When it comes to criminal law, I’ve never been one to take the insanity plea as anything other than as an attempt by a clearly guilty party to walk away from the consequences of their actions. The history of the insanity plea is one where people have abused the good faith of Americans to not want to lock innocent people in jail. The Lindsay Clancy trial is a prime example of someone who just needs to be sent to prison for the rest of her life, regardless if she is actually mentally ill or not, and the fact that this is even a debate is troubling.
For context, Lindsay Clancy is a wife and mother of three children, children whom she admitted to killing on January 24th, 2023. Clancy worked as a nurse in Boston, Massachusetts, living with her husband, Patrick, married in 2013. Clancy gave birth to her first child in 2017, second child in 2019, and final child in May of 2022. During and after her pregnancies, Clancy reportedly experienced mental health issues, and postpartum depression. During this time, she reportedly sought out medical help from a number of doctors, who prescribed her various antidepressants, benzodiazepines, SSRI’s, and more. It’s unclear at the time of writing whether the doctors knew about all the drugs she was on, or that she was even talking to a number of doctors at once. During this time, she took time off of work, and Patrick hired a nanny to help take care of the children. Patrick even took time off from work frequently to help Lindsay at home to support her and the children. Regardless, on January 24th, 2023, Lindsay sent Patrick on an errand, took her children to the basement of their home, strangled them with an exercise band, then proceeded to jump out the second story window of their house after cutting her wrists in an apparent suicide attempt.
All of this is horrifying. I’m summarizing/glossing over a lot of details, and the trial hasn’t occurred yet, so a lot of details are still relatively unknown publicly. It’s likely the full truth will never fully be revealed, as we can’t know for certain what actually happened during the killings, or what Clancy was thinking before, during, or after. Three people are dead, and the lives of two people are irrevocably changed forever. Worst of all I feel sorry for Patrick, a man who was trying his best to support his wife and children.
But Lindsay Clancy must go to prison for the killing of her children. Even if she was actually insane, and not in control of her faculties, we need to imprison her for the simple fact that we cannot trust that she will not kill again. It is one thing to kill in self defense, or to commit a homicide of passion, or negligence (although I think any sort of murder/manslaughter should result in the convicted in prison for a long time/potentially life). The argument that she was not in control of her faculties is not even a good justification for not throwing her into prison. We imprison people who were driving drunk, and injure/kill people while behind the wheel. Drug addicts who are high on psychoactive stimulants and hurt/kill people are not afforded a not guilty plea just because they were high at the time of their crime. We do not excuse a crime, especially one where someone is hurt or killed, just because the convicted person was not fully in control.
The history of the insanity defense is also one of abuse by powerful people simply to avoid jail time. The first use of the insanity defense in the United States was by the controversial Civil War veteran Dan Sickles, who killed Phillip Barton Key II after discovering that Sickles’ wife was having an affair with Key. To summarize the trial broadly, Sickles likely was acquitted because many believed he was justified in killing Key for adultery, rather than because Sickles was actually insane or not.
For Clancy specifically, I can understand that the cocktail of medications she was on likely did affect her mental state. I just don’t believe that is compelling enough to allow her to be found not guilty, even if she is found legally insane, and has to be committed to a mental institution. According to G.L. c. 123, ยง 16, Clancy could be found not guilty by insanity, committed for a period as short as 6 months, found that she is cured of her mental illnesses, and let free. Again, I cannot stress this enough: We do not let people who killed while under the effects of drugs free just because they were on drugs at the time. This standard should also be applied to Clancy.
Overall, the Clancy trial is just another wedge issue that shows the cultural divide within the United States, with many people believing that Clancy should be allowed to walk free for a whole variety of reasons. The main one being that she was not capable of being culpable of killing her children. Another (thankfully a small, but loud) minority of people think that Patrick murdered the children, or that he drove Lindsay insane enough to kill the children. However, a great deal of people seem to believe that this case is somehow linked to the abortion debate, and more or less are saying that it is ok for a mother to kill their children at any point, for any reason. This is a different issue, but this is the logical endpoint of anyone who believes in abortion.
What troubles me most is that this really isn’t a difficult case to conclude on. If you kill a person, and it isn’t in self defense, you should just go to prison, regardless of your mental state, or whether you were in control at the time. Justifying murder because of a lack of locus of control, or responsibility, opens up a can of worms in society that we don’t want opened. It’s going to justify people committing evil acts, and walking away without any punishments, all because they know how to string about a sentence of words in the correct way.