Lindsay Clancy case: was it evil, or severe mental illness?

A close relative works in a forensic mental health unit with people who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. He says that the vast majority of the people there are awful people and mentally ill, that the two aren't exclusive. It's not like they could be 'cured' or whatever way you want to phrase it and then they would go off and be model citizens.

Coming from a home with a very abusive mother I'm always at the way people rush to defend women who commit awful crimes against their children anyway.

He started dating her 4 months after his wife allegedly murdered his children. That's pretty quick

Clearly not evil. Clearly loved her children but struggling more than any of us could possibly imagine

In that case he would have been following instructions.

During and just after the LL trial there was very little dispute that LL killed the babies, in fact. I was one of a tiny minority of posters here critical of the medical evidence who felt there was no evidence of murder in any of the cases.

But that’s not the point. I didn’t say the LL case was like the LC, I said that both cases the spotlight the flaws of the adversarial legal system in dealing with scientific evidence and picked out 3 points of confluence between them.

Most lay people don’t understand psychosis so everything they think they think is grounded mostly in fancy.

Yes, this is why it is complicated. It is fine to believe in your conscience and have a minority opinion - no court can find any wrong doing in that. But if the person is just ignoring the instruction that reasonable doubt means they must pass a not guilty verdict, ie. believes there is doubt but wants to find guilty anyway, then that is not following the judges instructions. This is what the note from the jury chairperson indicated, that the holdout person acknowledged doubt but refused to find her whatever the majority view was - that is where the problem sits.

Not been following the whole case it sounds like she was mentally ill - still deserves jail time however. She cannot ever be free in my opinion.

I expect we'll see some men using paternal postpartum as a defense.

What do you mean by following instructions? He might have understood the concept of reasonable doubt but determined that there wasn't reasonable doubt and that she was guilty.
Can't he decide for himself (I believe it was a man) on how to vote and stick to that?

I think it’s very different from the Letby Case. IMO she was framed there was no evidence it was her, but she was scapegoated I believe. I think it will turn out to be the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.

In this case, there is no dispute she killed the children but it’s whether or not she knew it was right or wrong at the time. People are entitled to think that there was some planning ie, waiting until her DH was out. When she didn’t succeed in killing herself, then the outlook for her was going to be bleak, so by saying she heard voices at that particular time could have been a get out of jail free card (literally). Anyone could commit a crime and say I heard a voice so they get a more lenient sentence and that’s the issue, it’s the not knowing.

Are there no "majority verdicts" in the US? I haven't been watching or reading much about this, just following this thread TBH.

I am sorry to hear that, @Autumngirl5 .

They can poll the jurors to find out how they voted. My forensic psych class was a long time ago but I think there are options if there is evidence one juror is not following instructions. But because the "jury of your peers" standard is so revered, its a risky strategy from what I remember.

It was a work of evil on Patrick Clancy's part absolutely.

I have experience. A very close member of my family suffered from post partum psychosis and heartbreakingly she took her own life.

or maybe he doesn't have reasonable doubt and thinks she's guilty?

"And another thing - if men were the ones suffering from post partum anything, there would have been clear treatment protocols in place decades ago"

Absolute rubbish. Anyone who has ever had any kind of mental illness treatment will tell you that the a series of drugs are given and in many cases they can be ineffective and a different one trialled.

Plenty of men with various conditions have ended up killing people due to poor treatment of mental illness drug induced psychosis etc despite clear treatment protocols

In this case lindsay went tol ots of different doctors took a few doses then went to a doctor to get something different when most of these medications are supposed to be taken for weeks , not months.

I’m afraid that this case, like the Lucy Letby case here, highlights the limitations of trying medical cases in the adversarial legal system.

There’s the same problem of emotive subject of child deaths, poor lay understanding of medical issues + witch-hunt.

Really this case can only be evaluated by medical professionals experienced in mental illness, post-partum psychosis and medications.

The general ignorance in the population of mental illness in general and psychosis in particular is mindboggling.

And another thing - if men were the ones suffering from post partum anything, there would have been clear treatment protocols in place decades ago.

Both of you think this because you have zero experience, qualifications or clinical exposure to actual psychosis generated from post partum
misdiagnosis and as a result prescribing medications that actually make this type of patient significantly worse.

Her mind was not her own. She had hallucinogenic delusions. Her behaviour was entirely symptomatic of a patient exposed to inappropriate meds and treatment that should have been detected.

whilst she carried out the actions, she wasn’t independently, determinately and autonomously responsible for those actions.

That’s what I think. I don’t think what she did can be excused by mental illness.

The latter example you use wasn’t due to mental illness. They had an intellectual disability. They have the mind of a child in the body of an adult always. There is no medication to help and it’s no different to a child. There isn’t anything subjective about it in the same was as people claiming mental illness

And @NeverLookInTheMirror , I am certainly not saying that people look or act totally normal. But the things put forward on this thread - that she could have a coherent conversation, seemed to be capable of planning - those things are very possible during psychosis. Even when psychotic, hallucinations are often more obvious than delusions, and delusional thinking is much more resistant to medication. Its only when you engage someone in a thorough assessment and know what you are looking for that psychosis is obvious. Not sure anyone properly assessed her before or after the episode - in fact, she was not assessed properly when she begged to be admitted for her mental health.

"No one is talking about them because there's no doubt that she killed them. That appalling fact is not up for debate"

There are literally people on this thread saying she didn't do it and it was her husband......

And what are you basing your opinions of what psychosis looks like on? Because you made a very strong statement that she wasnt psychotic before or after. After working in psych hospitals for over a decade, I can tell you that the things being put forward here are not reliable signs of psychosis. And killing children in the grip of psychosis has been documented since we have had notions of mental health itself.

@CapeMylar - not guilty by reason of insanity is what we usually see represented in films, but it is incredibly difficult to get this - less than 1% of people who claim this are given this sentence. And in that case, they are likely to be hospitalized for an indefinite period. There is a plea of guilty but mentally ill in most states which is more likely. And no, it does not give you carte blanche to do what you like, because it still finds you guilty.