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Texas AG calls for insanity changes

AUSTIN, Texas, May 7 (UPI) -- The Texas attorney general is calling for closer monitoring of defendants who are acquitted by reason of insanity.

Attorney General Greg Abbott told a Senate committee Thursday that the state's laws dealing with the "criminally insane" have failed. His comments came in the wake of several recent Texas cases involving the insanity plea.

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Last month a Beaumont man who had been acquitted by reason of insanity six years ago in the beating death of his sister was charged in the slaying of his girlfriend's son. He had been released four months after being admitted to a mental hospital.

Abbott said the public is "justifiability suspect" about a system that allows an "insane killer" to go free after only a few months or a few years under supervision. He called for mandatory evaluations before release and tighter out-patient controls.

There are currently 68 persons in state mental hospitals because they were acquitted by reason of insanity.

Joe Lovelace, executive director of the Texas chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, agreed that the structure for the release of patients needs to be revised but the state has made major strikes in recent years in modernizing its mental health system.

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