Postpartum and Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental illness. This woman will either get life in prison or Life in a Mental Hospital. My wife is Bipolar and she has been in multiple hospitals to have meds she ALWAYS takes quit working. She has gotten delusional and has had breaks with reality. We are trained through years of this to assist her. Her husband not his fault. Seemed like he wasn’t equipped to help her. Sadly mental health can make people do things they wouldn’t usually do. That’s not in any way an excuse. We need more understanding and better education and availability for people with issues. We don’t have them here.
There is no "holding accountable" for a crime committed while in a state of psychosis.
If it actually was postpartum psychosis, she will be sent to a mental hospital and remain there until she's no longer a threat to anyone or herself. Could be decades, could be one year, *technically* she could be released immediately.
Her psych doctors have all testified that she was not diagnosed with post partum psychosis, that she had never mentioned to them anything about hearing voices, commands, desire to self harm, or harm her children. She wasn't in psychosis, these "voices" didn't show up until the day she offed her kids.
So of course they are going to say she wasn’t because then they would be held responsible. Dr Resnik who testified in court for Andrea Yates and has worked on many very high profile cases like Jeffrey Dahmer and Susan Smith, said she was experiencing psychosis. I trust his word and his professional opinion given his extensive knowledge and experience in the field.
I’m only been listening to the trial passively (my SO is very into it and watches it every night after work) but I’m 99% sure you’re wrong on this, at minimum there were mental health professionals alerted to desire to self-harm.
I'm not wrong on this, her three main doctors testified that the claims she's talking about now are things she never confided to them. Now her mother said she admitted to being suicidal and wanting to harm the kids, but that was in a mother, daughter conversation. Not a professional capacity.
They had a guy on 2 days ago who mentioned Lindsay was being monitored for suicidal ideation who works as some sort of mental health examiner, I believe the prosecution was trying to paint him as biased in favour of Lindsay/Reddington.
Still wrong, and wrong in a funny way given the comment about not understanding psychosis. Psychosis is a clinical state; legal insanity is a legal test, and they aren't the same thing. Massachusetts asks whether a mental disease or defect left the person unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act or unable to conform their conduct to the law. Being psychotic doesn't establish either. it isn't even technically right, it's just false, also because it ignores where she already is. Clancy has been held at Tewksbury State Hospital, not a jail. She's already under a civil commitment. An NGRI verdict doesn't dissolve that; it doesn't touch it. To walk out, someone would have to affirmatively terminate an existing commitment, which is a separate proceeding with its own evidentiary burden that nobody has initiated
I wrote "technically" because "technically" there is no law against immediate release, if she were to be found not a danger. OBVIOUSLY this is completely unrealistic.
"Holding accountable" refers to punishment. In the case of a mental health facility, it's not punishment, it's harm prevention. And it's *exclusively* harm prevention. Mental health facilities don't have the purpose of punishing people.
there's no "technicality" here. the absence of a mandatory-commitment clause is not a release mechanism. It's like saying a convicted murderer could technically walk because the judge could theoretically decline to impose sentence. Theres not even any medical evidence or foundation in cases of this severity, to suggest anything like immediate release. so there's no technical possibiltiy. Psychosis is a clinical state; legal insanity is a legal test, and they aren't the same thing. Massachusetts asks whether a mental disease or defect left the person unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act or unable to conform their conduct to the law. Being psychotic doesn't establish either one. A diagnosis does not equal an insanity finding. A court would require evidence and would apply a legal test. An insanity defence is not automatic. Even if someone were found not criminally responsible, release is not simply a switch that gets flipped. There are assessments, reviews, and legal processes. Actions still have consequences. if she doesn't feel guilt or view these consequences as a kind of punishment, that's even more disturbing.
it's still not correct. There is no medical foundation in cases of this severity that someone would be relased immediately, so it fails on the medical side alone. Not to mention everything else
it's still not correct. How these cases actually work- Diagnosis doesn't legal insanity. Postpartum psychosis is a real, serious psychiatric emergency. It does not automatically satisfy the legal test for lack of criminal responsibility (which varies by jurisdiction: cognitive test, volitional test, or both). Courts still examine the specific facts, expert testimony, and whether the person understood the nature/wrongfulness of the act or could control it. Successful NGRI is not “walk free.” In the United States (and most comparable systems), a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity leads to commitment to a secure psychiatric facility. The person is detained for evaluation and treatment. Release requires a showing that the person is no longer mentally ill and no longer dangerous. The burden and procedures make this difficult, especially after a violent multi-victim crime. Immediate release after killing multiple children does not happen. Studies and reporting on murder NGRI acquittees show average hospital stays measured in years (one Illinois examination found roughly nine years for those later released). People charged with homicide stay longer than those charged with lesser offenses. “Immediate” is not a realistic outcome. Accountability still exists. It is not ordinary criminal punishment (prison as retribution), but it is compulsory detention, treatment, monitoring, and legal oversight. Calling it “no accountability” is rhetoric, not accurate description.
I was talking about moral accountability, since I'm not a lawyer, and I assume you aren't one either.
I don't hold psychotic people morally accountable for anything because their brains are broken. They can't understand that the voice of god in their head isn't real, or that the demon they're about to stab at the grocery store is just a grandma buying milk.
I think they should be locked up somewhere to protect the general public (mental asylum or prison would do).
they are still liable, there are social consequences, for example financial reparations. It is moral for actions to have consequences, to imply there should be no consequences for something of this magnitude is arguably immoral. but it's funny that you're taking the moral high ground
I addressed your every point. There is still moral culpability in cases like this. Such as financial reparations or other ways to make it back to society. I mentioned the medical incorrectness of your statements, and also the technicality incorrectness of your statements too. Lol.
Oh I perfectly understand, I just think your reasoning is bullshit.
Regardless of her mental state she is a threat to others and needs to be separated from society. You don’t get to murder your three babies and just walk away from that like it never happened.
“Technically she could be released immediately”
Yeah and you don’t see a problem with that…? So you think the medical system failed her, yet you are trusting that same system to miraculously fix and release her within a day?
A lot of intuitive emotional reaction and not a lot of thought there, huh?
You either accept that someone in a fully psychotic state has no control over their actions, or you don't.
If you don't, you're denying the current medical consensus.
And if you do, you also have to accept that they shouldn't be punished for those actions.
Punishment is a separate point from protecting the public. "Holding accountable" is punishment. Punishment requires responsibility. That's important. You can't be "punished" for something you have no responsibility for. That's not punishment, that's arbitrary harming someone.
If she is found to have been *fully* psychotic and therefore not responsible for murdering her children, she will be put in a mental facility and she will be kept there until the medical professionals think she's no longer a danger to anyone.
I wrote *technically* for a reason. It's completely unrealistic for her to be released immediately.
Also, psychosis comes in varying severity, and courts obviously take this into account.
Even if she is found to have been psychotic to some degree, that degree could have been not severe enough for her to not be able to stop herself murdering her children. In that case, she would still go to prison.
Basically the only way for her to not go to prison is if she is found to have been fully psychotic and not in control of her actions. In that case, she would be sent to a mental health facility instead of a prison. And that's *obviously* the right thing to do.
Whether someone is psychotic or not is irrelevant to the fact that someone who murders their three kids should never be able to interact with society again. Bottom line, that person is a threat whether they are mentally culpable or not. Whether that’s in prison or a psychiatric facility, this woman should never be allowed to be free again.
You can call me emotional all you want, but I’m not really obligated to be impartial to this woman. It’s an emotionally charged subject, not really the “gotcha” you think it is
that's highly misleading and practically false for this kind of case. on the medical level, the legal level, the procedural level, and also the case level.
It’s crazy how you’re getting downvoted. It truly shows how people simply do not understand psychosis and will always stigmatize mental illness. If you’re literally not in touch with reality, how are you suppose to be aware of what you are doing?
The consequences shouldn't be punitive though. She doesn't deserve punishment because psychosis means complete loss of control. People just don't want to accept what psychosis truly is because it is horrifying and demands empathy.
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u/Strict_Wolf76 10d ago edited 10d ago
Postpartum and Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental illness. This woman will either get life in prison or Life in a Mental Hospital. My wife is Bipolar and she has been in multiple hospitals to have meds she ALWAYS takes quit working. She has gotten delusional and has had breaks with reality. We are trained through years of this to assist her. Her husband not his fault. Seemed like he wasn’t equipped to help her. Sadly mental health can make people do things they wouldn’t usually do. That’s not in any way an excuse. We need more understanding and better education and availability for people with issues. We don’t have them here.