Lindsay Clancy Case: Biggest Misconceptions After the Mistrial Explained by a Forensic Psychiatrist

Yeah.

I think it's... again, normal.

We want the law to conform to our personal morality.

But especially in a democratic country, there are so many differences in moral reasoning, belief, baseline, and output that it's an impossibility.

So you have to remember that the law is both the worst and best possible outcome that we can accomplish.

It's simply a set of rules that a set of people who happen to have power at a certain time agreed upon.

And of course, we can't exist without it.

We have to have it or things turn into chaos.

But you should not equate or confuse your moral reasoning and your moral ideas and wishes with legal conclusions.

And I do think a responsible forensic expert working in a case, they are giving an opinion based on the legal conclusion.

And they are also using the legal rules of whatever jurisdiction they're in.

And in the Lindsay Clancy case, that's Massachusetts.

And today I'm willing to say that I think Massachusetts probably has the worst not guilty by reason of insanity rule set that I have ever seen.

And it just doesn't make any sense.

It's a terrible rule set.

Yeah, so before we jump into that, I guess to expand a little bit more on the difference between the legal and morality of the situation, I was watching a Netflix documentary.

And I was watching it with one of my friends who was like, that guy should be locked up.

And what the guy did, I thought he was a disgusting human being who did something absolutely awful.

But it's not illegal.

And I think a lot of times in these cases, we confuse that the laws are set up in a way to not it's not supposed to just say if they're good or bad or if they're right or wrong or.

There are laws set up, something that's legally appropriate.

It's a statutory test that's applied to evidence.

And a moral one is a philosophical or ethical judgment about a whole host of things, blame, agency, intention, capacity, in this case, the effects of mental illness.

And there are two very, very different things.

Yeah.