Has Mental Health Awareness Changed How We View Responsibility?

The Lindsay Clancy case has been in the news again, as the judge overseeing the case heard new motions and began working with lawyers on both sides to set a date for a new trial. Clancy pleaded not guilty to the murder of her three children: Cora (5), Dawson (3), and Callan (8mo). At the first trial, Clancy’s defense was not that she did not commit the murders. She and her attorney did not dispute that fact. Rather, the defense argued that she was “not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility” (commonly referred to as “not guilty by reason of insanity”).

This is important, because many people who only paid peripheral attention to the trial – or followed it through social media posts – were under the impression that these facts had not been settled. The result was a flurry of conspiracy theories implicating Lindsay’s husband, the children’s father, Patrick Clancy. “Patrick said” was a common refrain by defenders of Lindsay’s during the trial, indicating the erroneous belief that the police had merely taken Patrick’s word for what had transpired, and had declined to investigate him as a potential suspect.