Ted Kazinski lived in a filthy shack for over a decade while randomly bombing universities = Sane.

Anders Brievik lived a normal existence while planning a car bombing to distract law enforcement so he could go on a meticulously planned killing spree of political opponents = Insane.

Please explain this to me.

[Lord Zentei]

Ted Kazinski lived in a filthy shack for over a decade while randomly bombing universities = Sane.

Anders Brievik lived a normal existence while planning a car bombing to distract law enforcement so he could go on a meticulously planned killing spree of political opponents = Insane.

Please explain this to me.

Different country, different procedure for determining sanity.

I'm not sure I agree with the decision WRT Breivik, but the US has a high bar for insanity pleas.

[Flagg]

Ted Kazinski lived in a filthy shack for over a decade while randomly bombing universities = Sane.

Anders Brievik lived a normal existence while planning a car bombing to distract law enforcement so he could go on a meticulously planned killing spree of political opponents = Insane.

Please explain this to me.

Different country, different procedure for determining sanity.

I'm not sure I agree with the decision WRT Breivik, but the US has a high bar for insanity pleas.

Yeah, all I can think is that Norway has much more liberal definitions for what constitutes legal insanity. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, either.

[Surlethe]

I don't know if I think that the court believes the psychiatrist. This seems like an awfully convenient way to lock him up for life instead of just twenty years.