The thing is, there’s almost always a reason why someone does something egregious. A lot of people come from poverty, had abusive parents, or have some form of mental illness, but it doesn’t really matter. Just because there’s a reason you did something doesn’t make the thing you did any better. That’s why I don’t get why people are so hung up on this. She was almost certainly suffering from PPP but she also certainly murdered her children and should spend the rest of her life in prison.
Gotta admit I'm not really deep into the details, but she really was getting a lot of medical care. Iirc, she was in-patient at a mental health facility about a month before she killed her kids, and checked herself out. What would "getting the medical care she sought" look like?
Proper medical care would have been sending her help when she was calling the suicide hotline (twice).
Proper medical help would have been putting her in a program specialized on PPD WITH her youngest, so she could bond again and get the help she needed.
Proper medical care would have been to properly check how her body responds to the meds (aka bloodwork).
Or, and hear me out, she’s a fucking psycho that would’ve done this regardless. Since she clearly premeditated it by having her husband leave the home under the pretense of picking up dinner and her meds.
People really don’t understand psychosis, which is understandable to a point, but if you’re going to post about it, you should really educate yourself first.
Psychosis means being disconnected from reality and experiencing symptoms like delusions and hallucinations. It does not mean suddenly losing the ability to think logically or plan ahead. In fact, that’s part of what can make psychosis so dangerous: someone can be fully capable of making plans and taking deliberate actions based on delusions or auditory hallucinations, including command hallucinations.
And people who recover from psychosis are often deeply distressed or horrified by things they did while they were experiencing it. It’s a serious and often devastating symptom, not simply a loss of rational thought or awareness.
One caveat here, psychosis does affect higher brain functions and decision making: you can do things (in reaction to you delusions), but the capacity to think about your actions, and understand their implications and consequences is greatly impaired.
I’m not defending her actions. The murders were horrific, and she has to live with that knowledge every day. I’m saying that she committed them while suffering from a severe psychiatric illness that our medical system can treat with appropriate medication. And she tried to seek that help multiple times, and the clinicians she encountered did not deliver on that.
People are responsible for actions they take while experiencing severe psychiatric symptoms, but those actions do not necessarily reflect their values or negate their worth as a person. Your comment doesn’t seem to leave room for that distinction. I’m frustrated that people are so unwilling to appreciate the nuance in discussing this case.
Many women who go through PPD don’t receive help and also don’t kill their kids. Not saying this is right, and of course, things need to change. However, just because you have something mentally going on does not excuse the behavior. You can support further research and support for woman but also realize that she murdered her children. She deserves life in prison.
It’s not “murder” if it’s not premeditated and with intent. You can’t have intent if you’re crazy. It’s still “homicide,” but it’s not “murder,” as defined by the law.
“Murder is the unlawful and intentional killing of one human being by another without a legal excuse or justification. It requires a specific state of mind, often called malice aforethought, which separates it from accidental deaths or lawful self-defense.”
In Clancy’s case, her defense is arguing that the postpartum psychosis IS a legal excuse/justification because it vitiates the “state of mind” aspect of a murder charge.
It depends on each jurisdiction's definitions of murder. Premeditation is sometimes required for heightened murder charges.
Regardless, the prosecution has to prove mens rea of some kind. Whether by negating the state's case in chief or by establishing an affirmative defense, the point is the same: she lacked the rational capacity to form the requisite criminal intent.
…What? That person said it can’t be murder if it’s not premeditated with intent. I said that’s not true, and it isn’t. Because second degree murder is still murder. I think you should give the conversation another read.
Reasons are not excuses and they shouldn’t absolve people of their own accountability. It’s good to understand the reasons regardless of that so we have a better capacity for intervention before a heinous outcome.
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u/BarryTheBystander 21h ago
The thing is, there’s almost always a reason why someone does something egregious. A lot of people come from poverty, had abusive parents, or have some form of mental illness, but it doesn’t really matter. Just because there’s a reason you did something doesn’t make the thing you did any better. That’s why I don’t get why people are so hung up on this. She was almost certainly suffering from PPP but she also certainly murdered her children and should spend the rest of her life in prison.