Prior “Elon Law Now” commentary is available here. As per reports, in 2011, Routh was even diagnosed with PTSD after being. 24, 2015, a jury found Eddie Ray Routh guilty of murder. “Elon Law Now” is a weekly series of commentary and analysis about current legal news by members of the faculty at Elon Law. Ex-Marine Eddie Ray Routh worked in Haiti for four months after the January 2010 earthquake that killed over a hundred thousand people (Getty Images) It has been said he struggled to get back to his normal self and also faced issues with his mental health and keeping a job. Information about Elon Law professor and criminal law expert Michael Rich is available here. But we may take a little comfort from studies that have shown that juries don’t really understand tests for legal insanity anyway, and simply apply their own sense of justice to the case in front of them.”Ī USA Today report on the trial, including video excerpts, is available here. “The jury had perhaps an impossible task of applying a bright-line test – did Routh know that what he did was wrong? – to a confused mind incapable of logic. He may have simultaneously believed that he was defending himself from ‘pig assassins’ and that what he did was ‘terrible.’ That’s hard to do, in large part because a mentally ill person’s mind is so disordered. Under Texas law, to avoid conviction Routh had to show not only that he suffered from ‘a severe mental disease or defect’ but also that he did not know that shooting Kyle and Littlefield was wrong. 2, 2013, at the shooting range of Rough Creek Lodge and Resort, southwest of Dallas. “But there is quite some distance from mental illness to legal insanity. Eddie Ray Routh, 27, is charged with capital murder in the killings of Kyle and Chad Littlefield on Feb. Yet after the shooting he said, ‘I just shot two guys that’s terrible.’ Routh was, in Kyle’s own words, ‘straight up nuts.’ 2, 2013, nearly four years after Kyle quit the military, he and his friend, Chad Littlefield, were allegedly shot and killed on a Texas gun range while helping former Marine Eddie Ray. Routh also told a psychiatrist that he believed that Kyle and Littlefield were ‘pig assassins’ sent to kill him. At different times, he said he shot the men because they wouldn’t speak to him, because they tried to ‘force feed’ him, and because Littlefield wasn’t shooting at the shooting range where the killings occurred. Routh’s explanations for why he killed the two men in particular raised the specter of mental illness. “Routh admitted to shooting the two men, but argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Rich’s commentary about the case and the legal insanity defense follows: Michael Rich, associate professor of law, Elon University School of LawMichael Rich, associate professor of law, Elon University School of LawA Texas jury convicted Routh of first-degree murder on Feb.
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