Bothersome NYT quote editing on Chris Kyle trial story

Oh, come on. You people make your living with language and you don't recognize that all sections of dialogue are not created equally? In your example KJIM, absolutely, taking "the love of money" out of that saying absolutely changes its meaning. "The love of money" is the subject in that sentence, and taking the subject off really does change it.

"The evidence will show that" is a dependent clause that adds information to “Mental illnesses, even the ones that this defendant may or may not have, don’t deprive people of the ability to be good citizens, to know right from wrong, to obey the law.” And it is superfluous information. Again, the guy is an attorney in a trial setting. He's going to present evidence. The fact that this is a story about a trial establishes that evidence will be presented.

 

More fun with the NYT's coverage this morning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/u...ry-finds-ex-marine-guilty-of-murder.html?_r=0

Two experts who evaluated him for the prosecution testified that Mr. Routh was not insane and questioned whether he had exaggerated the trauma he experienced while in the Marines to get disability benefits and had tried to sound schizophrenic to get out of prison.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that this is something that experts can actually testify to. It's a legal term. They can testify to the elements of it, i.e. did he know what he did was wrong? But an expert doesn't testify that a defendant is "not insane."

 

C'mon. It's Texas. It's Stephenville, TX*, for God's sake. You can't expect legal proceedings there to be copacetic. Any NYTer, confronted with a Texas prosecutor who stumbled blindly into the correct verbiage, is going to need to massage that quote to avoid confusing his/her readers.





*Home of the Tarleton State University Rodeo (Team) and the Hard Eight BBQ restaurant. Watch a CBS broadcast of the Cowboys sometime and you're going to see a scene from the Dallas branch of the Hard Eight.

 

Since the Times' excerpt you cited wasn't a quote, do we know that the prosecution's experts used the term 'insane'? Maybe they used clinical terms reflecting a diagnosis or their expert opinion as to his mental health.

 

Correct. I don't think that the expert did use the word "insane." I looked at other news coverage - which often mis-stated it, as well. He did not conclude that Routh was not insane. He can't.