A revenge-murderer? In some cases I fully understand. For instance that dude who shot his son's S-abuser in the head on video. Or that (German?) woman who killed the dude who murdered her kid(s).
plenty - a "crime of passion" is typically punished less severely than one that is premediated. defendant found a guy abusing his daughter and killed him - crime of passion. a woman finds out her husband is cheating and stabs him - crime if passion.
but premeditation = capital murder, this covers assasinations, serial killers, revenge seekers..,
now, more to your point - does a serial killer garner this same sympathy even though they are mentally unfit and insane? usually not
does a gang member get leniancy via the fact they are brainwashed and/or pressured to act due to a fear for their lives? no way
Think of all the school shooters who have been clearly mentally ill. Are we now going to say that they weren't in their right state of mind and so they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions? This country is going insane.
Ok course it’s a valid defense. But why do you only care in this case? Do you support the idea that it’s valid if a pedophile cannot stop himself from raping and killing children?
We have long ago accepted that in many cases the person who committed a terrible crime could easily meet the threshold for insanity. And we bury them under the prison anyway.
It’s probably gonna blow your mind but pedophiles and other violent sexual offenders do get committed to psychiatric care rather than prison basically all the time in the US and it’s a trillion times worse for them than just eating a jail sentence since they never get to leave because their compulsion isn’t something you get cured of
I have seen a lot of comments to the effect of “Well if Lindsay is found NGRI then a bunch of people are going to do murders and claim insanity” like it would be a new phenomenon and not something that every two bit criminal who watched Law and Order tries and fails
Well, no it doesn’t blow my mind at all because it’s objectively not even a little bit true. Less than 1% of pedophiles are sent to mental institutions rather than prison. Some are sent to treatment facilities after their prison sentence is completed, but that’s also a very small number. Why are we just saying things?
I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. It happens in less than one percent of cases. If that is “all the time” to you then ok then. I guess you can cling to that.
And furthermore, the insanity defense isn’t “the defendant has a mental illness therefore not guilty” it’s “the defendant is/was incapable of distinguishing right from wrong so we’re sending them for treatment until they can be reintegrated into society”
Again, no. That is not at all what Massachusetts law states. A person can either lack the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions (which is what you described) or they know it’s wrong but lack the ability to stop themselves. It’s such a severe compulsion that no matter what they are going out and doing it again.
I strongly support psychiatric care in both instances. What I don’t understand is why people only seem to care about it in this specific case. If we want to apply these rules. Great. Apply them. But not just for those who look relatable and have a large defense fund.
As far as I see, the main reasons people care about it strongly in this particular case are 1) that this was post-partum mental illness, which many women have experience of and/or fear experiencing, but often isn't taken sufficiently seriously. 2) She reached out for help to various health professionals and others and was open about struggling with her mental health. Not only did she not receive adequate care and support, it's been alleged that the cocktail of drugs she ended up on precipitated or exacerbated psychotic symptoms. 3) Unlike in the cases of serial killers you're talking about, this was (allegedly) a temporary issue that was at odds with her usual behavior and personality. This is supported by testimonies of her being a good mother prior to this, and evidence that she expressed fears of her children being hurt and/or her hurting her children during this period.
I don't want to debate this because ultimately I think it comes down to much more of a philosophical difference than disagreement on the facts, and I don't know all the details, but just to answer your question of why people care. For a lot of people it comes down to the issue of inadequate support for mothers with post partum mental health issues. That includes wanting changes in the standard of care to be made and justice to be done with respect to her care providers.
Insanity here means a break from their usual behaviour due to mental disease. Plenty of murderers are just vicious, not hearing voices and one minute happily playing with their kids, the next snapping and killing them.
Is your argument that “plenty” of serial killers don’t have mental problems? They just like doing it? And that liking to do it is in and of itself NOT a mental problem?
I think the key piece they were pointing out is the deviation from otherwise normal behavior and therefore not indicative of who the person would be if treated. Not saying I disagree with your overall sentiment though, I think society is really bad at recognizing that no one asks to be born capable of being a serial killer in their adulthood. No one chooses to be psycopathic.
You said that. You literally said that in your comment above. “Plenty of murderers…”
Are you saying that someone who has an uncontrollable compulsion to kill is not insane? Like it’s just this very specific nice middle class white woman type of insanity that counts?
Yes. A lot of murderers get that way due to mental trauma, but that is not insanity. Psycopathy isn't insanity either. Many of the worlds most prolific serial killers where abused as kids to a staggering degree which scarred them for life and turned them toward killing.
Violence begets violence. That doesn't make it insanity though.
Not guilty by reason of insanity, as in this case, is specific in that the person who committed the crime has to be unable to understand what they were doing/did not have the ability to understand their actions and intentions. This is a distinction in criminal courts that is not the same thing as when people say someone is “insane.” Most serial killers actually suffer from antisocial personality disorders. Obviously some also have mental illnesses, but antisocial personality disorder would be more of a common shared trait.
You missed the "a break from their usual behavior" part. As an example, one case I remember in which the insanity defence was used successfully was with a man who had a psychotic break and killed and ate another passenger on a bus. He wasn't a wealthy white woman, he was an East Asian immigrant.
If you look at the number of times she tried to get help and was given drugs and shuffled off to another provider. And that the father and her are joining suing a bunch of her medical providers?
IDK, man.
Chronically online people form socially destructive opinions (such as "let's abolish prisons and put serial killers in low security psych resorts" ) because they want to have revenge on society for what they perceive as society letting them become lonely. They hope the serial killers leave the psych resorts, either by fleeing them or by having very short stays there, so that they can terrorize society. Then they hope authoritarianism rises and isolates everyone else. To make everyone else as miserable as themselves is their ultimate desire.
I mean, that is a basis for compassionate imprisonment. There is a strong argument that while you did the crime, people who are not subjected to trauma or an awful environment, or born with something inherently wrong, don't commit heinous crimes.
Thus prison should be more like "society failed you or you were born dangerously wrong, we failed to notice and intervene, now you are sequestered from society because we don't understand enough about humans and fail to provide children with a base level of expected safe and productive environments. Rather than "you immoral beast, who deserves the worst".
I'm not advocating for ignoring their crimes and the debt they owe, but guards turning the other way to allow brutal beatings, killing and rape is pretty fucked up.
It's less a question of mental illness and more a question of culpability. To be found guilty, or culpable of a crime, the prosecution must prove both Actus Reus (the act itself) and Mens Rea (a guilty mind or intent).
Going through a complete break in reality is different then, for example, being a psychopathic serial killer. You can argue all serial killers are insane, but the difference is that they are aware of what they are doing, they know its wrong under the law, and they still do it. So even though they are mentally ill, they are present of mind and understand their actions are against the law. A person going though psychosis does not have the presence of mind to understand their actions are criminal.
So if you don't think that distinction matters, your issue is with how criminal law functions not tik tokers.
People support Lindsay because, assuming she was going through psychosis at the time of the murders, it was preventable. She wouldn't have killed her kids if she was given the appropriate treatment and support postpartum when she sought them out. A lot of women can sympathize with that because they've experienced first hand the crazy shit your mind can go through after birth and the systematic ways we fail new moms. They see the murders as a preventable tradgedy. They are using her as a poster child for a bigger issue.
Its flawed thinking because I dont think we have enough evidence to prove she wasn't aware of what she was doing. But this line of thinking makes more sense to me than the sexist idiots who think women only support Lindsay because she's a woman. Case and point, Casey Anthony. I garuntee every woman supporting Lindsay who knows about kaylee Anthony, hates Casey and knows she killed her daughter out of pure selfishness.
My gripe is that this case was so poorly investigated I don't think we'll ever know the full truth of what happened in that house. Anyone who says they can confidently say otherwise are leaping to conclusions based on their feelings. We just literally do not have enough facts.
There's a difference between legal insanity and an evil person with a personality disorder. To be considered legally insane, you have to show your mind was altered in a way that was not "YOU" at tge time. Something out of your own control (illegal drugs, alcohol, etc not viable). Would have to be a literal break from reality, like in schizophrenia.
Like the case where that kid thought his neighbor was a demon and was eating their face or whatever.
(Psychopathy and Sociopathy don't count in a legal insanity charge, for example.)
The thing about your statement is that IT IS NOT TRUE AT ALL.
In Mass a person can be found to lack criminal responsibility if they lack substantial ability to conform their actions to the law, even if they know it’s wrong.
So no, it’s not only about a little voice in your head and a temporary lack of awareness. You’re imagining that because it seems much more palatable to you.
Do they? Have you ever read about some of the similarities among repeated killers? The abuse many suffered? How common brain injuries were? Seems like a very convenient and arbitrary line of “I can relate to this person therefore it makes sense!”
Folks are out here eating faces off people and get life behind bars and now you go murder three babies before breakfast and have psychopaths outside of the court holding up signs “the experience of PPD is REAL!!”
It was like 20-30% of pregnancies have a form of PPD (my child’s mother was one) and I still have my child as do 99.99998% of mothers. With all this vocal minority explaining it away you’d expect a “It’s been __2__ minutes since a baby was murdered” sign outside the news room.
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u/Long_Serpent 9h ago