—– God’s “One True Prophet” Convicted Of Second-Degree Murder (Brandon Johansson/The Aurora Sentinel; March 19)

BRIGHTON, Colorado: Brian Allen Washington was sane when he killed Aurora police Detective Mike Thomas in 2006 but the shooting wasn’t premeditated, jurors ruled Thursday.

The jury handed down a second-degree murder conviction against Washington after almost two full days of deliberation. With the verdict, jurors rejected claims from Washington’s lawyers that he was insane when he killed Thomas. Jurors also rejected the prosecution’s claims that Washington knew Thomas was a police officer and killed him because of it.

Prosecutors had sought a first-degree murder charge against Washington, which would have carried a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The second-degree murder conviction carries a sentence of between eight and 24 years in prison, but because jurors also convicted Washington of assaulting another Aurora police officer that day, he faces between 26 and 80 years in prison when he is sentenced next month….

Washington, wearing khaki pants, a black turtleneck and brightly shined dress shoes, stood with his arms crossed and didn’t react as the judge read the verdict.

Washington’s lawyer, Sharlene Reynolds, said she was disappointed that the jury didn’t rule Washington insane but said she understood insanity was a difficult concept for many to grasp.

“People don’t generally understand mental illness, and Mr. Washington is a very mentally ill individual,” Reynolds said. Reynolds said the conviction likely will be appealed.

Throughout the trial, Reynolds argued that Washington suffered from a “psycho-effective” disorder and believed God wanted him to kill.

In the months leading up to Thomas’ killing, he believed he was “the one true prophet,” that the Quran and the Bible were written about him, Reynolds argued. The defense also contended Washington believed he could control the weather with his moods.

But prosecutors said Washington killed Thomas in cold blood because he believed police were following him for selling drugs and shooting at a woman in Denver a few days earlier.

In that shooting, Washington shot at a woman near his northeast Denver home. He later said he believed that woman was from the FBI and that he was being followed.

After he shot Thomas, Washington stayed at the scene and admitted to the first officer who arrived, Scott Osgood, that he killed Thomas. Washington said it was “OK, I’m federal,” after the shooting.

When Osgood tried to arrest him, Washington tried to take Osgood’s gun and punched him. A van driven by a guard from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons pulled up to the intersection during the ensuing scuffle and helped Osgood arrest Washington. The jury convicted Washington of second-degree assault and attempted first-degree assault for the fight with Osgood.

Thomas, a 24-year veteran of the Aurora Police Department, was on duty but in plain clothes and driving his personal vehicle when he was shot. Thomas was the first Aurora officer killed in the line of duty in almost 20 years.

Washington faced attempted murder charges in the Denver case, but accepted a plea deal and was sentenced in 2007 to 26 years in prison for first-degree assault….

—– Man Says God Told Him To Cut Off Hand, Police Say (MSNBC/ThePiedmontChannel.com; March 20)

GREENWOOD, South Carolina: A man who cut off his own hand with a kitchen knife on Wednesday told police that God had instructed him to do so.

A witness who was working in the street nearby told Greenwood police that he heard the man scream, and then saw him standing in the doorway of his home holding a knife while he recited Bible verses.

Greenwood police and emergency medical services responded to the 48-year-old man’s home at about 10 a.m. Officers found the man lying in the threshold of his apartment with a knife on the steps nearby. Police said when they asked the man why he cut off his own hand he said that God had told him to do so.

Emergency responders preserved the man’s hand, but there was no immediate word if doctors were able to reattach it.

Greenwood police said that the man didn’t have “all of his faculties,” and because it was a self-inflicted wound, they would be treating it as they would a suicide and would not be releasing any further information.

And here’s a bonus third reason (which updates a story I first mentioned on March 16, 2005):

—– Texas Judge: Eye-Plucking Inmate “Crazy” But Sane (Michael Graczyk/The Associated Press; March 18)

HOUSTON: A condemned Texas inmate who removed his only eye and ate it in a bizarre outburst several months ago on death row is “crazy,” yet sane under state law, a judge wrote in an appellate court ruling Wednesday that rejected his appeals.

Andre Thomas raised 44 claims in his petition to the state’s highest criminal court, challenging his conviction and death sentence for the murder of his estranged wife’s 13-month-old daughter five years ago in Grayson County in North Texas.

His wife and their 4-year-old son were killed in the same attack. The victims were stabbed and their hearts were ripped out. Thomas, 26, of Texoma, walked into the Sherman Police Department, admitted to the killings and said God told him to commit them.

The nine-member Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously upheld Thomas’ conviction and punishment.

Thomas “is clearly ‘crazy,’ but he is also ’sane’ under Texas law,” Judge Cathy Cochran wrote in a 14-page statement accompanying the court’s brief order.

Among claims in the appeal, Thomas’ attorneys argued that instructions to his trial jury were incorrect regarding the law on voluntary intoxication, that the instruction should not have been given because it suggested his drug and alcohol use and not insanity were responsible for his actions, and that his trial attorneys were ineffective because they should have known the instructions were improper.

At Thomas’ trial in Sherman in 2005, defense lawyers said the killings were the result of insane delusions caused solely by Thomas’ mental disease. Jurors agreed with prosecutors, who argued his psychosis was caused or aggravated by his voluntary use of alcohol, drugs and prescription drugs.

“There was ample evidence to reject an insanity defense and support a jury finding that (Thomas) knew that his conduct was wrong at the time he murdered his wife and the children,” Cochran wrote. “There was also evidence that (Thomas) did not know his conduct was wrong at the time. This was a quintessential fact issue for the jury to decide, and it did so.”

Cochran wrote that although “reasonable people might well differ on the questions of whether (Thomas) was sane at the time he committed these murders or competent at the time he was tried, those issues were appropriately addressed by the defense, the prosecution, trial judge, and the jury during the trial.”

While in the Grayson County Jail five days after his arrest, Thomas plucked out his right eye. A judge subsequently ruled he was competent to stand trial.

Last December, a death row officer at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and had him taken to the unit infirmary. Thomas told officials he had pulled out his remaining eye and ate it.

He was taken to a hospital for treatment, then was transferred to a prison psychiatric unit.

There was no reference to the second eye removal in the court opinion.

Thomas was convicted of killing 13-month-old Leyha Marie Hughes. Also slain March 27, 2004, were his wife, Laura Christine Boren, 20, and their son, 4-year-old Andre Lee.

“This is an extraordinarily tragic case,” Cochran wrote, saying the deaths could have been avoided because Thomas twice went to hospitals for help but left voluntarily and couldn’t be held without legal authority.

Just for the record: There’s only one book I know of that tells people to pluck out their eyes and it wasn’t written by Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, or Dennett.

For more good reasons not to listen to gOd, see the entry I posted on March 11 as well as the link I provide at the end of it.