Ma'am;...How incredibly republican of you, to estimate the value of a human being on the basis of his earning power...That must mean that rich people, with great incomes deserve unlimited access to the protection of law, and the benefits of medicine...In other words, what you suggest is exactly what we have... This really is the best of all posible worlds unless a court decides that a madman is always in prison for his own protection, and so, protection is what he deserves...Thanks...Sweeney

Sweeney, you are so off the mark. Liberal that I am, I read the whole intent of her column. Here is a legal system that allows a person to continue to be in control of his insanity, no matter how dangerous he is to himself or society. And here's a blood sucking mother and lawyer that see his death as hitting the jackpot. If the mother had given a damn, she would have gone through the system to get guardianship of her son and seen to it that more appropriate care was provided. She would be giving her blood money to the overburdened causes that are doing the best they can within the confines of those who feel that everyone can be mainstreamed. It's the short sighted that destroyed a system that did provide care for those who should never be a part of society. And his suicide is not the tragedy in this story, his life is.

Re: julia;... I cannot imagine what a huge amount of evidence it would take to put a grown person's authority over himself into his Mother's hands when it will not give that same authority to the public health system... Let us be honest about this...The reason why criminals are placed in prison, and within the custody of the law, generally, is to protect them from Justice as it was once normally practiced, all out of proportion to the crime, without due process, or consideration for the honor of law...People are not lynched, and neither are they tortured no matter what their crime may be, or the pain it causes...Just as in the Old Testiment admonition of an eye for an eye, the object of law is to limit revenge to a just level, and to protect the prisoner from excess... The poor sick individual in question needed protection from himself, and from the excesses of law, which in this case represented an extreme of neglect... Thanks...Sweeney