Local Legal Conundrum

Someone somewhere once defined "chutzpah" as when a child kills both of his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he's an orphan. In a similar vein, lots of states (including West Virginia) have enacted so-called Slayer Statutes, which prevent a person from inheriting money from someone that they killed. In other words, if you kill dad to get to his inheritance, you'll not get anything at all.

A local murder case has raised an interesting twist on the issue. Richard O'Neal was charged with killing his mother, Bonnie. Richard was found not guilty by reason of insanity at trial. Now the rest of Bonnie's heirs are trying to invoke West Virginia's version of the Slayer Statute to prevent Richard from getting his piece of the pie. The twist, of course, is that while Richard was found not guilty, it was not because he didn't do it. He was insane, and thus not legally liable for the death, but there's no doubt that Bonnie died at his hand. The same issue would arise if Richard had been found not guilty by reason of self defense, I imagine.

On the one hand, Richard did kill his mother. And he has not, in a practical sense, "gotten away with it" - he'll be cooped up in a state nut house for the next 40 years. But on the other, he's legally innocent. If the point of the Slayer Statute is to deter murder-for-inheritance, that rationale doesn't apply to someone who is insane. By definition, he was incapable of doing the mental calculations necessary to be deterred.

Of course, from a practical standpoint, what is Richard going to with his share of his mother's estate if he's locked up for 40 years? Will the state intervene on his behalf in order to recoup some of the costs of his incarceration?