Free to kill again?

From a mental health provider's perspective, I actually agree with Ms. Divis. While we lock up "sane" killers -- is killing "sane"? -- for the rest of their lives, or usually for at long stretches of time even in the case of accidental deaths, we let insane serial killers like Attias back on the streets because the subjective opinion of a majority of clinical psychiatrists at a mental institution is that he's "cured."

I've treated men and women for addictions and found, as they sobered up or got their systems clear of drugs that they were actually, for lack of a better term, "crazy as a bedbug." That doesn't sound very professional, I know, but it is largely true. There are men and women who, though insane and have a legal "excuse" for their crimes, should never see the light of day again.

The problem? Men and women with degrees piled higher and deeper than mine make subjective claims about "sanity" without really having a baseline for the term. One man's sanity is another man's extreme psychosis. The difference is circumstance.

Attias killed four people by deliberately running his car into a crowd of college students out unwinding from a tough week of school and then proclaimed himself the "angel of death." He is only 13 years removed from his crime, as the article states about "two years for each of his dead victims." I can tell you from experience, the only reason he is declared "sane" by the institution where he was housed is because more doctors think he's sane than than think he is not. Subjectivity is no way to determine mental health, and if even on thinks he's still "crazy as a bedbug" he ought to stay there. That's not how the system works, though.

The issue is compounded by the fact that, after his "crazy display" atop his car, he immediately told police who approached him to arrest him that he wanted a lawyer. Crazy?? Doubtful.

The question is, who are his next victims?