Madness has never been a full pardon for the people who end other people’s lives. History is full of defendants who were unwell and still spent the rest of their days in a cell because the victims were still dead. Read full

Madness has never been a full pardon for the people who end other people’s lives. History is full of defendants who were unwell and still spent the rest of their days in a cell because the victims were still dead.

Lindsay Clancy’s case does not get a special exemption because the public was taught to lead with the diagnosis.

Three children are the facts that do not move. A courtroom that treats those facts as secondary to a psychiatric narrative is not being humane.

It is being selective. The same culture that would never soften a stranger’s killing into a wellness story suddenly discovers infinite complexity when the defendant fits the preferred script.

Responsibility survives illness. Competence to stand trial is the legal gate. Past that gate, the sentence has to match the lives taken, not the sympathy inventory. Lock the door.

Leave it locked. A country that still knows what guilt is does not need a famous name from another decade to remember the rule. The children were enough.