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What does it mean to be “crazy?” I’ve spent much of the past few days stewing on the story of Lindsay Clancy. For context, she is a mother who, in the throes of postpartum something-or-other, whacked her three kids. Killing your own offspring is, on its face, an unambiguous evil. Only the most fanatical (and likely also psychotic) of anti-natalists would suggest otherwise. Clancy has not been characterized as an unambiguous evil. The exact nature of her mental illness is still at issue in the trial, but many figures have converged on the idea that Clancy was not of sound mind and thus is not culpable the way you or I would be. I suspect that no matter what her sentence is, a vocal chorus of mental health advocates will decry it as excessive. I sympathize here — having worked with the severely and persistently mentally ill, living with acute psychosis is hardly living at all.
I think this case is an interesting segue into something I’ve noticed more and more about how we adjudicate moral harms in the public sphere. I’d like to soapbox for a moment. Cool? Thanks. The experience of harm, at least colloquially, is limited to two parties: the offender and the victim. These people experience the qualia of the situation with their own eyes, ears, limbic systems, pain receptors, and memory banks. Unless we were physically present, the rest of us schmucks don’t have that privilege. We can only experience the event through language. We describe what happened. We ideate on the nature of the harms, the observed damages, and the more latent impacts. Most importantly, we construct a theory of mind for those involved. We daydream about what they might have been thinking, or, in cases like Clancy’s, if they could think at all. Bluntly, we want to know if we should treat them harshly or if there are, say, intervening factors that reduce their culpability. All of this is mediated by language.
Many of these intervening factors can be modeled on a spectrum. Someone can be more or less psychotic, more or less cognitively impaired, more or less ignorant to their situation. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that Clancy experienced severe psychotic symptoms. In this case, minimal gymnastics are required to describe her nature as such. Clancy is psychotic → therefore she didn’t know what she was doing → therefore she’s off the hook. Thus, it is written. However, how should we treat someone who was a little less psychotic? How about a little less than that? What if they had psychotic symptoms, but they were subclinical or didn’t neatly fit diagnostic criteria? This is where language fails us. Human qualities may be modeled on a spectrum, but language is discrete. And so, the spectrums get “sticky,” and the labels gain outsized importance. A line must be drawn. The person must be sorted.
These sticky spectrums exist for a variety of traits. If you’re “just” poorly socialized and have a blind spot for a particular social norm, you’re expected to do better. If you’re diagnosed neurodivergent, it’s more tolerable to break the norm because you “can’t control it.” If you’ve had a few drinks and crack skulls in a bar fight but are otherwise a normal chap, you’re probably on the hook for assault. However, if you’re a person in the throes of capital-A alcoholism, you can break into a family’s home, sleep on their child’s bed, and avoid charges because you’re burdened by a sickening disease. If your IQ is 70, you can be sentenced to death. If your IQ is 69, you’re much too intellectually disabled for that to be fair. In each of these cases, the mental states at the time of the offense are similar if not near-identical, and yet resulting judgments vary based on how we categorize the offender’s nature. We don’t adjudicate based on “sort-ofs” and “somewhats.” In common parlance, either you’re an alcoholic or not. Either you’re intellectually disabled or not. Either you’re culpable or not. This strikes me as unfair.
I suppose I’m advocating for the spectrums to be less sticky, or for words to have less of a gravitational pull. Clancy will likely receive a modified sentence based on her state of mind. Yet, what ought we to do with people in the midst of mild, manageable psychosis who may still yet have impaired judgment? Maybe they don’t get away with a full insanity defense, but their sentence could be modified accordingly. This is why I oppose mandatory minimum sentencing. The job of the court — and the court of public opinion for lesser matters — is not just to determine what happened, but to determine the appropriate consequence. The question is whether or not this is a utopian suggestion. Is human nature too punitive to implement this mindset at scale? Are we interested in justice or just blood?
Relevant Scott: The Categories Were Made For Man, Not Man For The Categories
She is both crazy and unquestionably murdered her three kids. Whether she spends the rest of her life in jail or a mental hospital is kinda irrelevant; it’s not really a question of ‘deserves’.
If Lindsay Clancy receives her preferred verdict she will be acquitted of the crimes for which she was tried. The involuntary commitment that follows this verdict is not, legally speaking, a punishment. A commitment to a mental health facility is not for the protection of society, but an acknowledgment that the verdict logically allows the state to confirm a mentally ill person is no longer mentally ill. That commitment is not to be used to lock away people who the state or an institution may consider dangerous beyond any danger that is tied to ongoing mental illness which requires treatment.
People want to believe the system will not treat her as acquitted of these crimes. I am sure this belief is validated in some cases. Medical professionals are probably skeptical of releasing the infamous from the looney bin even if they have no need for treatment. That is an injustice according to our legal fiction, but it's probably true that it happens.
A person who was somewhat crazy for a couple months, but very crazy (due to failed treatments) only for a 60 minute window where they strangled their own babies might only require treatment for a little craziness and depression now. For this reason I think we should rework the legal fiction and allow the state the option to pass down real sentences with this type of verdict. An individual can opt to transfer from the looney bin to prison to complete their sentence once they are deemed mentally fit if they so desire.
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