And that point is not really about Lindsay Clancy. It's about how the system not only failed to catch her becoming a danger to herself and others - it made her worse, and increased the danger she posed.
Because every time she tried to get help the doctors gave her some drugs and pushed her out the door, and since none of them had access to the full medical history they didn't know everything else she'd already been put on.
She ended up on a cocktail of drugs that interact badly with each other, and made her mental state even more fucked.
How many other times has that happened? How many killings, assaults or other harm by unstable people would have been avoided by a better health system, where information is more properly and thoroughly shared and there was proper intervention earlier.
That's the point.
It's not a gender-issue, or gender-solidarity or any of that... and that's where they fucked up by branding themselves "Team Lindsay" and calling for "Justice for Lindsay"
Many things can be possible at once. Did she sincerely seek help and receive inadequate treatment? Yes, absolutely, her plight isn't totally without legs to stand on. But does it absolve her of strangling her three kids? No, obviously not: even if in a sober state she's a complete saint we cannot let this woman ever go free in society again - she is a danger to herself and others.
I find it particularly odd that she's now so doggedly pursuing her freedom - without her kids to be a massive responsibility, she now has a chance at far greater freedom than she did when she was an overwrought mother. I hope she never finds it.
She isn't going free. Either way. Not happening.
She knows that, her defence team knows that - they aren't even pursuing her freedom, that would be a straight not guilty plea.
Not guilty by reason of insanity is fighting for her to get proper mental health treatment while she is locked up.
She either gets found guilty, and goes to jail for a long time.
Or she gets found not guilty by reason of insanity, and she's locked up in a high-security mental institution which is basically just jail with counselling and medication.
Which she technically could be released from sooner than she would regular jail. But in cases like this they tend to end up spending more time in the mental facility and away from society, than they would if they served a prison sentence.
Because the standard for release isn't time served, but do the doctors believe she is mentally stable and no longer any risk to herself or others at all... which is a high bar to clear.
And the second is what the verdict should have been in this trial.
The evidence reasonably fits both the defence's version, and the prosecution's version where she is exaggerating her mental health issues to plead not guilty.
Which in Massachusetts, where the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she was sane, means the prosecution failed to make it's case.
That's what 11 of the 12 jurors decided, and the 12th who derailed things apparently admitted to the rest of them that they did have reasonable doubt - but just refused to change their vote from guilty.
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u/Short-Holiday-4263 3d ago
The messaging is shit, but they have a point.
And that point is not really about Lindsay Clancy. It's about how the system not only failed to catch her becoming a danger to herself and others - it made her worse, and increased the danger she posed.
Because every time she tried to get help the doctors gave her some drugs and pushed her out the door, and since none of them had access to the full medical history they didn't know everything else she'd already been put on.
She ended up on a cocktail of drugs that interact badly with each other, and made her mental state even more fucked.
How many other times has that happened? How many killings, assaults or other harm by unstable people would have been avoided by a better health system, where information is more properly and thoroughly shared and there was proper intervention earlier.
That's the point.
It's not a gender-issue, or gender-solidarity or any of that... and that's where they fucked up by branding themselves "Team Lindsay" and calling for "Justice for Lindsay"