Is the nation's most sadistic serial murderer insane? Jeffrey Dahmer of Milwaukee says he killed 17 young men, cooking some of their remains. The 31-year-old former chocolate-factory worker has pleaded guilty to 15 of the murders while maintaining he is insane, raising fears that he might avoid a lifetime behind bars. The sanity issue will be settled in a trial set for next week.
The Dahmer scare appears to be unfounded. States have been tightening insanity-defense laws for years to stop early releases of dangerous insane defendants. Since the 1982 acquittal of presidential assailant John Hinckley, three states have abolished the insanity defense and 12 others have created "guilty but mentally ill" verdicts requiring incarceration of insane defendants who get early release from mental treatment.
Under Wisconsin's two-phase procedure separating questions of guilt and mental stability, some insane murderers have been released after only three years of treatment, although the standards for freedom in heinous cases are nearly unattainable. In the unlikely event that a judge releases Dahmer, he could face prosecution for a murder in Ohio.
