Court proceedings and trial

Would an insanity plea have worked in Dylan's case? Could Eric have also plead mentally ill?

aquillina wrote:

Would an insanity plea have worked in Dylan's case? Could Eric have also plead mentally ill?

Insanity is very hard to prove. I think his actions over the previous year would stand against him. He was sane enough to lead a normal life...go to school, work, hang out with friends and family...and all the while plotting.

Do you mean if they had survived the shooting?

I think it depends on how good advocates they would have had. A really good defense would surely have proved to the judge that their mental state was so bad that they cannot hold the responsibility for their actions.

But they had already decided to die, anyway. After the shootings, they would not have any reasons to live, in my humble opinion.
This may be off topic, but I think NBK might have been an extra motivation for them, to be absolutely determined to die. Earlier, they could have thought that they have some other chances - but, in a morbid way, NBK could have pushed them in this direction: "die, die, DIE, you too!"
It can happen that I am just in the usual over-analyzing modus, but I see that both of them had problems with dealing with shame. Dylan had already felt himself doomed for a lifetime, after the arrest and trial, and considered himself as a criminal. Maybe this is why he thought there were no other chances for him, and so "why not commit something even worse?"
I don't know about Eric... maybe he really wanted to live, but did not want to be a coward. Really have no idea.
Sorry for the off.

Lizpuff wrote:

Insanity is very hard to prove.  I think his actions over the previous year would stand against him.  He was sane enough to lead a normal life...go to school, work, hang out with friends and family...and all the while plotting.

Yes it is true... and this is why I think it was "better" that they did not survive the shootings. I would rather not think about how their trial would have been.

yeah insanity wouldn't cut it at all.

ultraviolencelv wrote:

yeah insanity wouldn't cut it at all.

I guess I can't argue with that.

Solitary confinement (and prison in general) drives people insane and makes them anti-social.  They become so detached from society that it is hard for them to come to grips with their own crimes. Victim impact statements aside, we don't have any procedure for making people face up to what they did.

Come to think of it, I don't think prison would have been any safer for Eric and Dylan. Most likely they would have become easy targets for other inmates which can be very deadly. Examples are Dylann Roof, James Eagan Holmes, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

You are right aquillina. Though I have thought that It would be pretty interesting to see how it'd turn out had they been alive and taken in; from how it would for them to be separated and if they still tried to keep in contact, how they would be eaten up so fast in prison, how they would be when they're older, kinda like that shooter Kip Kinkel, whose progress kept being accounted for through letters and pictures of him as he got older.

I can never imagine Dylan or Eric getting prison raped.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: neither do I.

Otherwise, I am sure they had good reasons to be so determined to die. Surviving school was difficult enough for them and brewed enough anger in them to go NBK. I would rather not picture how much anger would have accumulated in them in jail. I assume it would have been worse than death. For everyone involved.