[CaptainCrunch]

I always look at justice as a three sided scale, each side needs to be weighed evenly.

1) The need for rehabilitation - There are crimes that I feel the perpetrator cannot be fixed, either they're damaged, or they enjoy it, or its a shall I say condition. Pedophiles, I don't believe that they can be fixed unless there's a surgery or drug that not only stops the physical urges, but their mental urges as well. Multiple time violent offenders, serial killers, serial rapists. I don't think that the majority of them can be fixed.

In terms of this case, it seems like he can as long as he continues to make medication for the rest of his life without fail.

2) The need for public safety - Sometimes you should lock people away because they're going to re-offend or because they are dangerous, or because they don't care, personally I think that this is where the justice system does have systematic failure because the people judging the risk of re-offending are rational people living within a irrational theory that because they couldn't possibly see themselves doing evil that nobody can do evil.

I don't believe that Li wants to go out and cut people's heads off and eat their flesh. I believe that he wants to atone for what he did, and I believe given the right set of circumstances that he can be a productive member of society.

However I believe that when you have a condition that requires you to take daily medication to prevent you from descending into violent madness, that you take caution over any other course. I don't believe that you can trust Mr Li to take his medication and keep himself sane so to speak. I believe that he should never be un-supervised, I agree with a post above where I've known people who are on medication for physical ailments, and I know people who are on medication for mental illness, and they fail like every other human, they get busy, they forget, they feel like they're cured and they stop taking their medication.

In the case of Mr Li, there is no safety net, his past has shown it, and you can't really trust him un-supervised.

2) the need to help the victim - We have to separate the need for revenge from the need for justice disguised as the above two points. I can't possibly put myself in the shoes of the victims family, but this is something that eats away at them and everytime they hear that Li is going for ice cream or getting approved for absences it eats at them a little more. However I do believe that the victim has to have value, we've seen too many cases where a short sentence is put in place and the question is asked, "What about the value of the victim? he's worth more then the criminals freedom".

I believe that this case is different as are a lot of other cases of victims of mental illness, we can't treat it like a straight up criminal case. Mr Li wasn't in control of his brain or his body that day. Anything in him that was rational and human had been tucked away in a closet in his brain and the door was locked.

But I believe that victims have rights, and the right to confront the nightmare of a lost one, and I think that the justice system has to look at that when they look at the timeline of Li's progress and they have to be sure.

But ultimately Justice isn't just about creating a sense of revenge, which is where Justice originally came from.

I have problems with Li being given the benefit of the doubt, ever. However I don't think that running him through the criminal justice system serves anything but a need for revenge. I think that the mental health community though needs to look at two of the three things above and ask themselves, what's best for the community, what's best for victim rights, and then they have to tack on, what's best for Li.