AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
At the heart of the trial of Lindsay Clancy, which ended in a mistrial Friday, was her mental state. Clancy is the Massachusetts mother who killed her three young children in 2023. Her defense was she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis and is not guilty of murder due to lack of responsibility. It's what's popularly known as the insanity defense. Heather Cuculo teaches criminal and mental disability law at New York Law School. She joins us now. Welcome to the program.
HEATHER CUCOLO: Hi. Thank you for having me.
RASCOE: Were you surprised that the trial ended in a mistrial?
CUCOLO: I thought it was unfortunate, but I was not surprised given how the deliberations had gone about and certainly some of the significant and complex issues in the case.
RASCOE: And speaking of those issues, I mean, each state sets its burdens to meet the legal standards for insanity. How does Massachusetts approach it?
CUCOLO: Yeah. Massachusetts puts the burden to prove that the defendant was not mentally ill at the time on the prosecution. So not only does the prosecution have to prove their case in chief beyond a reasonable doubt, but they also have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not mentally ill at the time.
RASCOE: Oh.
CUCOLO: Now, the majority of jurisdictions use some variation of what is known as the M'Naghten rule, and that is the focus on the defendant's ability to understand what they were doing and whether it was wrong. It's a very narrow standard, which is what makes the insanity defense so difficult to win.
RASCOE: Hearing about these cases - like, there've been famous ones in the past. Clarence Darrow got Leopold and Loeb spared from the death penalty by claiming they were insane. John Hinckley was acquitted for shooting President Reagan, but he was hospitalized for decades.
CUCOLO: The fact that you brought up John Hinckley is significant. That was the case, and in a lot of ways, that was the turning point in the insanity defense. It was such a high-profile case. It received enormous media attention at the time. And what that did was it led many Americans to believe that defense is incredibly common. But it is, in many respects, one of the rarest defenses in criminal law. I would say the statistics show maybe 0.1% to 1% of criminal cases. And I think there are different variations, but it's basically fewer than 1 in 1,000 felony cases.
And the Hinckley case, in addition, also gave Americans sort of this concern over the fact that persons were escaping liability and that they were not being held accountable for actions that, by all accounts, they actually committed.
RASCOE: Even if you have success in an insanity defense, that doesn't necessarily translate to freedom, right?
CUCOLO: Absolutely not. I think a great example and a case that was in the spotlight and in the media spotlight was the Andrea Yates case. In 2001, it occurred. This was a mother who had drowned her five young children in a bathtub. The first trial ended in a conviction of capital murder. This was in Texas. But in the retrial, the defense was successful in getting the jury to render an a - decision of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Andrea Yates is still in a psychiatric hospital, still civilly committed to this day. The likelihood of someone that has committed such a disturbing and horrific crime and who has been under the spotlight of all of the potential mental illness that was leading up to it and continuing, most definitely is probably going to remain in some type of psychiatric custody for an extensive period of time.
RASCOE: Well, in this case, in the Clancy case, what do you think happens next?
CUCOLO: There are three options, basically. The prosecution could decide to retry the case. There could be the possibility for plea negotiations and a plea deal between prosecution and defense, or the prosecution could decide to dismiss the charges, which I think is the most unlikely outcome.
RASCOE: What do people need to understand better about these sorts of cases involving mental health and crimes that are atrocious?
CUCOLO: They're atrocious. And that's the piece. You know, persons who are viewing this from the outside need to do their best to separate that emotional response and their own personal belief and experience and consider the objective information that they are receiving, especially with the vividness that accompanies this case.
RASCOE: That's New York Law School's Heather Cucolo. Professor, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
CUCOLO: My pleasure.
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