Elizabeth Smart Kidnapper Ruled Incompetent

(Salt Lake City, Utah) Certainly everyone recalls the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart and her 9-month captivity by a self-styled prophet and his wife. Since last March, when they were found, Smart has returned to her family while the abductors have been in jail awaiting trial. A trial which may not occur.

Today, Judge Judith Atherton ruled that the wife, Wanda Barzee, 58, is incompetent to stand trial. Her "prophet" husband, Brian David Mitchell, 50, will have a competency hearing April 15. A similar result is expected for the husband.

This doesn't smell right to me. How many times has a court been duped into putting criminals into a mental hospital and thereby avoiding trial and punishment for their crimes? Don't be surprised if these two scum criminals are walking free in five years after having been "cured" of their mental illness and never having been prosecuted for kidnapping, sexual assault, and burglary.

My take is that sanity, mental illness, and competency hearings should have an achievable outcome of "too stupid to live" followed by immediate execution. Otherwise, justice is evaded.

Hat tip: Suburban Blight