Criminal Insanity due to Sudden Jihad Syndrome? Absolutely Not !!!

Submitted by James Vesce (United States), Mar 5, 2007 at 18:09

The news is that Taheri-azar's attorney has claimed that his client is mentally ill, and had him hustled him off to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.

My fear is Taheri-azar's defense attorney will go online, find "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" during a Google search, and shop around until he can find some hard-up, "hired gun" forensic expert who is willing to discuss Sudden Jihad Syndrome during a cross-examination. Next, some judge and jury, maybe Taheri-azar's, will bumble their way into a verdict that involves Sudden Jihad Syndrome, and it will go to a court of appeals, and Sudden Jihad Syndrome will then be immortalized as case law. In not much time, lawyers and forensic experts will be going to seminars about Sudden Jihad Syndrome, and professors will be discussing it in class. Scholarly articles will be written about it. Some idiot could eventually nominate it for inclusion in the APA's next DSM.

People, please be clear about this. Dr. Pipes in no way meant to be understood as describing a clinical syndrome, as far as I can tell. He was describing a socio-cultural phemonenon. Right?

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