Would the jury have convicted Lindsay Clancy of First Degree Murder if she had methodically killed anybody else's three children? I suspect that there is a 99.9% chance that the jury would have turned in a unanimous "Guilty" verdict for Murder in the First Degree after 10 minutes of deliberation if she had killed her next-door neighbor's kids (for instance) and no other circumstance had been changed.
Why is viciously killing her own children not murder? Weren't they unlawfully deprived of their futures? Why is she held to a much lower standard for caring for her own children than for the children of random strangers?
The law is not based on Empathy. It is based on facts that can be generated.
It does seems inverted - personally I feel much more responsible for my own children's welfare than that of the neighbor's or even stranger's (which come in around third after my Mrs., of course.)
ReplyDeleteHistory has many examples of incidents of filicide... what's different now is the widespread support this killer has been receiving. Indicative of a deeply disturbed and dysfunctional society.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind, the choice wasn't between "Guilty" and "Innocent", it was a choice between "Guilty" and "Insane".
ReplyDeleteA verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity" wouldn't have sent her home (not immediately, maybe not ever), but to a mental hospital instead of a regular prison.
She gets another trial.
DeleteIt is weird to me that some of the jurors went public and gave interviews after the trial.
One of them express great anger that the lone juror was "arrogant" and didn't conform to the collective decision that she was not guilt (due to insanity). She was angry that he didn't want to hear their reasoning and wanted to stay in his swim-lane and reach his own, independent conclusion.
Oh, and thanks for commenting.
Delete"It is based on facts that can be generated. "
ReplyDeleteFrom Webster: fact: noun; "something that actually exists or occurs; an actual event, situation, etc.; information or a piece of information presented as true or accurate; the quality of being actual."
If facts can be "generated" in, about, or for a legal trial then the entire process is less than worthless.
"Facts" exist or they do not exist; opinions about "facts" can, and do, vary; accuracy in reporting of "facts" can, and does, vary; the "facts" themselves remain constant, whether the truth is known about them or not, or even if the "fact" itself is known or not known. When "facts" become randomized through obfuscation, of any type, or "generated" to any degree, we're in deep, deep trouble.
Yep. That was a stupid thing to write.
DeleteHowever, it does point to a train of thought.
Expert witnesses can be paid to testify. Find one whose "expert testimony" supports your client and suddenly you have "facts for hire".
The judge tells the jury to only consider the information presented at the trial but part of the genius of the jury-of-peers system is that the jurors bring their own histories to the trial.
Maybe the hold-out juror had experiences with the soft, squishy nature of mental health diagnoses. Maybe he instinctively distrusts people who obfuscate by using five, six syllable words when three, single-syllable words would work.
The Progs celebrate in the street when juries nullify laws by refusing-to-convict. This is a case of a single juror nullifying as stupid clause in Mass. laws. Oddly, the Progs are not dancing in the streets.
Or, it could be something as simple as "she may be crazier than a herd of poop-house rats, deeply affected by untold forms of emotional trauma and mental stress, and in desperate need of industrial-strength psychiatric treatment, but that does not deny the need for accountability for one's actions."
DeleteI looked up the issue the jury had before it. The law in Mass. is unusual - once "lack of criminal responsibility" is put forward as an issue, the State has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was "criminally responsible." Under that state's law, a defendant is not criminally responsible if "a mental disease or defect caused them to lack the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct or conform to the law."
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt she killed her children. Put yourself in the jury's shoes - given the cocktails of psych drugs she was on and the multiple trips to psych doctors, did the State prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had "the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct or conform to the law"?
I always thought insanity was a defense that the defendant had the burden of establishing but, apparently, in Mass., the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you are not insane. I would argue that she did know what she was planning on doing was wrong because she sent her husband on errands to get him out of the house. why? because she knew what she was gonna do was wrong and he would have tried to stop her. But does that establish it "beyond a reasonable doubt"?
Just another example of Mass. laws that are insane.
But these "mind altering" drugs were barely touched. Trial listed them and how many left. She had only taken 2 or 3 out of the bottles. Yesterday we had a copycat with a baby killed then today another woman killed her children. But the nation average for parents murdering their children is around 500 per year. How sad.
ReplyDelete