Bad idea: putting killers on the street. Really bad idea: putting psychotic killers back on the street

State psychiatrists say a Troy man who bludgeoned and mutilated his mother to death in 2000 should be released from an institution, placed in a group home and eventually returned to the community because his mental illness is in remission.

Oakland County prosecutors, however, plan to fight his release at a hearing Wednesday.

James Yang, 30, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in Oakland County Circuit Court in 2001 after he beat his mother, Kazuyo Yang, 58, to death with a chair leg, crowbar, hammer and iron weights in their Troy home. He used a hacksaw to cut off her face and then ate her eyes.