In the News
Fox News reports that the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three children, has become a social media obsession, with millions arguing whether postpartum psychosis excuses what she did. Boston defense attorney Peter Elikann named the problem: “everybody’s an expert.”
Here’s Our Take
Nearly all the commentary assumes the question has one answer, regardless of the state. Clancy’s jurors are applying a Massachusetts rule that asks whether she could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. Utah abandoned that question in 1983. Under Utah Code § 76-2-305, a mental condition negates guilt at trial only when it means the defendant “lacked the mental state required as an element of the offense charged”—in this case, whether she acted knowingly or intentionally. Clancy’s defense concedes she intended the deaths, so a Utah jury would convict on three counts of aggravated murder, most likely with a finding of “guilty with a mental condition.” That finding reduces neither the offense nor the sentence. Her psychosis becomes primarily relevant after conviction, when under § 77-16a-104 the court decides whether she serves that sentence in prison, on probation, or at the state hospital.
A Utah jury still decides the facts of mental state, but not the older free-standing question of whether someone who cannot appreciate wrongfulness should be excused. Utah made that policy choice in advance and channels each case through that stricter standard.
Closing
If this happened in Utah, the debate would not be whether a psychotic parent could “walk free.” It would be whether the state’s narrower rule—taking that question away from a jury of peers—best balances moral blame, public safety, and the limits of criminal punishment. Libertas is not running a bill. Utahns should know which rule they live under, and what that choice costs.
