I've posted before about how the insanity defense is a good thing, and not a way to "get away with" something. (see the thread about Caylee's Mom, who is NOT insane). Now, I don't know all that much about what the rules are in Canada. However, lets think about this. A guy who had never been violent before commits a spectacularly violent, totally random crime, then asks the judge to give him the death penalty. Not only does that sound like someone with serious problems, appearently the evaluations came out that way too.
From the article, he seems to be schizophrenic and had a psychotic break where he believed the young man next to him was evil and he was acting in self defense. This is a pretty classic case of the insanity defense: someone doing something totally nonsensical and incredibly violent for no discernable reason to the rest of us, and a totally irrational reason from their perspective.
Mental institutions are not more "fun" than prison, in fact, they are much worse by all accounts I've heard . . . to the point where people who did successfuly fake insanity beg to go to prision instead. As for the yearly reviews, I doubt he'll be getting out any time soon . . . they rarely let such people go, because they can't be trusted to take their medication. But the insanity defense is ancient . . . its not some new, "liberal" reason to let people go . . . its literally thousands of years old. People who are truely, honestly, insane, who think that they are defending themselves, who don't know what they do is wrong, who don't know what they are doing at all, who can't stop themselves because they aren't in the same reality as the rest of us, are not punished. That would be cruel. They are just kept somewhere where they can't hurt themselves on any one else. And, if they get better, if they are now stable and safe, they are permitted to rejoin society. To do anything else would just be malicious . . . a desire to punish for the sake of punishing, not because the person is necessarily deserving of punishing (see the old thread for the case of the woman who shot her aunt). I have seen real mental illness . . . people suffering it are not evil, they are not criminals, but they are very, very sick and sometimes very dangerous.
Now, I don't know the details of this case all that well, but it sounds pretty classic to me. He clearly needs treatment. MEntal institutions aren't fun. And I really doubt they'll be letting him out any time soon . . . he's shown his particular problems can lead to random violence, and they probably won't risk a treatment failure.
As for going out an murdering someone and getting away with it . . . good luck with that. At least in the States, it is hard to pull off the insanity defense, the prosecution will try everything to make sure that you don't get it (whether you are crazy or not), and if you DO pull it off, I don't think you'll like the institution for the criminally insane. It is very hard to fake real insanity . . . very, very hard. Heck, its hard for the actually insane (or more correctly their attorneys) to convince people that they are . . . especially when everyone wants to make sure they don't "get away with it."
