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I realize this isn’t a top quality post, so I accept the judgement of the mods, but a mistrial has been declared in the case of Lindsay Clancy. Shes the woman in Massachusetts who admitted to killing her kids, but claims she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
The jury deliberated for seven days. Apparently, it came down to one male juror holding out against the other (nine female, two male) jurors. The belief is that he wanted to vote guilty. The jury reported to the judge that the holdout refused to follow the law regarding reasonable doubt, and the defense tried to have him removed. The judge refused. This morning, the judge declared a mistrial but gave defense one hour to get a stay from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Predictably, the online discourse is off the walls. X lifts the holdout up as a hero, while Reddit believes he (we know it’s a male because the defense said so) is an MRA/red piller and needs to have his phone searched.
Personally, I think she’s guilty of premeditated, cold blooded murder. That said, I get the postpartum argument, but am horrified by the defense of her and holding her up as some kind of hero.
Some of the problem here is different states have different standards.
Under modern U.S. federal law and in the vast majority of state legal systems, the defense bears the burden of proof when asserting an insanity defense. Pleading insanity is a risky move because it basically admits the facts of the case, that the defendant really did do the crime, and but the defense will put forward a convincing argument that the defendant was insane at the time to the degree that they didn't realize they were doing something wrong.
I think a lot of people have this intuitive understanding of the insanity plea that sanity is generally presumed, the defendant must affirmatively prove insanity. Under those rules, I think Clancy would have been found guilty of First Degree Murder.
Massachusetts, where Clancy lives, is one of the few exceptions. As long as the defense provides some kind of documentation or evidence that raises the possibility of insanity, the prosecution must then prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was legally sane at the time of the crime. Which seems to me to be a really challenging standard, but that's the law there.
Which seems to me to be a really challenging standard, but that's the law there.
That's literally the standard in every criminal case. What about "beyond reasonable doubt" is confusing here? It doesn't mean "well, there could have been a .00001% chance martians did it and planted evidence," it's using the "reasonable person standard." Why are so many people pretending that's not well-settled law?
The "beyond reasonable doubt" standard generally is in reference to doubt related to physical actions that occurred. "It's he-said, she-said and there's no cameras, so there's no way to know for sure what happened" is reasonable doubt.
How do you prove someone is sane? I don't even know how you prove someone is sane in the present moment beyond reasonable doubt. How do you prove someone was "sane" at the time of committing a crime beyond a reasonable doubt? And when the courts mean "sane" they mean "understood what they were doing was wrong."
Is it even possible? There's a tautology the defense can always pull - crime is irrational, if someone is committing a crime then they are showing they didn't fully understand what they were doing was wrong, therefore there is always reasonable doubt that the person was sane at the time of the crime.
In the case of Clancy, I think the fact that she concealed it on a phone call while she was in the process of doing it does show the preponderance of evidence shows she knows she was doing something wrong. It doesn't matter how much mental anguish she was in or how mental illness made it seem like killing her kids was preferable to not killing her kids. She was cognizant enough to understand that if others knew of her plans she would have been prevented from doing so. This indicates strongly that she was criminally sane.
But proving sanity beyond reasonable doubt... if the courts presume everyone is insane until proven otherwise how can we have a functional society? I must assume you are insane as well. I must assume the crossing guard and the teacher and the barista are all insane until proven otherwise. A presumption of sanity seems more conducive to a functional society.
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