COURTESY TOM RIDGE'S DESK State-of-the-art legal definitions of insanity

Yates, a Texas woman who claimed her mental illness caused her to kill her five children, was found guilty of premeditated murder Friday and sentenced to life imprisonment. Defenders of Yates say the decision will send a sick person to prison where she will not get help. Critics of the defenders of Yates say those defenders are dressed poorly, and that Yates committed a crime with full knowledge of what she was doing.

U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, hot on the heels of his recent color-coded terror alert system, has stepped in to help alleviate the discussion of mental illness as a legal defense. Sunday Ridge introduced a color-coded mental illness “insanity” warning chart that will clearly and efficiently establish what constitutes not guilty by reason of insanity defenses and what constitutes loony, but criminally viable.

With Ridge’s new chart, the color green would constitute a normally sane person who has committed no criminal act. Such a state for a person would be known as “normal” and be an umbrella term for everybody, such a common occurrence in fact there really seems to be no reason for it to exist. You could really just start with purple and save everybody the extra color since there’s no special precautions or notice that goes along with the green state.

Purple would define “fun” crazy, where no crimes have been committed and things are likeably outside the norm. This state of insanity would include cards, office cut-ups, and guys who say things that are just plain wild. Anyone who sells factory goods at low, low prices might fall into this category. Blue would be extremely eccentric, even unlikable people. Artists, real artists not Starbucks staffers who say they’re artists, would fall into this category, as well as people who we would gladly lock up if only they had done something illegal. On the extreme end of this spectrum, calling that dark blue, would be soccer rioters, people prone to violence for little things, and wrestling fans.

Yellow would cover extremely emotionally dysfunctional people. The co-dependent, bi-polar, attention deficit disorder sufferers and any made up diseases to explain extreme unhappiness would fit into this disorder. Misdemeanors committed by people in this state would result in the same punishment as a person in the green or blue state, but with court-ordered counseling as an attached feature of the sentencing. Felonies committed by celebrities would also result in counseling, public service announcements, and a film career to be replaced by appearances of Fox comedy-dramas.

Orange would cover all criminals suffering from mental illness who commit felonies, from property damage and larceny to murders and maintain a state of incoherency at all times of the day. Victims of these types of mental illnesses should be so ill punishing them would be no fun as they’d have no idea they’re being punished. Institutionalization would be the standard punishment for this grade of mentally ill criminal. Anyone in this state who does not commit a crime should be allowed their freedom to get a job and shelter on their own without the government’s involvement.

Since orange and yellow are so close a color on the chart, there really isn’t much difference. Anyone in either state can be determined “yorange” and treated either way, no big deal.

Red, the highest state of insanity, would apply to cases of national interest because of the gruesome details or lack of other good news at the moment. Red-level criminals can be guilty of brutality, such as Andrea Yates murdering her own children in cold blood, or disgusting crimes to be discussed around the water cooler for months, like the O.J. Simpson or Jeffrey Dahmer cases. Marked a by a coherency the orange-level insane criminals lack, red-level criminals shall escape the death penalty by the nature of the bizarre outcry in their defense from seemingly-normal people across the country. With a large income, a red-level defendant can escape a guilty verdict entirely. Upon finishing his explanation of the new chart, Ridge summarized: “There. I think this changes nothing. But at least we can assign colors to it.”

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