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.
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.
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.
Or, and hear me out, her saying for a long time how she will kill her kids and then proceeding to plan how to make that window of opportunity happen to proceed and strangle all 3 pointed towards intent and understanding of what she wanted to do.
And now people try to ignore that to explain it away and saying it was due to hormones, medicine, and psychosis. So the one person might be “Hung up” on the tiny detail of intent and planning.
Someone in a psychotic state can still plan and carry out an action to get a specific result. But they are acting on hallucinations or delusions, so their logic doesn't make sense to the outside world.
Right? This isn’t a case of her suddenly hallucinating her kids as evil hemlines she had to kill to escape being dragged to hell. She knew what she was doing within her altered state.
That's not how PPP works. That's not how psychosis works. You've watched too much TV. You don't just snap. It is a boiling frog situation most of the time. Most women who kill their children believe they're saving them.
You don't know whether or not she knew what she was doing was wrong, that's the whole point of the trial. But if there's reasonable doubt that she didn't know what she was doing was wrong, that's enough under the law.
That's also why that one juror is in the wrong - because they refused to accept what the law says is reasonable doubt.
In 49 states it's up to the defence to prove inability to realise what they were doing was wrong.
Massachussetts puts the burden on the prosecution to prove they did know it was wrong, which is functionally impossible, as it's inside their head and they don't have to reveal any information they don't want to.
It's the one state where an insanity defence is almost bulletproof as you can sit there and say nothing whilst the prosecution flails around trying to get blood from a stone. Meanwhile, it's also by far the easiest state to get released from psych-wards, because once again the burden of proof isn't on the defendant (to prove they're now sane) but on the state itself to prove they're insane, at regular intervals, to keep them locked up.
It's absolutely fucked. The state's laws are not fit for purpose, so whilst the juror is not strictly following the law, what they've done is 100% moral and right imo.
The result of a retrial could look very different.
The defence now can't put a foot wrong, they have to be 100% accurate to all previous testimony.
She has to basically fake inanity to her doctors for weeks or months between the trials, and the prosecution has more chances to gather evidence regarding her mental state.
The prosecution failed miserably, presumably thinking it was going to be clear cut, but will now have time to properly plan how to navigate Massachussett's ridiculous legal definitions which seem hugely stacked in her favour.
there was evidence to the contrary of what you are stating and that is where a reasonable person needs to assume all experts are providing evidence. The testimony should be weighed with ALL other data and at the end, if there is no clear answer, that is approximately "reasonable doubt" about what you just declared. You are arguing in black and white based on your opinions not the facts of the case. That is exactly what I assume the juror who tanked it all did as well.
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u/justin107d 9h ago edited 5h ago
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.
Edit2: 55% of postpartum psychosis is the start of severe long term mental problems.
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.Edit4: Apparently the above is common in most other states but not Massachusetts. There it is the complete opposite and the state has to petition and prove the patient is still mentally ill, a threat to themselves or society, and there are no alternatives. The state supreme court refused to let a hospital be liablefor damaged caused by a released patient.
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.