do you think people who commit heinous crimes and then plead innocent actually begin to believe they _are_ innocent?

and not innocent in a moral sense, but in a literal sense, as in, "i didn't actually do this thing."

was wasting a few moments reading a news report on the caylee anthony murder. there's really seems to be little question that the mother killed her child (although perhaps the jury will see differently). is it possible that she believes, maybe only at certain times, that she didn't do it?

often wondered about this.

I think you can definitely repress your own actions to yourself and convince yourself that you're innocent because the other option is too horrific to bear.

obviously there are cases where people have severe mental illness and have no conscious memory of the act, or just little sustained contact with recognizable reality in general.

i'm thinking more of cases where the very process of pleading innocent, and all the attendant prevarications, etc.,--not to mention the enormous psychic pressure of guilt-- actually manage to convince the guilty of their innocence.

Well, to believe you're innocent (without creating a chain of extenuating circumstances that somehow expunges your guilt) requires some break with reality where you no longer believe you did the things you did. There's def psychosis involved (even in creating a context that somehow excuses your crime).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/images/06/cteq/lost-highway.jpg

i think they can in the same way people can create false memories of other things, or they can make themselves believe their actions were justified (without even being psychotic), but it probably takes a long time to work

weird thread title though, a lot of people who know they are guilty plead not guilty, and they should bc it's their right!

what's weird about it?

a lot of people who know they are guilty plead not guilty, and they should bc it's their right!

you wouldn't expect personal truth and legal truth to be homologous. i guess i was just curious if pleading not guilty sometimes has the consequence of making the accused believe or half-believe that something that did happen, didn't happen.

oh i didn't think you meant it so literally, i was thinking like people who just claim to be innocent. i don't think the effect of pleading not guilty would tend to make someone believe he is innocent by itself because it can be independent of claiming to be actually innocent

i have read stuff about false memories in eyewitnesses, but not in defendants. never really thought about it outside people being unconscious or insane during the act.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, Justice must be served and that's it, but in most cases I'd say no, they are at least vaguely aware of what the did but pretend otherwise. People lie to themselves a lot, so it's only a step lower to try to lie to the world at large. Until we have a surefire way of detecting severe cases of schizophrenia etc, I'd say that criminals simply tend to be amoral and compulsive liars.

huh?

What exactly did you fail to understand?

dnfts

I wonder if amorality and compulsive lying cause drug addiction, or if drug addiction turns people into amoral, compulsive liars. Or is there a chance that Now is painting with too broad a brush?

About WmC's comment, simple answer : "never trust a junkie" (Nancy from "Sid And Nancy" as sampled by Ministry).

Also, psychiatric diagnosis still can't be considered even remotely accurate. Basically, what a defendant says is usually not relevant. Forensics, timeframes, camera recordings, basically concrete evidence is the only useful evidence.

This remains the most realistic portrait of the staggering limits of psychiatric diagnosis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment