Whatever the verdict, Lindsay Clancy is extremely unlikely to be getting out quickly
The jury is deliberating in the Clancy trial.
I am fairly certain she won’t be “getting off,” whatever the verdict. If she is found to have had diminished capacity due to psychosis, her stay in a mental hospital will be very long, IMHO. She brutally murdered her three young children. That is the reality, and they’re not just letting her out in a month. My guess is that she would be staying for many many years and perhaps even for life.
For example, Andrea Yates – who killed her 5 children in Texas in 2001, twenty-five years ago – and was found found guilty but ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity (see this for the twistings and turnings of her legal situation), is still institutionalized in a mental hospital. Massachusetts is different than Texas of course, but here’s how it works in Massachusetts:
Massachusetts law says the court can order her hospitalized for up to 40 days for “observation and examination,” and prosecutors or hospital officials can then petition for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility.
If a judge determines Clancy is mentally ill and releasing her “would create a likelihood of serious harm,” she could be committed to a facility, the law states. The initial commitment is generally valid for six months and can be renewed in one-year periods.
“She’ll never be released unless there’s a finding by a judge that she doesn’t represent a danger to herself or others,” Rossman said.
She might never get out. Also, she’s probably still a suicide risk, although as a paraplegic she might have trouble accomplishing it.
If I had to guess, I’d predict the jury will be hung. But that’s 100% a guess.
Instructions to the jury covered first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, and not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. For this last one the judge explained what is probably going to happen, which I quote in case it’s of interest:
Key point seems to be “still mentally ill and dangerous”. So, deemed mentally ill but no longer dangerous, the court will order her discharged–“will” being the judges’s word, not mine. It appears that this decision will not be based on what she already did, but what she is likely to do in the future at the time her commitment is reviewed.
Niketas:
Precedent tells us she’s unlikely to get out for a long long time. She didn’t seem dangerous right until she killed her kids, but that proves she was dangerous and future dangerousness is assumed till proven otherwise. Plus, she is a danger to herself in terms of suicide.
I agree on the hung jury part because of the strong feelings on both sides. But I think it quite likely she won’t be confined for more than a couple of years if she is found not guilty. If you buy the argument that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis exacerbated by the effects of her medications, then it seems quite possible that once her medications are adjusted under supervision, she could appear to be no longer dangerous.
This is why I don’t like the Massachusetts insanity defense. Once she is found not guilty, the decision to release her is based on her mental health and the enormity of her crime is no longer relevant. For such a heinous crime, there should be a lengthy sentence regardless of her mental state.
Strikes me that suicide is the correct option for her. A very sad tale.
@Gregory Harper:Once she is found not guilty, the decision to release her is based on her mental health and the enormity of her crime is no longer relevant. For such a heinous crime, there should be a lengthy sentence regardless of her mental state.
When you think about it we expect “criminal justice” to do multiple things, which aren’t always compatible:
a) Protect the public from a known danger
b) Deter others from doing the same
c) Deliver a punishment that the offender deserves, but not more than that
and a few others that I haven’t thought of or don’t know how to express well, like “paying for the crime” which means very different things to very different people.
And anything inflicted on a convicted criminal may fall short on any one of these even if it does well on others.
Bridgewater State?
An uncle went there for a couple of semesters.
AppleBetty:
It won’t be Bridgewater. That is a men-only facility.
Niketas Choniates:
“When you think about it we expect “criminal justice” to do multiple things, which aren’t always compatible:
a) Protect the public from a known danger
b) Deter others from doing the same
c) Deliver a punishment that the offender deserves, but not more than that
and a few others that I haven’t thought of or don’t know how to express well, like “paying for the crime” which means very different things to very different people.”
Yes, we expect more from our justice system than just protecting the public from danger. I think it unlikely that Clancy will be a danger in the future. But I also think the public has a legitimate desire to see such a horrific crime severely punished. I don’t think people are convinced that justice will be served by the opinion of a board of psychiatrists.
I also think that opinions on this case would be a little different if she had killed somebody else’s kids. It seems to me that some women are treating her children almost as her possessions and not as individual human beings with their own rights.
Gregory Harper:
The idea is that for Clancy a postpartum problem segued into a violent bipolar manic and psychotic episode. If she is bipolar, she remains so and therefore with her history of murder and attempted suicide, her non-dangerousness could not be guaranteed.
Andrea Yates is still in the hospital 25 years later. She had a postpartum problem that segued into a homicidal schizophrenic psychosis. She is medicated for schizophrenia but is still in the hospital and probably will remain there.
neo: Andrea Yates is still in the hospital 25 years later.
from People magazine:
Andrea has been remanded to Kerrville State Hospital, a mental facility in Kerrville, Texas, since 2007. Though she has an opportunity to review her condition for potential release every year, she has continued to waive that right as recently as 2022.
“She’s where she wants to be. Where she needs to be,” Parnham told ABC News in June 2021. “And I mean, hypothetically, where would she go? What would she do?”
Her defense attorney believes that she will likely spend the rest of her life at the low-security facility, where she watches old videos of her kids and makes aprons and cards that she anonymously sells to support the Yates Children Memorial Fund, which was founded by Parnham and his wife to support women’s mental health. The lawyer told PEOPLE in June 2016 that she was the only patient not allowed to leave the grounds.
https://people.com/where-is-andrea-yates-now-11879621
AppleBetty:
Incredibly sad on every level.
Lindsay should be institutionalized. Not guilty because of insanity, but too dangerous to be out. I don’t trust her with kids.
Do I get it that she was bipolar before all this?
@Richard Aubrey:Do I get it that she was bipolar before all this?
Not everyone agreed, according to the transcript, and there’s more than one kind of bipolar. One doc testified she had not met all the criteria, one doc testified that she only barely met them for bipolar 2 (he said he struggled to identify a qualifying incident of hypomania), other docs didn’t think she was at the time they were working with her. I think they all but one agree now that she was before the murders. Diagnosis is not unfortunately an exact science.
It took a lot of courage to do what you did.
Nikolas
So, whatever the dueling or not entirely parallel diagnoses, she had some issues nearly diagnosable. So it took the post partum to break her hold on a normal life. So, how did she manage a normal life. Happily married, three kids and a husband who, if he’d had doubts, would likely have made arrangements to stop having kids..If post partum were the last straw, she’d have been displaying serious issues in advance. Apparently, she wasn’t. So post partum was what did it. I guess that, plus defective medical encounters finished her off.
But can you be a rational planner while in the grips of a psychosis? If it wasn’t that, why at all?
What does jumping from a twelve foot window mean. Leaping from the window sill is one thing. Clambering out and hanging from the sill makes it maybe an eight foot drop. Or less. did she have a plan here? To pretty much guarantee a suicide from twelve feet, you should jump head first. Otherwise, even spinal injuries can’t be depended upon. Maybe…. Hope the jury has more evidence than this.
I do hope you are rightm Neo.
Because, if not, theoretically, she could be released, marry and be step mother to someone else’s kids.
Good Heavens.
Have her supporters thought about that?
Richard Aubrey:
Psychotic people are sometimes able to plan and carry out those plans.
She had some mental and emotional problems after earlier births. Women often have worse symptoms with each successive birth.
One of the hallmarks of her emotional problems was severe insomnia, which can be a bipolar sign.
If one is bipolar and has severe insomnia, what happens if, independently of the bipolar issue, the insomnia is successfully addressed? Is that one negative factor removed or does insomnia’s usual difficulties cover up or compete for attention with other bipolar issues?
Do we know how long she was planning this? Given what is known, it apparently didn’t take long from start–sending hubby off on errands–to the end. But the coordination might have taken some time to arrange. And in all that time, normal functioning couldn’t stop her.
If “guilty but insane” is on the table, that might be the most logical. But society isn’t going to be happy if a psychologist says, eighteen months from now, she’s cured and not a threat and should be let out. She must pay, locked up somehow. So taht will require a legal imposition on the institutionalization overriding the professionals’ views there of her mental state.
@Richard Aubrey:Hope the jury has more evidence than this.
If you really want to know what the jury has, the transcripts will tell you that. They’ve seen a great deal of ambiguous and contradictory material about
a) does the word “postpartum” have anything to do with what was wrong with her when she murdered
b) what kind of bipolar she is, if any, and why that should matter
c) what the docs saw at the time, and what they should have seen, and why this should matter
d) what the docs did for her at the time, and what they should have done, and why this should matter
e) what she did for herself as a health care professional, and why this should matter
f) did she even experience psychosis at all (there’s only her word for having heard a voice)
g) if she did have a psychotic episode during the murder, should she still be held responsible
On top of that they are having to decide between four or five different verdicts. I would not want to be on that jury, even though they do go home at night, they are not sequestered or anything.
Niketas. I guess what I meant was “hard evidence”. Some of these issues are, as we see from her not having sufficient indicia, sort of like being on a spectrum; “yeah, you’ve got something but not bad enough to be sure what it is…or whether you rate any professional attention or something”.
I imagine they have the date correct and pretty firm. Probably. These jurors, depending on how they approach the issue, are going to have to make hard calls where the professionals whiffed.
As to suicide; my question regarding the jump still stands. What kind of jump was it? Really aimed at death as in, head first? Aimed at death but she didn’t have a clue and went feet first? Faking it and went feet first but screwed up the landing? Twelve feet…..doesn’t even rate as a symbolic attempt. The knife….just abrasions, said on observer? If a knife isn’t razor sharp, and I mean nearly scalpel sharp, you have to lean on it pretty hard to get it through live skin. And when it’s your own skin and you feel the effort against your own skin with your own hand….hard to continue. So….how sharp was the knife? Or was it fake scrapes? Got a call in to the suicide hot line but not enough thought on the subject to get professional attention….. , But on record and didn’t cost a dime.
Buckets of crumbs scattered, to mess up a metaphor but no pattern.
Meanwhile a report of a woman slitting her kids’ throats. NOt a very good looing woman so not likely to be the Luigi of this area of homicide.