News Prosecutors recommends ABB to be transferred to compulsory psichiatric care

[arildno]

Prosecutor Svein Holden doubted and criticized his way today into arguing that there exist sufficient doubts concerning Breivik's sanity, and that the prosecution therefore feels compelled to recommend that he is judged criminally insane.
Holden heavily criticized the initial report that concluded Breivik was insane, for example underlining that a number of sentences Breivik has been attributed of saying had not been sufficiently argued for as indicative of insanity.

However, the clinchers for Holden was that 1)he could not find sufficient reasons to prove Husby/Sørheims clinically wrong, and 2) even after being presented "irrefutable" evidence of the non-existence of Knights Templars, Breivik still insisted it existed.

Thus, effectively (but not explicitly), Holden sidelined H/S's report, and emphasized that it is almost automatic, on basis on precedence, that people with a well-nigh proved "reality misperception" as the one evidenced in 2) are judged judicially insane.

He seemed almost reluctant to recommend the insanity judgment, meaning, I believe, that he leaves the panel of judges with a greater "moral" freedom to make an independent assessment for the final verdict.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This is maybe better:

Contrary to popular belief, Norway's forensic psychiatric process means a psychiatric diagnosis could for Breivik mean more - rather than less - time in prison, even if he were successfully treated.

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

 

[arildno]

Having followed this case fairly closely, I think there is a widespread frustration among jurists that psychiatry has been shown to be so far from a proper science that the extremely powerful position forensic psychiatrists have developed in our system is indefensible.

Prosecutors Holden and Engh were concise, and argued that based on PRECEDENCE, they, as prosecutor's office, could not do anything else than recommend him to compulsory psychiatric care.
I believe they are right in that (i.e, that they at present have their hands tied), but that what they really want is to get this case to the Norwegian Supreme Court in order for a full re-evaluation of the position forensic psychiatry ought to have within our judicial system.

They can rely on Breivik to appeal a judicial insanity verdict to a higher court, and they have made it clear they themselves will appeal a judicial sanity verdict.

Thus, my bet is that the Breivik case will be a historic watershed in terms of precedence, with a Supreme Court ruling backing up the new juridical position.