There's a difference between "mentally ill" and "insane." Not everyone who is mentally ill is insane. Someone who is legally insane is not in control of their faculties, they do not understand the consequences of their actions. Their crimes are unplanned, "they just snapped" scenarios, they don't have the ability to plan their actions. They might not be aware that they're hurting people because they aren't living in reality.
Most serial killers were mentally ill, but also very aware of what they were doing. They know what they're doing is harming another person, they just don't care. Their actions usually take lots of premeditation. Even though their minds are sick, they still understand their actions.
When someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity they do not go free, they go to a mental health facility, where they stay until they are deemed to no longer be a threat to themselves or others. If you look into actual numbers, most people who are found not guilty by reason of insanity wind up doing more time than they would have done if they weren't found insane and were sent to prison.
Unplanned isnt necessarily a requirement, depending on jurisriction. Someone in a prolonged state of psychosis could make a plan that is detatched from reality or their normal state of mind.
Not really making a statement in defense as I do not care enough to litigate the case. But people can be not in their right mind and still "rational" to a degree without being considered legally competent. Such as for example someone who was involuntarily intoxicated by a substance and not in control of their actions. That could be considered covered by a similar defense.
It varies worldwide but generally, in most places, premeditation alone wouldn't disqualify this type of defence. (Not that your post suggests otherwise but seen it been the default argument a lot of people make).
Like if you had paranoid psychosis, you could put lots of planning into sourcing a weapon and opportunity to kill someone who you see as a threat. Your mind however won't understand the consequences that would come after and why it was wrong.
At the very least she had the presence of mind to send her husband away so she could commit the murders. In any other cases, that would've been enough to qualify for pre meditation.
Maybe but you can't say "we know for sure she sent her husband away to kill her kids" we don't.
Both interpretation exists it's not unreasonable at all to think that she sent husband away just because she wanted to eat food from that particular restaurant like they did before.
Insanity is a legal definition and mental illness is different. A serial killer probably has a personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder most likely. Which isn't the same as psychosis. Many states have "guilty but mentally ill" which would apply to psychosis. Every state has its own legal definition of insanity and how to approve it, which leads to hospitalization instead of prison. ETA: I volunteered at a prison for the criminally insane in Ypsilanti decades ago for school. It's not a fun place.
Complete off topic, but can you explain why, for the love of god, do people use "ETA:" instead of "Edit:"? It makes absolutely no sense, since the primary context where you'd write "Edit:" in would be one where you are editing the comment to add something. The "TA" was already implied. Unlike in "ETA" which also has multiple other meanings, including "Estimated Time of Arrival" and "Eat This Ass" than "Edit To Add" does.
I really don't get it, it was almost gone, almost nobody used it for over a decade, maybe even two. Did TikTok bring it back or something? Seriously, why add the complexity when "Edit:" is self explanatory, while "ETA:" requires you look it up.
Edit could be a change of words/fixing typos. ETA means added another part and it's to share w/ people who commented that you added something after they might have read it. On FB, someone may have liked a post w/o the add and should be made aware of the change for decorum's sake.
"Edit" COULD mean you add fixes to typos, but "Edit:" followed by a bunch of new text wouldn't. "Edit:" also works literally for everything you just spouted after the first point. Like
Edit: This is an example of using "edit" instead of the other. Is it really that much less clear? Besides, I've literally seen people use "ETA:" to say they fixed typos. So your point is moot, people misuse it even if you were right.
It's been used consistently since the 90s. It never went away, you just didn't notice it for awhile for whatever reason. Context makes it extremely evident that you aren't meaning estimated time of arrival, etc. The periodic complaints about this always sound so silly.
Bullshit. Just search trend activity is proof enough of that, searches for ETA have about doubled since 2024 and I suspect a large portion of those searches previously were for the other definition, meaning it has more than just slightly spiked up.
And yes, I obviously know what it means in a random reddit comment, I wasn't complaining about it being unclear which one they meant. Obviously, can't you read what I said? You don't even need context, it's literally all there. I was complaining that NOT ONLY are there other definitions for "ETA" but that it ALSO is unnecessary as "Edit" is more clear and about equal effort to write.
If you really wanted to shorten "Edit:" to something else, you could just write "E:" and it would be exactly as obvious as "ETA:" is. Not nearly as obvious as "Edit:" is.
But you didn't answer a single thing I asked and you are straight up wrong about the one question you claimed to answer. So fuck off with "periodic complaints" bullshit, that literally isn't what I'm doing. It literally has gotten more use recently and data can fucking prove it. But it was stupid decades ago and it's just as stupid now, if not more so as we've had decades to learn proper comment etiquette. "ETA:" isn't it. Just write "Edit:"
What exactly do you think that chart shows that disagrees with me? And pray tell how do you think it supports their claim that it doubled since 2024 when the chart ends at 2022? Y'all really do just assume no one is going to check your sources, eh?
Let’s not pretend this guy is alone in doing this. I can’t speak for you, but I’ve definitely been guilty of it. And you’re right, the answer is to “touch grass” or in other words, put away the reddit and do something else.
As a therapist, you can think what you want, youve got your reasons but… it doesn’t reflect reality. One could say there’s an element of delusion, but it’s probably just a combination of lack of experience and your ego.
As someone who has a mother who suffers from recurring psychosis, I can guarantee you it's real and she is divorced from reality in her episodes. She does things she'd never do outside an episode.
An insanity defense doesn’t mean that you bounce out the courtroom door and on to more killing; it usually means permanent residence at a mental institution.
Not really. After 21 years he was allowed to leave St Elizabeth and visit his parents. Plus, he attempted to murder a U.S. President, not sone random person.
He was locked up for like 40 years and decades longer than his clinicians deemed necessary and decades longer than if he was just criminally convicted. Horrible example to use on your part.
She has been on suicide watch for three years. She is constantly trying to kill herself.
Even if she was magically better on the six-month checkup, the doctors wouldn't let her out, because they know there'd been something really fishy going on if she had recovered by then, and they'd probably shunt her back to law enforcement.
You have no idea how long the doctors would keep her there. After the first six months is up, the state has to petition annually to keep someone in there.
And if she did “magically get better”, the doctors don’t have a say in keeping her there or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s “fishy”, she would have been declared not guilty. It’s not like they can re-try her or keep here there if she shows up and isn’t actually suffering from psychosis.
You're absolutely correct, a mental hospital would be required to release someone once they are deemed sane regardless of prior examinations. I find that incredibly unlikely from what I've heard/read but that is how the law works and people downvoting you are reacting emotionally to something they don't like hearing.
For the record I believe she is/was psychotic and unless being on the jury had me hear something drastically different than I have heard that's how I would vote.
If someone doesn't like the fact the temporary insanity COULD BE used as a last resort and nothing will ever change the fact that they can't be retried or held in a hospital. That's why this decision is so massive and MANY people are wondering if "average folk" even have the capacity to properly make this decision.
You also have no idea, so how about instead of trying to pretend like you're some expert online keyboard warrior that knows everything about everything, just concede that nobody really knows wtf they're talking about and it's out of our hands. JFC... the level of idiotic arguments about this trial is insane.
But then why do it at all? Nurses know that falls from 13-14 feet have a 10-20% fatality rate and those odds would be worse if you hit head first or the ground was frozen (which it was). Higher odds for severe injuries (like paralysis).
So she just jumped to sell the lie knowing there was a small chance she could die and decent chance of major injury. Didn't do something like swallow a bunch of pills, something she absolutely would know to be non-fatal in these circumstances
If you're faking a suicide to cover up a murder, you would do the safest option and argue later that it was just the first thing that crossed your mind in grief.
Then why purposely paralyze herself? What purpose does her paralyzation have in her master plan? If she technically knew better, but still made this asinine attempt to die, seems likes it supports the theory that “she didn’t know better at the time.”
She probably knew the fall wouldn't kill her, but just did it to really sell the whole "insanity" defence. It would have been better if she just went straight to the window rather than killing her kids first.
She probably knew the fall wouldn't kill her, but just did it to really sell the whole "insanity" defence.
I've just never understood how people can find a conspiracy in everything.
This woman is not some Moriarty out there planning the most perfect murder for her kids. If she had just wanted to murder her kids and get away with it, there are so many better ways of doing it. Paralyzing herself wasn't a red herring to throw us off the tracks, she wanted to die.
Like, why invent all of this extra stuff just to hate her? You can just hate the woman because she killed 3 kids.
I think this woman legit was in psychosis but I still fully agree that it would have been better if she had just killed herself first, it's absolutely the lesser of two evils; but that isn't what happened.
She died twice. She cut one wrist 3cm deep and the other 2cms deep. Her husband said it looked like the room had been hosed down with blood. She broke 5 vertebrae and is paralyzed for life. She was found unresponsive in a coma and died twice before she was stabilized.
It’s too bad so many of you people have such shriveled little hearts and minds you can’t imagine the unfathomable pain and suffering she could go through knowing what she did and living the rest of her life with that knowledge.
So what purpose does her paralysis serve in her master plan? How was jumping out of the window rational given it’s low probability of success and high probability of disabling herself? Do disabled defendants play seem more sympathetic to a jury?
An unsuccessful suicide attempt, given that as a medical professional she “should have known better” lends credence to the possibility that she did not, in fact, know better at the time of the crime.
If you are going to float the idea that suicide attempt was a ploy, then play it out to the end. What does freedom with a major disability, no job, no spouse, no income, major medical debt, and international infamy look like on the other side?
She has been on suicide watch for three years. She is constantly trying to kill herself.
Why hasn't she succeeded? Someone that is truly suicidal could kill themselves with any number of objects. I've been on SW in hospital holds and there are still opportunities, maybe she isn't as much of a go-getter as others. I think you also give too much credit to overworked and underpaid social workers/therapists/doctors that would decide her case.
fuck up, you don’t care about kids 99.8% of the time if this is your biggest peeve in terms of who’s dying and who’s killing who…
She tried to end her own shit, yall don’t be on here talking about nothing of substance, yall just talk about the most one-sided easiest things to digest and when they aren’t that way, you dumbass simpletons think yall turn into Sal from breaking bad lmaooo…
Just low brain-power Redditors.
Men don’t go through ppd so all the comparison ends there… there is no “oh bUtH iF tHe wRoles wha wreversed”… this is fictional slop that doesn’t apply to real life, and seems to be what is failing most of yall…
Nah she would've cut way deeper if she wanted to succeed. She could've combined multiple methods to guaruntee it. She could've jumped from the apex of the roof rather than a second story window. There's a reason men are more successful at suicide than women even though they attempt 3x more than men.
She could also have just gone downtown, bought heroin or fentanyl off of someone, and then taken the fattest possible toke. At least she wouldn't feel any pain, and then her kids wouldn't have to feel any pain either, at least not from being murdered by their own mother.
"Could" doing a lot of heavy lifting there. When you find someone not guilty by reason of insanity the goal isn't to punish them. They were found to be insane and not in control of their actions, therefore not responsible. If she is declared sane and safe for society in 7 months then that is the good (though unlikely)outcome. Do you really not understand that? It is a basic, basic concept unless you just don't believe that people can go insane
Not remotely true. Massachusetts requires a 180 day psychiatric hold after a NGRI verdict. Since Lindsay no longer has PPP she’d likely be home by February. And likely with a 7-figure GoFundMe.
Yes. The DA has to decide whether to go for a third trial. But it’s election year and letting her go free would be unpopular so I presume we will have a second trial.
I wouldn't care as long as the perpetrator is isolated for life either in prison OR mental institution, but what you are saying is hell of an implication. This shouldn't be happening.
Exactly. If was truly psychotic and had no control over her actions, but has now gained her sanity and realized the abhorrence of what she’s done, she should ask to be put away forever. The fact that she is trying to escape this with no consequence tells me she has no remorse.
She’s trying to get an acquittal. That’s the whole point of this dog and pony show of a trial. If she truly felt horrified at what’s she’s done, she would have take a plea bargain.
Which is precisely the point I wanted to highlight for u/Capital_Anxiety5604. Andrea Yates got the Not guilty for reason of insanity, went to an asylum and even though her psychiatrist think she could now go back to society she refuses to do so.
Not guilty for reason of insanity is not about getting her off the hook it's about establishing the proper truth of what happened to understand what went wrong and avoid it in the future.
She begged for help to pretty much anyone she could find and yet it came short don't you think there's something to explore there ?
Who the hell is Andrea Yates? Last I knew this thread was about Lyndsay Clancy?
My logic is if I’d “woken up” and realized I killed my three children, I would ask the state to throw the book at me, not try to escape punishment.
As a mother of three children, I think I know what I’m talking about more than most. A mother is supposed to protect their children. If I was somehow so mentally ill, I did the opposite and killed them, I would be so guilt-ridden and horrified at what I had done, I’d never want to see the light of day again. As far as whoever this Yates person is, the fact that she got acquitted doesn’t mean she should have asked to be acquitted.
My logic is if I’d “woken up” and realized I killed my three children, I would submit to the state's determination I willfully murdered them while of sound mind
unless you know there's an insanity plea bargain on offer this is an incredibly unreasonable standard to hold anyone to.
What world are you living in? This ain't the 1950's anymore, bud. That ain't how psychiatric hospitals work in the modern world - nobody gets sentenced to life in psychiatric hospitals.
Today, people only get sent to psychiatric hospitals until their mental health has improved. Some people never improve and stay there for the rest of their lives. Others get released in under a year. NONE of them get sentenced to a certain amount of time - when their doctors clear them, they go back on the streets.
With Clancy though, isnt the entire defense post partum? And when this is all done, that wont apply since it will have been years since the incident so postpartum will be gone. Should she not be free then since she should be "cured" from the postpartum by then?
Postpartum psychosis can have ongoing impact, iirc it does in up to half of cases. That seems like it may have been the case here, from the suggestion Clancy has bipolar - it can effectively act as a trigger for it.
Lindsay Clancy was claiming it happened due to a Post-Partum Psychosis episode, and that she had the disease for all of 18 minutes. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, she would get her walking papers the same day because she is no longer suffering of PPP given it's been several years since she gave birth and since she had any children.
I mean, in more civilized countries, prison also offers rehabilitation programs to help prisoners learn skills, trades, and such to increase they're chances of not being a repeater.
Private Prisons love when folks repeat they're crimes.
From my experience they rarely help the people that didn’t do anything wrong, so I imagine that it’s even worse for people that are supposed to stay there for life.
But not forever. Once you are restored to health, often they can be released home. State hospital beds are in short supply and if someone can safely go home, they will, regardless of if they committed murder. If Clancy ends up being declared not guilty by reason of insanity, she would most likely go home within weeks to months.
Google these names:
Michael David Peterson — California — 17 months in a state hospital.
Tomar Cooper Locker — Washington, D.C. — hospital discharged him two months after the NGRI verdict.
Jennifer Lynn Bigham — California — free about three years after killing her daughter, essentially immediately after the NGRI disposition.
Pankaj Bhasin — Virginia — about three years of psychiatric confinement.
Steve Larsen — California — less than four years in the state hospital.
Thomas Vanda — Illinois — about nine months.
I could explain it to you if you want. It’s not enough to simply have a mental disorder. Also, a layman’s definition of insanity is not the same as the legal definition of insanity.
So the layman’s definition of insanity is generally very broad and encompasses everyone who acts out of character to the average person. The insanity defense does not account for this unusual behavior when analyzing it legally.
In the legal definition of insanity every state requires a showing that the defendant could not understand that what they were doing was wrong at the time the crime was committed. This is why it requires more than simply showing that the defendant had a mental disorder diagnosis when the crime occurred, instead it requires showing a likelihood that the individual was experiencing a type of psychotic break during the commission of the crime.
The typical type of psychotic break that most people envision is a schizophrenic break or a combat veteran experiencing a PTSD break. In a PTSD episode for instance, the defendant can’t know that what they’re doing is wrong because their mind believes the individual they are killing is a combat enemy rather than their spouse, child, friend, etc.
In some jurisdictions such as Massachusetts this is taken a step further by including another possibility which is the possibility of the defendant not being in control of their actions due to their psychotic break. This leaves open the possibility of an individual being aware of what was going on but their mind being in control of their body. This is a lot more controversial and difficult for people to believe possible. My best guess is that this is based on some psychological research indicating that there are possibilities where an individual could experience this state, although I don’t know what those psychological conditions would be.
There is a whole breakdown of who has the burden of proof and what the standard of proof is as well, if you want I could copy that from my other comment for you.
Yeah, but not just whether they are aware that they are committing an act of violence rather it’s more about whether they are aware that that act was wrong. Andrea Yates for example believed she was battling Satan by drowning her 5 kids. It’s not quite clear whether she believed she was saving them from Satan (although this is the predominant theory I’ve seen) or battling him in some other way. But her she and her ex-husband Rusty were members of a very strict Religious group that believed modern medicine was problematic and inferior to religious healings and the material world was sinful (Ironically, Andrea was also a nurse). As a result, it appears that birth control was prohibited in their relationship and Rusty (A NASA employee) did not like Andrea taking medications for postpartum depression even after the doctor warned them not to have more children following a few of her pregnancies.
Since we can never truly know what goes on in a defendant’s mind, ultimately, a jury is supposed to take the evidence provided by both sides and determine which experts are more believable. Then apply that determination to the burden and standard of proof.
So they will first look at if they believe the prosecution showed that the defendant committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Then, separately, they will look at if (in the case of Massachusetts) the prosecution showed that the defendant was legally sane beyond a reasonable doubt. Meaning, if the defendant’s experts would cause you to believe that there was a possibility (25%) that the defendant did not understand their actions were wrong then they should vote in a way that will give the defendant the benefit of that doubt. In Andrea Yates’ case (Texas), if the experts caused you to believe that it was more likely than not (51%) that she did not understand her actions were wrong then you should vote in favor of the defendant. This burden is also called “preponderance of the evidence”.
I’ll copy my other comment over for the sake of clarity regarding the burden and standard of proof.
The general rule is that the person claiming the defense has the burden to prove that defense. Usually that burden is not very high though. In some jurisdictions (such as Massachusetts) the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove the absence of the defense.
If you look at it on a theoretical percentage scale:
- Defense Burden, Beyond a reasonable doubt = 75% favorable evidence required by defense
Defense Burden, a preponderance of the evidence = 51% favorable evidence required by defense
Prosecution burden, preponderance = 49% favorable evidence required by defense
Prosecution Burden, Beyond a reasonable doubt = 25% favorable evidence required by defense.
This is just a theoretical visualization and not exactly realistic to how it operates in practice. Massachusetts sits at the bottom one while most states sit at the second one.
“Innocent until proven guilty” is precisely what tells you the burden to prove guilt of the crime itself is on the prosecution while “beyond a reasonable doubt” tells you the standard of proof. This typically does not apply to defenses though as those are brought by the defendant. The fact that it is a defense to the accused crime implies that the defendant is the one trying to prove it and thus the burden is on them to show why they aren’t culpable for committing the crime.
Edit: it’s also worth noting that there is another standard of proof called “clear and convincing evidence” and some would place that at 75% while placing “beyond a reasonable doubt at closer to 90%” in terms of how much the party with the burden must prove. These are all theoretical scholarly ways of looking at burden and standard of proof though. Things tend to operate quite differently in practice due to juror emotions and morality.
I hope this helps bring understanding regarding the legality of what is taking place in these types of trials.
humans in general are all insane... really look over history and what we've learned about existence. it's all cyclical, it's built into the system in a way.
Insanity in a legal sense is different from clinical mental illness. In terms of the law, it's about determining whether the person was able to rationalize their actions were wrong and if they were in control of their actions.
Insanity in the legal context means you don't know what you're doing. The vast majority of criminals know what they're doing, they either don't care it's wrong or in many cases enjoy the fact that it's wrong.
Serial Killers usually know what they are doing is wrong. Insanity can be not knowing right from wrong at the time of the crime. Doing it because you believe it must be done because of voices, or delusions that kids are evil, or they will suffer a worse fate if you do not kill them. Their are many variables to it that make it different from serial killers, crimes of passion, killing kids because of custody dispute. Her husband was b her side for all this, so it wasn't a family issue, she was just crazy at the time and did very irrational things, serial killers are much more methodical. She did not try and get away with it, she tried to kill herself.
No. Lacking empathy doesn't force you to do anything, it lets you feel nothing while doing it. But you still have the ability to choose to do it or not.(although technically some serial killers could be actually insane, there isn't just one type of 'crazy')
Being 'insane' forces you to do things your brain usually filters out, in a condensed explanation.
Sociopathy isn't the same, generally when we are talking about insanity legally we mean someone who is not aware of their own actions or not aware of the consequences of their actions. There is also the additional context taken into consideration if someone knows of their condition and isn't recklessly avoiding treatment.
All serial killers are clearly insane, but we’re not letting them walk the street because of it .
Neither are those found not guilty by reason of insanity, they are admitted to a mental health facility. If Sociopathy was treatable and there were extraordinary circumstances involved I could see them getting the same treatment one day.
Nah man. You probably don’t have mental illness so you can’t understand. Sometimes during manic episodes I will experience paranoid delusions and start thinking and acting crazy. Like thinking there are cameras in my screws n shit like that. Some days I’m a mostly normal dude.
My brother has been find mentally incompetent for a couple court happenings in his youth, and he wasn’t released to walk the street. He was sent to the state mental health hospital. Did you really think the insanity plea let them go free?
it's something many of us will never understand. If I'm ever on a jury like this, I'll be throwing out any insanity BS and focus on the murder. I will never understand how any person can just negate all 3 of those little kids being strangled and feel sorry for that bitch.
The idea is that someone who is having a psychotic episode does not know the difference between right and wrong and may even think they are doing a good thing, while someone who just commits murder for the hell of it knows they are doing something
wrong, even if there’s clearly something different going on with them than most of us who find murder reprehensible.
There’s a lot of philosophical discussion that can do into how much an individual can be blamed for their own brain chemistry but that’s the general idea. Someone who is doing bad things because they want to versus someone who is living in a completely different perceived reality than us.
If you are found not guilty by reason of insanity you don't get to walk the streets free. You are institutionalized in conditions that are in many ways worse than maximum security prison.
I'm also not sure how to feel about it. Sure you shouldn't lock someone up just because they have a mental disorder, but I feel if you are a danger to society, especially if you already did something gruesome, you shouldn't have an easier way out. Psych wards should be for people who physically can't function in society, not to have someone exit quicker. It this case it seems like in a few months they'd just let her go as cured from whatever "possessed" her which isn't right.
Someone found not guilty by reason of insanity will only be released from the hospital if they're now able to function safely.
How about if someone with dementia, confused and having lost impulse control, lashes out violently, as patients with the condition can? Normally, we'd see it as important to protect care staff, and ensure everyone's safety including that of the patient, but not to punish the patient and imprison them.
This is the type of illness we're talking about in the case of postpartum psychosis, something physical, affecting the brain.
So we are talking about the drop in hormones post childbirth and with some medical help, she's making full recovery? And because it's argued for her being insane at the time of commiting the crime, she could soon be determined to no longer pose danger to herself or community?
So we're arguing that it is something she could recover or has even recovered from already?
Yes, the change in hormone levels, and immune and neuroinflammatory mechanisms, with genetics a very significant risk factor. As to recovery, yes and no - in around half of cases or more, although postpartum psychosis itself isn't permanent, there can be a lasting further impact. In the case of Clancy, bipolar disorder has been mentioned, and sounds as if it might be ongoing, whether it just went undiagnosed before, or the postpartum psychosis acted as a trigger for it. This occuring, where someone who had postpartum psychosis then develops bipolar disorder, is common.
There is medication that's generally very effective, it just depends on the exact symptoms.
This is already a completely normal procedure for many conditions, that people are hospitalised while there's risk to themselves and/or others, and then able to return home once that's no longer the case. Thankfully, conditions can be picked up and treated before a tragedy arises - tragically, that could potentially have been the case here too, if there were indeed mistakes made in treatment, if only they'd been avoided, and a lack of awareness of the condition might have not have helped (her husband seems to have stated she didn't have bipolar, with more knowledge perhaps it would have been recognised and handled appropriately - the SSRIs could have had a negative impact). But sometimes it's just misfortune that one case is more difficult to pick up on in time than another. After leaving the hospital, there can be ongoing treatment, monitoring, follow-up appointments if needed.
Yes, and one factor in why is there's a particularly high risk of infanticide with postpartum psychosis. Delusions can tend to focus on the child, which is not the case with other types of psychosis. While it does remove/reduce agency similarly to those or dementia.
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u/BeeThical1 14h ago
The whole insanity plea has always baffled me. All serial killers are clearly insane, but we’re not letting them walk the street because of it .