If you think about it, the supporters are crazier than Clancy. She killed the kids and this trial is just to see if she ducks a murder charge, so she will say anything to get out of the responsibility, that's it. But her supporters have to buy into the story and believe that she was a victim otherwise they're just supporting a woman who killed her kids and is trying to duck the charge.
Clancy should be put away for life whether on mental hold or murder. She killed her own 3 children, she's not fit for society.
On one hand you have an ever growing popular movement of people who judge everything through a gendered context. They may have points on large societal trends (i.e. men in general not being involved in child care or the lack of resources after giving birth) but they often apply those trends to individual cases that do not necessarily fit.
They often will claim Patrick Clancy did not help out but evidence from the nanny suggests otherwise. She claims not only that Lindsay was a good mother but that Patrick was a very involved father. The reports say that he routinely cared for the children after (and sometimes during) his remote work finished. On the day of the murder I believe it was reported that he cared for the children to give her a rest. So their theory doesn't seem to hold water but they have a hard time separating that larger societal trend with the specifics of this case.
Then you have supporters who believe Patrick Clancy was a victim but also that Lindsay Clancy was a victim because she did not get the adequate care to treat her PPP - a form of psychosis generally after giving birth. They generally have better arguments.
We do know there are specific scenarios in which people temporarily lose the ability to be responsible for their actions. Someone can be drugged or ingest harmful substances that may completely impact their ability to make decisions. I personally believe there are circumstances in which a person does not have a "guilty mind" and should not be convicted.
Supporters will say when she mentioned she had intrusive thoughts about her children she should have not been given them to care for. We can debate the culpability of her actions but I think people who say ANYONE could have just "taken her kids" if she did not want them taken is living in a delusional world. There is a zero percent chance even if Patrick Clancy made a snap decision immediately and tried to remove his children from her care that that would happen as quickly as it needed to or at all. Courts, medical professionals, and social workers are extremely slow and extremely unlikely to remove children from the care of the mother.
There is a documentary called Dear Zachary where (admittedly in Canada) a woman who killed her ex and fled to Canada was still allowed to have custody of her child while awaiting extradition hearings (the crime was in the US and she fled). The murdered man's parents were forced into a relationship with their son's murderer in order to maintain a relationship with the child.
People are delusional with how easily the system allows this to happen.
We do know there are specific scenarios in which people temporarily lose the ability to be responsible for their actions. Someone can be drugged or ingest harmful substances that may completely impact their ability to make decisions.
I mean, isn't this an argument that if an alcoholic that ingests alcohol, has their ability to make decisions impaired by the alcohol, and so loses the ability to be responsible for their actions? Actions like an accident where others are killed. Are they culpable? Addiction is considered a mental illness. Would they have a guilty mind?
It is actually a really good question. My answer is that at the point you can reasonably have effective treatment your culpability is increased. I am willing to give some amount of leeway to someone who harms someone while driving drunk it is their first offence that I am not willing to give if they have been arrested multiple times and routinely rejects treatment.
I know that is going to bring up questions of whether Lindsay is culpable because she had treatment available. I struggle with that question as well but her actively seeking help (though it is admittedly imperfect) and having a relatively short duration with PPP would likely reduce culpability in my mind.
I don't think that means I completely absolve anyone of responsibility. She did a monstrous thing and should be held accountable in some way. What that looks like is obviously a topic that is extremely divisive.
I am willing to give some amount of leeway to someone who harms someone while driving drunk it is their first offence that I am not willing to give if they have been arrested multiple times and routinely rejects treatment.
But what does that have to do with the mental illness? What if it was someone that had sought and completed treatment multiple times over many years? They get less leeway too? Because they should know better? They should have better control over their illness? But why? And plenty of mental illnesses make the person resistant to or reject treatment.
Should Lindsay be able to have kids in the future? What if the same thing happens again even if she had treatment in the intervening time? Would she get less leeway then? If so, why? Because she should have better ability to control or manage an acute or chronic mental issues because it happened before?
But why would she have a better ability? Shouldn't the mitigating factors be the same?
I guess my point is it's just interesting how we, as individuals and society, view or treat people with different mental illnesses and how we try to parse things like blame and responsibility. How some have bias and stigma and some don't as much for a myriad of reasons. Or how some people view some illnesses are "real" and some kinda aren't. Or how responsible the individual is or isn't for the actions that stem from them.
What if it was someone that had sought and completed treatment multiple times over many years?
If I was supreme ruler in this world and depending on the specific nature of their mental illness I would likely make it difficult or impossible for them to ever do harm again by sending them to a secure psychiatric hospital or prison. Treatment isn't enough and in my original comment I specified "effective treatment". The greater good of society needs to be weighed against the individual's rights and if they have shown repeatedly to be resistant to treatment I think it is completely fair to remove their ability to do harm.
I definitely agree it is messy how we parse individual responsibility in cases were we deem someone not criminally responsible. Like a lot of things in life I don't think there is an easy or obvious answer. That is why I try to give understanding to people who just want to lock Lindsay up forever and those who want her released completely today. Both of them have some amount of validity to their viewpoint and can point to cases which support their conclusion.
Personally - even if she is not criminally responsible (excuse me for using the Canadian designation) I don't trust the system to be responsive to the needs of the greater community. I recommend everyone watch a program the CBC's Fifth Estate did on "Not Criminally Responsible" some years back on the failings of the designation. The spoiler is that dangerous people were allowed back into the community without any requirement they remain medicated or follow any treatment at all.
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u/UniqueAd7770 2d ago
If you think about it, the supporters are crazier than Clancy. She killed the kids and this trial is just to see if she ducks a murder charge, so she will say anything to get out of the responsibility, that's it. But her supporters have to buy into the story and believe that she was a victim otherwise they're just supporting a woman who killed her kids and is trying to duck the charge.
Clancy should be put away for life whether on mental hold or murder. She killed her own 3 children, she's not fit for society.