Lindsay Clancy trial: How the insanity defense differs in Mass.
There is also often a “disconnect between the popular perception and the reality” of the insanity defense, said one legal expert.
Prosecutors in the case of a Massachusetts woman accused of strangling her three young children will have to prove that she was criminally responsible.
But that might more challenging in Massachusetts, according to a Northeastern University expert.
Once the defense raises the issue of the accused’s mental state at the time of the crime, prosecutors bear the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was criminally responsible, said Daniel Medwed, a university distinguished professor of law.
“In Massachusetts, we don’t typically use the term ‘insanity defense,’” Medwed said, citing the stigma that attaches to the word “insanity.” Instead, it’s referred to as “lack of criminal responsibility.”
Lindsay Clancy, 35, is on trial in Plymouth Superior Court in Brockton, Massachusetts, on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three young children, who were found dead in their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023.
The children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — were discovered by first responders on Jan. 24, 2023, at the family’s Duxbury home after Patrick Clancy returned from picking up takeout and medication during an errand prosecutors say lasted about 15 minutes. Prosecutors allege Lindsay Clancy strangled the children with exercise bands before jumping from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
At the heart of the case is the issue of postpartum mental health, an often stigmatized and underrecognized set of conditions afflicting many women shortly after childbirth.
Postpartum depression affects an estimated 10% to 20% of people after childbirth, though rates vary by population, said Mary McDonough, an associate clinical professor at Bouvé College of Health Sciences, who studies families who have experienced perinatal loss. Symptoms are numerous, she said, but can include persistent sadness, poor concentration, anxiety, sleep disturbances, irritability, reduced pleasure, delayed reactions, psychomotor agitation and impaired mother-infant interactions.
But postpartum depression is different from postpartum psychosis, McDonough said, which is far rarer. Unlike postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis is considered a psychiatric emergency and can involve hallucinations, delusions and a break from reality. There are about 1 to 2 cases per 1,000 births, representing roughly 0.1% to 0.2% of postpartum people, according to national statistics.
It’s this rarer form that Clancy’s lawyers claim was what drove her to kill her three children. It’s also what led them to seek an insanity defense.
In Massachusetts, the defense may apply when a person’s mental condition prevents them from understanding or controlling their actions at the time of an alleged crime, including during an episode of psychosis. A qualifying mental disease or defect also need not fit a specific medical diagnosis.
High-profile cases involving female defendants often become unusually polarized because of longstanding gender expectations, Medwed said.
Beyond the bias that tends to play out in such cases, there is also often a “disconnect between the popular perception and the reality” of the insanity defense, Medwed said. Defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity are not “acquitted” as they might be under a standard self-defense claim, but rather committed to a secure psychiatric facility for an indefinite period, he said.
Indeed, neither party is contesting that Clancy killed the kids.
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In many jurisdictions, insanity is an affirmative defense, meaning the burden falls on the defense to prove that a defendant had “a mental disease or defect” that prevented them from understanding the nature of their actions, Medwed said. But that is not the case in Massachusetts, he said.
Procedurally, that means the defense “doesn’t have to do as much” in the way of persuading jurors compared with other states, according to Medwed.
It still has to present expert witnesses, demonstrate that Clancy had postpartum psychosis and contend with the 15-minute timeframe wherein the alleged crime took place while her husband was out running an errand.
Even when a defendant uses the insanity defense, there often isn’t a fixed list of mental illnesses that qualify for the defense. In some states, statutes or case law identify specific disorders that may satisfy the legal standard, Medwed said.
Massachusetts doesn’t have such a list and leaves the determination largely to jurors, who must decide whether a defendant’s mental defect impaired their cognitive capacity or ability to control their actions at the time of the alleged crime.
That broad discretion could prove especially significant in Clancy’s trial, where jurors will ultimately decide whether the defense has raised sufficient evidence that postpartum psychosis deprives her of criminal responsibility — and whether prosecutors have met their burden of proving otherwise.
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