"The defense expert, Mindy Mechanic, is a California State University at Fullerton professor specializing in psychosocial consequences of violence, trauma and victimization, including violence against women, and often testifies in cases involving interpersonal violence,"
...which might give a clue as to what the mitigating mental issue could be. Obviously they are not going to say she's a psychopath.
I'm not sure I understand the question overall.
Based on what we know right now, I think any claims that “I committed fraud because I was abused” — assuming that is the defense — trivializes the real men and women who suffer from abuse every single day and don’t do the things Holmes did.
Hell, we don't even know to what extent Covid is transmitted via droplets vs aerosols. "Based on what we know right now" is highly appropriate preface for claims about an uncertain future. I wish more people would use that phrase.
I, personally, have popcorn in hand.
I have a $500 bet that Holmes won’t serve any jail time (not that she won’t be convicted and putting aside any plea deals), so I have a vested interest in whatever her defense is as working. But on a personal level, I think she’s a terrible person and I’m just excited to watch the case unfold.
What I was trying to say is that there is sometimes an implicit contradiction when people say "based on what we know right now".
In a philosophical way, you could say that "based on what we know right now", the sun has always risen in the morning, but we do not know that it will rise tomorrow. But then, to plan as if it won't, is not really "based on what we know right now".
Claiming something or other will be different about the sun tomorrow might, seem plausible to one person and absurd to another; that can be debated.
But for it to suddenly vanish without a trace is not "based on what we know right now". Pretty much anything else is more likely.
What's the meaning of saying "we have no idea" as if someone was predicting it? I am not predicting it.
When you know there is going to be relevant information coming out, prejudging as if there isn't going to be, is just wrong. Not in the sense of injustice, but in the sense that there's no realistic chance of being correct.
I don't think that is a "weird" outlook. I am making no prejudgment on whether her actions were justified, just that context matters, and in this instance, context will be provided later.
The compulsive need to judge without information rather than waiting is "weird" to me personally, but I acknowledge and accept it's normal human behavior.
That being said, she also seemed to be a bit of a tyrant herself, and it's very possible she latched on to him at 19 to use his money and connections, and found it handy later on to have a co-conspirator as ruthless as she was who was willing to feed the falsehood treadmill.
I reserve my sympathy, as the length to which she and Sunny went to to intimidate and threaten people was chilling.