Friday, March 13, 2009

The Therapeutic State

From the Associated Press:

EASTON, Pa. - A man accused of driving drunk said Pennsylvania courts have no jurisdiction over him because he’s his own country. After seeing the paperwork that 44-year-old Scott Allan Witmer filed with the court claiming sovereignty, a Northampton County judge said Tuesday he cannot be released from jail until he gets a mental exam. [Emphasis added.]

Reminds me of how psychiatry was used in the old Soviet Union.

Cross-posted at Anything Peaceful.

2 comments:

  1. When I moved to San Francisco years ago, I remember hearing on the radio that a man had been arrested for secreting himself overnight in a dryer at a laundromat he had broken into. He was, it was reported, taken for psychiatric observation. Leaving aside the criminal act, what could be more rational for a homeless man to do than seek warmth in a dryer that was not then in use? His next warm night should have been in jail, not a psychiatric prison.

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  2. I am going to use that "I am my own country" response sometime too!

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