A juror in the trial of Lindsay Clancy is sharing new details about what he said happened inside the jury room that led to a mistrial in the case of the Massachusetts woman facing first-degree murder charges for the 2023 deaths of her three young children.

Nick Dargie, one of the three men on the 12-person jury, told ABC News’ Aaron Katersky that the lone holdout juror who prevented a unanimous verdict did not show any evidence explaining his vote.

“There was several times I would ask him to show us evidence or, you know, describe a witness testimony that helped to prove what he was saying, and … he couldn’t,” Dargie, 25, said in an interview Wednesday.

  • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    The whole concept of being able to claim insanity as a defense comes from a time when people literally thought you could be possessed by demons.

    Murdering children is an act of insanity. Always. That’s not a defense, it’s a given.

    When evaluating the morality of an action, you must consider the causal and intentional facts.

    Everything else, such as mental illness, either supervenes on these causal and intentional facts or it is irrelevant.

    1. Did the person kill innocent children? Yes.
    2. Did they intend to do so? Also yes.

    Whether that person subsumed alcohol or whether they are mentally ill simply does not matter except insofar as it relates to the two questions above.

    If you disagree with any specific sentence above, please tell me which one. All of the replies are currently non-sequiturs and red herrings.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      1 month ago

      You are trying to attach rational arguments to a totally emotional opinion.

      The law requires that the defendant had formed criminal intent when they committed their offense. Shooting someone in the head is murder, but if you killed that person to stop them from killing someone else, then there was no criminal intent, and it’s not murder.

      Yes, she killed her kids, and yes, she knew she was killing her kids, but she was also in the grip of a terrible psychosis, that prevented her from forming criminal intent.

      And it was never about releasing her, it was always about the type of place she would reside. A prison, or a prison hospital. A person with your type of thinking overplayed their hand, and got her released instead.

      • chewypoops@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        This isn’t a “rational argument”. The “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense has nothing to do with this case. That standard doesn’t even exist in Massachusetts where this case was tried.

        • duckshuffgoose@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          You’ve clearly never been around a person deep in the throes of postpartum psychosis. I have, and it was fucking terrifying. There is no demon possession…so stop going on about that like its some gotcha. It is a condition where the mother can have a full mental break and fully believe things are happening that in no way, shape or form are happening. And the reactions to then are wildly intense

          This is a legal case, not an ethics case. Though that debate has it’s merits; just not here, talking about the legal ramifications of the killings.

            • duckshuffgoose@lemmy.ml
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              1 month ago

              You’ve been walking in circles on this in every reply. No one thinks what happened is right. No one is defending her actions.

              The debate you’ve been dancing around is whether or not she was criminally insane at the time. Not whether or not she was innocent. And going off about how insane derives from demonic possession is not relevant, not pertinent, and a bad faith argument

    • Ironfist79@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The point is she wasn’t in a right state of mind when it happened. But I’m glad we have legal experts like you to serve on juries.

    • chewypoops@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Massachusetts doesn’t even have a “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense on the books at all, so this was a whole lot of words to say absolutely nothing. It’s amazing how many people are so confident to say extremely stupid things about this case.

      Under Massachusetts state law (specifically known as the McHoul standard), a person is not criminally responsible if, at the moment of the offense, a mental disease or defect left them without the “substantial capacity” to do one of two things:

      • ​Appreciate wrongfulness: Understand that what they were doing was morally or legally wrong.
      • ​Conform conduct: Control their actions to align with the law, even if they recognized the act was wrong.

      The McHoul standard was decided in 1967, and the law makes no mention of “possession by demons”.

        • waterwasamistake@lemmy.zip
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          1 month ago

          Okay you have to understad that we are trying to have a civilisation here.

          Your point of view is not consistent.

          If you want a murderer punished like you would a “rabid animal” because we are just animals and don’t need further understanding than there is no reason to object murder in general.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      A lot of crime is evidence of insanity, from narcissism, megalomania; really, all homicide is rooted in insanity.

      We lock those people the hell up, though.

      No one gets a cushy institutionalization unless their docs all agree. Into genpop until then.

      • edible_funk@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        Cushy institutionalization? You’ve got some wild misunderstandings of how any of this works. It’s prison, with prison conditions. Nothing fucking cushy about it, but I’m guessing you’re far more interested in punishment than rehabilitation.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          1 month ago

          I’m certainly not interested in rehabilitating child murderers. Just get them out of society forever.

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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              1 month ago

              I’m fine with being belligerent and cruel to people who harm children. If you have to be taught that that’s wrong then there’s no place for you in this world. We have more than enough people that need help as it is.

                • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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                  1 month ago

                  I can be kind to lots of people. I’m just not doing it for those who by their own actions have rendered themselves undeserving of it. That energy is better spent elsewhere.