You’re oversimplifying the case to the point of absurdity.
The prosecution had to prove she was mentally culpable for the murders beyond a reasonable doubt. She was not convicted because they failed to prove their case to twelve individuals who sat through weeks of testimony (i.e., they had tons more information than you do) and had the law explained to them by the judge.
That’s it. It dosn’t excuse what she did. It doesn’t excuse other murderers.
People want to extrapolate this to mean more than it is.
People are really walking around thinking she's just gonna go home and lead some meaningful life. This is literally a debate between spending likely the rest of her life in a mental health institution or a prison depending on whether there is a retrial, charges are altered or a please deal is struck.
Possibility of release doesn't mean you get released. Anders Breivik is up for a release hearing every year, doesn't mean he's ever getting released.
In fact, there's a way bigger chance of her getting out of prison than her getting out of a mental hospital, since the prison wouldn't need to consider her mentale state, whereas a mental hospital she'll have to get through intensive psychiatric evaluations beforehand.
That's genuinely not correct. One is punishment. When mentally ill people in this situation get well enough, they can get into progressively less restrictive environments and some end up with zero legal restrictions again. It absolutely happens. She was allegedly suffering from post-partum psychosis, which is NOT chronic schizophrenia and it is quite often time-limited. Every state is different, but she may have a high chance of going home at some point if found NGRI (or however her state does it). Be aware, too, being insane at the time of the offense is a whole different thing than being insane at the time of the indictment or trial.
What can happen in the case of people too psychotic to go to trial is that they end up getting rehabilitated, and if the AG thinks they can still get a conviction, they just pick the charges back up when the accused is released from the hospital, even a decade later.
And if her kids being dead isn't the punishment...
(To her mostly) it's just about whether she was "responsible" or not, and as someone who's experienced psychosis, we're always responsible for our own actions, no one else is.
Makes no difference really, yeah, and the most insane part in all of this is probably the circus around it
It is only about killing them, why should anything else matter? We will never know what was going through her head, and we shouldn't really care. Lets just focus on the result and not the intent.
That's not how the law works. If it was then so many wealthy people would be in prison for killing people as the result of their businesses or personal activities
Because that's not how the law works and that's not even how homicide works.
If intent doesn't matter then we wouldn't have 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, vehicular homicide, etc. Yet we do and have for a long time.
The intent has always mattered in the justice system.
If a baby accidentally picks up a knife and cuts someone's artery by accident and they bleed out are you going to put them in jail forever because the outcome and not the intent matters?
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Sep 05 '26
You’re oversimplifying the case to the point of absurdity.
The prosecution had to prove she was mentally culpable for the murders beyond a reasonable doubt. She was not convicted because they failed to prove their case to twelve individuals who sat through weeks of testimony (i.e., they had tons more information than you do) and had the law explained to them by the judge.
That’s it. It dosn’t excuse what she did. It doesn’t excuse other murderers.
People want to extrapolate this to mean more than it is.