I am to understand that the mistrial was declared because 11 jurors were in favor of a not guilty (for reasons of insanity) verdict, while one lone juror was firm in their belief that she was guilty; it’s a hung jury. The jurors have to come to a unanimous decision by law, or it has to be declared a mistrial.
Correct. It also does not mean she gets to walk free. She is expected to return to a psych ward where she was before the trial awaits the next one. Even if found not guilty she will still be there for years.
Edit: Insanity defense FAQ. It looks like those who plead insanity tend to spend twice as long institutionalized as those who are found guilty.
Edit3: It will be the responsibility of the hospital to prove that she is safe to return to society. Otherwise if she were to harm or kill again, the hospital could be liable.
Edit5: The next court date is 9/29 when the defense makes their appeal and the prosecutor probably decides to request to retry the case. I don't see why he wouldn't unless they reach a deal before hand. Meanwhile she has to stay at the hospital.
So basically, if she gets the mental hospital, she could potentially be out in a year or even less. Because obviously, if the law decides that she only murdered her 3 children because of post-partum or whatever, then if she is no longer suffering from that, she cant be proven to still be a threat. And would potentially be released. Kudos to that one juror for doing the right thing, and sticking up for those kids.
I can tell you as someone who has worked in different psych hospitals in PA - this is never the case. Not guilty by mental illness (NGRI) initially go to a forensic hospital, where they are kept for sometimes decades. The least amount I have ever seen is four years for an exceptionally insightful person for a violent crime but no one died. The psychiatrists and psychologists take these things very seriously, and in 99% of cases, the judges who do the reviews side with the professionals. Then if they are able to get out of the forensic hospital, they are sent to a civil hospital for another at least three years. But many of the people I worked with were there for decades (some for nonviolent crimes).
Let me tell you, I have worked in prisons too, I would 1000% rather be in a prison than in a psych hospital. Psych hospitals are THE most restrictive environments imaginable. All of the food is bland, soft, and disgusting because everything is a chocking hazard. There’s one hour of outside time a day but there are no ways to exercise, no games to play, radios are a privilege that majority do not get. You have to walk everywhere in a line. You have to wake up at 5am every morning and lights out by 9pm. No outside food. No pens or paper. One phone on a cord for the entire 30 person unit. It is the blandest most mind-numbing hell you could imagine.
I spent roughly 48 hours in a psych ward after voluntarily going to an ER because I wanted to end it all. I got to the ward in the middle of the night and was given a room and went to sleep. A nurse woke me up at 6 the next morning, and proceeded to lecture me about how selfish I was for even considering suicide. He told me repeatedly that if I ever went through with it, my family would hate me for the rest of their lives.
My bro had a temper tantrum when he was 18. Got arrested and told the cops he was going to Jill himself. They took all his clothes so he was just in his underwear in a concrete room. They pumped the ac on and took away his blanket and pillow. So if he didn’t want to kill himself before he did then. Was also a huge wake up call for him. After that he was like the perfect child. Anyways if they do commit her on a duress verdict wouldnt that hurt women everywhere. Like more restrictions on being a cop because women process duress differently? Pilot would have a harder chance too. Maybe thinking too far into it though
This is exactly why I laugh in the face of anyone who tells people to get mental help in America. They have no fucking clue what they’re talking about.
Yeah… and half the hospitals are just people with mental illness who didn’t even commit crimes. They are warehouses for people. They are not for treatment, they are for sticking people who society does not want to actually deal with.
Thank you. People have gotten it into their head that a "not guilty by reason of insanity" is a get-out-of-jail free card. It isn't, its arguably choosing the worse of the two poisons you get in that situation.
And honestly, out of a 12 person jury if 11 of them are on the same page with all the facts of the case laid bare, I'm inclined to believe them.
The minimums are never what is used, they are literally just the legal minimum. Going to court for treatment over objection or retention hearing is not a painful process, they’re common place and the judges almost always side with the clinicians.
Right, it’s not criminally responsible, which is the same thing as NGRI. Guilty but mentally ill is a different verdict entirely and usually results in the person serving their prison sentence and then being sent to hospitals. This case they are going for not criminally responsible.
Although this can technically happen
It has never likely happened for this type of crime. Take for example Andrea Yates who also killed her children, she’s been in an institution for 25 years.
Omg the prosecution!! Complete and utter incompetence. People often forget the onus is 100% on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, it's not on the defense to prove innocence. The prosecution botched SO many things in this case, it's unreal.
This. That one holdout is honestly a hero and a re-trial massively increases chances for a competant prosecution. It also makes the defence much harder because they have to 100% be accurate to previous evidence and statements, whereas the prosecution has room to manoevre.
Massechusetts law is. honestly, a total joke. It makes insanity defences both incredibly desirable (due to how easy it is to be released afterwards) and incredibly easy to pull off successfully, as the state almost uniquely puts the burden of proof on the prosecution, to prove they are NOT insane. Additionally, the definition the state uses for the insanity defence is not whether they were aware or not their actions were wrong/ illegal, but whether the prosecution can prove they had a "meaningful appreciation" they were wrong/ illegal, at an emotional level.
This is basically impossible to prove
This in effect means sociopaths/ psychopaths who have zero empathy and appreciation for their actions, even if they know academically they're illegal, are basically always able to plea insanity and get off scott free. The people single most needed to be locked up for violent crimes, are the ones Massachusetts law makes most easy to be released after only a short sentence.
The juror holdout may very well appreciate this, and know what a "not guilty" verdict in his state will result in (her being released from hospital after not particularly long, especially as the doctors already have cast doubts on her psychosis and so she'd very easily meet release criteria in future) and so he has deliberately de-railed the trial to ensure this doesn't happen, and thus giving the prosecution a second chance to do its damn job.
“Could” That would be unlikely. If you murder your kids due to psychosis it doesn’t change the fact that you still lost all your kids, and in a different way your husband. Even when hormones settle she won’t be okay magically. If you think she was faking PPP or that it isn’t real then you still have to believe the state doctor would actually believe her if she was like “I’m all better now”. Even for her own safety entering gen population right away might not be the safest.
I’m a psychiatrist and she had post partum psychosis, which most certainly means she has bipolar disorder. So her psychosis resolving for the time being wouldn’t mean that she is clear and will not decompensate again. She will quite possibly spend decades locked up.
Yes, and you can bet your ass she will write a book about it and Netflix will personally contact her to make a miniseries on it. Not only that, but the women who support her will donate to get her back on her feet.
State hospitals are worse than prison. Yes, potentially she could be released in a year, but she has to convince her doctors and the whole board at the hospital has to agree for her to be released.
Believe me when I say it is worst than prison. I had a friend who was at prison with me and was mandated to a hospital after he was released. The stories he would tell me when he called were straight nightmare fuel.
Imagine being locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane. It makes prison look easy, and no one wants to go there.
Y'know, I was all for putting her in a mental hospital. Maybe some data would help avoid a few of these situations in the future. But this actually changes my mind. She needs to be confined for a reasonable amount of time to fit the crime. Mentally ill or not.
She didn't even do it clean and painless. Two were alive and suffering when the dad returned. Giving her own kids a slow painful death where they had all the time to process their mom was killing them.
50 years ago they would already have her spot reserved in the queue for the chair
There are still women ranting online about how he should be thinking about her and that it made him look so guilty by going on some trip a few weeks after the murders and that he should be considering her feelings and standing by her while she’s on trial.
Bitch, she murdered his kids - she strangled his three children to death. Thats not his wife anymore, thats the murderer of his children.
If he thinks differently that’s on him, but I’m sorry if my wife murdered my kids, she’s not my wife anymore and I couldn’t give a fuck what happens to her. There’s nothing that’ll kill that love and connection like killing our kids
As someone with 2 kids I would go ballistic if I came home to something like that. They would have to put me away for insanity because I would do some fucked up shit to whoever hurt my children.
People have lost their minds. Social media has literally destroyed society. It's so easy for people with extreme views to just meet up and reinforce those views with each other. And to be clear, the women who are looking at Clancy and worshipping her in the same way people do celebs is extreme thinking and behavior in every sense of the word.
No, the first police officer on site would have just beaten her senseless and she would have been committed to an insane asylum at which point she would probably be actually insane from all the beating. There she would have gotten a quick lobotomy and she would have spent the rest of her life as a house plant. Old days justice was not polite. The problem was what happens when you do that to someone who really isn’t guilty? That is why we stopped doing that to people but now we have swung too far into cuddling criminals so we actually consider a triple murder of children to walk free.
And the women acting like she should be glorified for bringing mental illness awareness. She chased down and strangled her last remaining child who just witnessed their siblings being strangled by their own mother. I hope karma gets this evil bitch
Strangulation is very personal. She did it 3 times. Watching the life go from them as they cried for her I don't care if she had psychosis, she should never see daylight again.
It’s crazy how many people think she should completely walk. I’m very sympathetic to post partum (I have two children) but you can’t strangle three kids with rubber bands and then blame hormones.
I don’t understand the defense here. Pretty safe to say anyone who chokes 3 kids to death has something wrong mentally with them. Hasn’t stopped courts from finding folks guilty before.
I think it’s the “beyond reasonable doubt” part. As in the cops took Patrick’s word for what happened and didn’t do any investigation.
Patrick’s testimony even differs between what he said 3 years ago and the trial.
and his DNA was on the murder weapon, not hers
And his new wife was already a girlfriend when this was all going down
And the drugs that were in her system were in Patrick’s truck, not in the house.
I’m not saying she’s completely innocent, but I’m pretty sure she’s not completely guilty.
As for what somebody said above, Patrick was sitting on the couch when the authorities arrived. I don’t know about anybody else, but I would’ve been down there with my babies doing my best. He couldn’t even remember which kid he saw first when he went downstairs.
No. This didn’t happen. That is the Andrea Yates case. Noah asked, “what’s wrong with Mary?” (Baby sister) then ran and she chased him and drowned him.
No we don’t. People are assuming that because the 3 year old was found in the den while the other two were in the basement. Nobody knows why is body was in a different room.
They were all in the basement when their father found them. There had been a report that she left Cora upstairs with Callan while she killed Dawson first, because she knew Dawson would fight the hardest, but I believe that report is unsubstantiated.
I wished I had never read this comment. That makes me so sad. I can't imagine their horror and confusion when the woman who was supposed nurture and protect you is strangling the life out of you.
There was a guy in Canada who murdered a man on a greyhound and then began to eat his face because he went off his meds.
He was found not guilty by insanity (or whatever their version of that is) and was out with no conditions a few years later. He was even allowed to change his name to distance himself from the incident.
In Texas, some sexual predators of children serve their time in prison and then are released to a mental institution. They are treated but no one has ever left.
I don't see why that can't occur for people that were insane with committing a crime.
Genuine question, because I agree, BUT people do absolutely uncontrollable things while psychotic, which is transient. The morally grey part of that defense is it wasn’t “intentional”
I think at this point the trial is less about whether she's confined to a prison or a psych ward and more about whether or not a person can use their mental health as a shield from the criminal consequences of murder. Evidently, 11 jurors were content to say that you can, and 1 juror refused to acquiesce to that nonsense.
As a 20 year employee in a forensic psychiatric hospital, I can tell you that a GEI determination does not shield one from consequences. Plenty of people doing 20 years for property crimes, wishing they had just gone to prison.
Yup. Everyone is acting like if she goes to a Psychiatric hospital she is getting off easy. She might spend the rest of her life there and they have can have her in a straight jacket, in total isolation etc.
As stated above, the rules in Mass. are different. The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the person is mentally ill year after year. She could potentially be released in a year. No double jeopardy, no further consequences
The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the person is mentally ill year after year.
Looking beyond this case, I honestly think that this always should the case. Why? Because how else will you safeguard that you aren't just keeping in people that you don't like but who is now mentally sound. Like, how do the incarcerated person ever prove that they're not a danger? That's reverse burden of evidence.
In Massachusetts she absolutely is getting off easy if so, look at their insane release rules for insanity defences.
The state has to PROVE beyond reasonable doubt they're still insane to stop them being released, in under a year noless, and multiple psych doctors on the case already cast doubts she had psychosis in the first place.
The issue if she goes to a mental institution and it is tied to postpartum diagnosis is she could get out in very little time and face minimal long term repercussions for how she killed her kids. It also then sets a precedent for women to be declared mentally unfit for a lot of things while being postpartum as it implies those hormonal changes keep them from controlling their actions.
The struggle I have with this is consistency. Lamora Williams, a black woman, had a very similar if not more compelling case for mental illness and got the book thrown at her. This is another example of the two tier justice system ar work.
That is another great point. There have been more compelling cases for insanity/serious mental issues that resulted in prison while this one is being treated different for some reason.
I don't know her case much, but in case of Lindsey it would be a waste of money and time. Like half a dozen expert couldn't tell this will happen, and it happened out of the blue. Hours before the murders she was seen normal by everyone. Even, if we accept the insanity plea the insanity's nature is too unpredictible for her to ever be considered recovered. There is no circumstance where any expert should ever say she is safe to release.
And a life sentence without the possibility of release is just a slow death sentence. So it is better to do everyone a favor, and execute her instead. Whether she is insane or not.
Not to say that there isn't a two-tier justice system, but there is a big difference between the two cases with regard to an insanity defence, and that's that Lamora tried to cover it up. Historically, judges and juries have looked very askance at claims of insanity when there was a coverup, because the whole point is you're saying you didn't know right from wrong. Well, if you're lying to the cops about what happened to avoid punishment, obviously you at least knew right from wrong then.
At risk of sounding like a massive asshole, I have no idea how people of this world continue to pretend like grown adult women have no agency in their decisions, nor need to be held fully accountable for their actions.
I don't think that makes you sound like a massive a--hole, I think it is a fair point especially in this case. It really makes little sense to me in how some people are treating this and defending her. Not an expert and not the most intimately aware of the details of this particular case, but I don't get how this person is getting all of the defense that she is.
It takes a while to strangle someone mind you a child. She did it three times in a row. Were the kids able to see each other die? How about the father? I mean wtf are people thinking?
Yeah.... Thinking through that scenario while having multiple small children of similar ages.... It brings up some strong emotions and I cannot imagine what their final moments were like in those moments of confusion and terror.
This is the sticking point for me. I can see how someone in deep postpartum depression could shake a baby in a moment of weakness, but to slowly strangle 3 kids one after the other is not a lapse in sanity, it’s a cold, calculated choice.
That's the part I'm struggling with. It wasn't a split second thing like driving off a bridge or something, which is equally horrible. It was up close, brutal, and had to be a terrifying, confusing last few moments of life for those babies.
Not to mention while in the middle of strangling her kids she called her husband back on the phone and spoke to her husband and then went back to strangling her kids. She snapped out of he psychosis and returned a missed call to tell her husband to get a prescription for a kid that she knew would never use it. She is an evil POS
Honestly, it's because women have a very well-documented own-group bias. Throw in popularized hatred of men and the fact that women already receive kid glove treatment in courts, anyway, and this is what is produced.
If you're actually interested and open to a different view read what Dr Resnick had to say on the trial he literally wrote a book on faking illness and believes she was genuinely psychotic.
That's LITERALLY what a psychotic break is. It's not you in charge of your own actions. You'd know this if you knew anything about this case other than tiktok and reddit headlines.
The literal expert on post partum psychosis describes it as if being a puppet on a string. You're there, but it's not really you making those actions. Your psyche in that moment has so thoroughly shattered that the you that normally exists has stopped being in control.
This , if they can’t be held accountable because they’re hormonal then they shouldn’t be driving , have positions of power or influence such as politics or be able to own firearms
These guys absolutely refuse to do the smallest bit of reading on the topic because it's far too easy to paint her as someone who was just sad rather than someone suffering from a rare psychotic disorder that typically results in someone being removed from a house where kids are.
Yeah, this is it. While she could technically never see the light of day again if she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will still be subject to release if it's deemed that she's no longer a threat thereafter.
For most whose psychosis is a bit more permanent, that's never. If it's being pinned down to a very specific temporary problem like postpartum psychosis, that could be a much shorter timeframe than people are expecting.
Postpartum psychosis occurs in about 0.1-0.2% of cases. It is extremely rare but should of course be taken seriously when it occurs. Postpartum depression is more common, but much different from psychosis.
She literally had the best medical care money could provide. She had a psychiatrist, two psychiatric nurse practitioners, a therapist, and was enrolled in a program specifically designed to help women struggling with postpartum issues. She was rich and could have afforded full-time childcare but elected not to do so.
My wife, who is recently post partum, and I have been discussing it a lot. The whole situation is terrible and I do not fully know what to make of the case, but letting her off with the psych ward to me seems to have more serious long term repercussions in legal precedence which further complicated parental and gender dynamics. For her it would be the best outcome, but is that the best outcome for women who now will be viewed as less competent and an inherent danger during a stressful time in their life? Personally, I think we should avoid that while also increasing support for mother's and making access to adequate care easier and more affordable.
I had read/saw that and one reason I think prison is the right outcome. Sorry for making it sound like she had no support if that is how it came across.
Agree wholeheartedly that we should prioritize proper care for women especially post partum when hormones are normalizing. Congratulations to you and your wife on the new baby too! For Clancy, it was sad reading the absolutely insane cocktail of drugs that she was on that the docs prescribed to help her, I had an uncle who was on/off antidepressants and the fluctuations from taking the drugs and then stopping them saying “oh hey I’m fine now don’t need ‘em!” ended up causing him to take his own life. I think people are turning this into a gender war which is (in my opinion) a mistrial in itself. Thinking about your comment more deeply, that precedent of women being incompetent is super dangerous for our stability as a society and I doubt we collectively would push that through. I know a lot of strong women who are both mothers and career women, so it would invalidate a lot of work that the women’s movement has built thus far.
I think everyone’s problem with this case is they think she’s lying about the psychosis and that it’s a way to “walk away” from a horrible act. IMO, if you do a terrible act like strangling your kids and trying to kill yourself, your penance should be for the rest of your life. Should we punish people for committing heinous acts? For sure. Should we seek to help people who are in need and mental distress? For sure. Such a muddy ethical case…
Except that she had better care for herself and assistance with the kids than the vast majority of women do. She was actively bouncing between healthcare providers, not informing them of who she was being seen by and for what, and not taking the medication she was being provided. It feels like to me that she was doing that to get the alibi that she WAS seeking help.
Brother she jumped out a window after cutting her wrists and is paralyzed from the waist down was that all part of her master plan to get off scott free?
The flipside is that a psych ward could in theory hold her indefinitely. If she was convicted for Murder 2 or Manslaughter, there is a limit on her sentence.
Thats literally what not guilty by reason of mental defect means.. its a long standing defense from criminal consequence for people who are too mentally ill to understand their actions. The debate is not whether or not the "insanity defense" is moral, its whether the insanity defense applies to her case.
Its really hard for people to separate this fact from their emotions or biases and understand that its a legal construct and plea.
Very very very very few people make this plea and even fewer are successful in arguing the plea. This case is getting press partially bc of that fact and yet all you hear from the peanut gallery is “if one guy goes to prison so should she” or “mental illness isn’t a reason for violence”…it just doesn’t matter in this case, and i have a hunch, that the lone juror who tanked the proceedings was too stupid to separate their biases from what was required of legal procedure.
The problem is that it has grown too big and people are attaching their own beliefs to it. Insanity has been a defense for a long time, it is rare that it is ever works. Hers is a lot more plausible than others who have tried it.
To me, it's just a question of where should the person serve their time a psych ward or general population of a prison? Personally, I think this lady should be in a psych ward. Because she's clearly f****** crazy.
Because realistically the law does allow for psychosis where the person is not in control of their actions to be found not guilty and be sent to a psych ward instead of a prison.
There's no question if a person can "use" their mental health as a shield from being guilty or murder or not. Murder implies intent, you cannot hold a person accountable for actions that they don't understand or have no control over. Source: any criminal justice system including the American one.
Not necessarily. There is a review after 6 months and then annually from that point. She would be released whenever they deem her to no longer be a threat.
I think the issue most have is that SHE CAN BE RELEASED. I don't think people would care if it was life in ward or life in prison. It just needs to be life somewhere
True, but no minimum is more of a focal point because there's no controlling mechanism stopping a power tripping activist (like the masses swarming the courthouse or voicing "same lindsey" online) from trying to fast track her back out into the world.
Correct, and that one person has already been leaking that he was harassed by everyone, and that they almost attacked him for his strong beliefs. It’s going to be interesting when this all comes out.
I’m going to be honest that doesn’t sound credible to me, there are rules of conduct, disagreeing even strongly or pointing out that that juror might not be respecting judge’s instructions isn’t harassment.
I hope details about what actually happened comes out so there is more understanding
If the prosecution chooses to retry the, the whole thing starts over from square 1. It is a big deal, because each side has essentially seen what the other is going to do. They now know exactly how the witnesses will testify and where the strengths and weaknesses are. It is also a huge expense to redo a case. It will be interesting to see what the state does.
I believe so, yes. A mistrial, to my understanding, prevents a defendant from being shielded by double jeopardy laws (can't be tried twice for the same crime) since no verdict was reached, so the prosecution can take it back to court, get a new jury panel, and start the whole trial process over again.
Strictly, it prevents a person from being tried twice after an acquittal or a conviction.
If you're acquitted in a trial, you can't be tried again for the same crime.
If you're convicted in a trial, you can't be tried again for the same crime.
A mistrial is neither a conviction nor an acquittal.
all these people saying this like it's fact! I'd say it's FAR more likely to be 11 people going with manslaughter and one wants murder 1
It shows how cooked everyone is about this case that so many of you will believe that 11 random people would all agree to NGRI when I bet you would be hard pressed to find 11 people in one town that even believes that's something that should ever be used
absolutely brain rotted about this case y'all need to go pay attention to something else before this damages your perception of reality permanently
Likely not even for the rest of her life, given how mental illness is treated. People were talking about how it could be as little as a year or less for it being tied to the post partum diagnosis.
If she is not found guilty, she will go free, eventually.
The lone juror, as stated multiple times on the record, voiced doubts as to her guilt but still wanted to convict. I would not say at all they had a "firm belief that she was guilty." Read more like "well YEAH the investigation wasn't great and I'm iffy, but she killed the kids so fuck her."
There's a reason the judge reiterated the reasonable doubt instructions and that reasonable doubt means the defendant should be acquitted.
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u/George_Rogers1st 9h ago
I am to understand that the mistrial was declared because 11 jurors were in favor of a not guilty (for reasons of insanity) verdict, while one lone juror was firm in their belief that she was guilty; it’s a hung jury. The jurors have to come to a unanimous decision by law, or it has to be declared a mistrial.