Free to kill again?

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Fox News: Santa Barbara killer walks free as families relive carnage 13 years laterhttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/3...ee-as-families-relive-carnage-13-years-later/http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/3...ee-as-families-relive-carnage-13-years-later/

Elliot Rodger ended his murder spree in Santa Barbara, Calif., last week by taking his own life, but a man who mounted an eerily similar attack 13 years ago survived his rampage and is now free after serving just over a decade in a mental hospital.

It was Feb. 23, 2001, when David Attias — a then-University of California-Santa Barbara freshman and son of Hollywood director Daniel Attias — plowed his turbo-charged Saab into a group of young adults in the same Isla Vista neighborhood of the coastal community, killing four and permanently injuring another before climbing atop the car and declaring himself "the Angel of Death." Charged with murder, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a state mental institution. He was released in 2012, having been locked away for slightly more than two years for each of his dead victims.

“He’s out because he got treatment and he finally learned what he needed to say," said Sally Divis, whose son, Christopher, was just 20 when he was run down by Attias. "Do I actually think he’s safe? Not really."

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?