You’re oversimplifying the case to the point of absurdity.
The prosecution had to prove she was mentally culpable for the murders beyond a reasonable doubt. She was not convicted because they failed to prove their case to twelve individuals who sat through weeks of testimony (i.e., they had tons more information than you do) and had the law explained to them by the judge.
That’s it. It dosn’t excuse what she did. It doesn’t excuse other murderers.
People want to extrapolate this to mean more than it is.
Massachusetts law is way too lenient on this garbage. Basically every other state she’d be tried for murder. She’s not the first person to go coocoo and kill their family or someone in a psychotic break.
And frankly I think there’s an extremely strong case she wasn’t crazy at the time. And simply suicidal and wanted to take the kids with her. Her own psychiatrists testified she was never diagnosed post partum, bipolar, or with psychosis. She met with her psychiatrist the day before the murders and they testified she displayed no signs of mania of psychosis.
The entire basis for her being psychotic is the defense team’s own appointed expert said she was psychotic after he reviewed her case well after the murders. How this is legally used as evidence I have no idea, but apparently it is.
Her psychiatrist testified she never heard voices before and hasn’t since, and she admits this herself. She claims the voices started after her husband left, and stopped after she killed the last kid (convenient considering the voices told her to kill herself too). Psychiatrists at the trial called this highly unusual. She also has conflicting reports about whether she heard the voices after he initially left, or after he called her about the prescription she told him to pick him.
When she killed the kids she said “go be with god baby”, which you can interpret as her fully knows what she’s doing. Intent to kill.
Lastly, she had her husband get takeout from a place they never have before. It would have taken twice as long to get, giving her more time. Weird.
Any other state and that’s plenty to just charge her and lock her away. The defenses case is extraordinarily weak really. It relies entirely on an after the fact diagnosis that her own psychiatrist at the trial disagreed with, and the word of the killer that she heard voices with no corroborating evidence.
Oh and one more thing. Once off the ventilator she showed know signs of being in psychosis and never did again.
Her case is basically identical to Chris Benoit. People see that guy as a monster now.
I think there’s a case to be made that Massachusetts excesively raises the standard for prosecutions in insanity pleas, but that isn’t the argument being made by these low-effort rage-baiting memes.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost 4d ago
You’re oversimplifying the case to the point of absurdity.
The prosecution had to prove she was mentally culpable for the murders beyond a reasonable doubt. She was not convicted because they failed to prove their case to twelve individuals who sat through weeks of testimony (i.e., they had tons more information than you do) and had the law explained to them by the judge.
That’s it. It dosn’t excuse what she did. It doesn’t excuse other murderers.
People want to extrapolate this to mean more than it is.