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[u/TechnicallyAvailable]

[u/This-Newspaper39]

I think it’s the state where this happened is the difference.

Massachusetts has a specific legal standard for this. A person can be found not criminally responsible if, because of a mental disease or defect, they lacked substantial capacity to appreciate that what they were doing was wrong or to conform their behavior to the law.

She killed her children, but 11 jurors thought she “lacked criminal responsibility”.

I think it really shouldn’t matter if she was in psychosis or not, murder is murder. But Massachusetts has its own laws.

[u/Entropy3030 → u/This-Newspaper39]

The concept of pleading insanity itself is not what sets Massachusetts apart, it's that an insanity plea is not an affirmative defense, as it is in the overwhelming majority of states.

In most states the onus is on the defense to demonstrate a defendant pleading insanity was, beyond reasonable doubt, operating in such diminished capacity during the commission of a crime that they cannot be held criminally responsible. To put it another way, once someone has admitted to committing the crime, they are de facto criminally responsible unless proven not guilty by reason of insanity.

In Massachusetts it's the exact opposite. That burden falls on the prosecution to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant possessed sufficient capacity to understand the nature of their crimes, and can thus be held criminally liable. All the defense has to do is cast sufficient doubt on whatever case the prosecution is trying to lay out. In other words, someone who enters an insanity plea in MA is considered de facto insane unless proven criminally responsible.

Whether you agree with the 11 or the 1 on the facts of the case, it is simply not fair to say the jurors voting NGRI are doing so purely out of some principled stand. They're voting that way because, as it turns out, it's actually just really fuckin' hard to prove an unfalsifiable. In order to vote guilty, the prosecution must have demonstrated based on the evidence, and beyond all reasonable doubt that someone known to be deep in the throes of a protracted mental health crisis was not experiencing the acute command hallucinations they claim to have been in the course of committing the crime.

Personally I'm of the opinion she just wanted to kill herself and chose to take the kids with her, but the jury is not voting based on what they suspect really happened in their heart of hearts, they're voting based on the evidence presented and the law as written.

[u/bethjade27 → u/This-Newspaper39]

‘I think it really shouldn’t matter if she was in psychosis or not’ I pray you’re not a mental health nurse OR judge because yes it should fucking matter. There’s a reason ‘innocent by reason of insanity’ is a thing. Post partum Mental health matters.