Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children to death, one by one. Cora was 5. Dawson was 3. Callan was 8 months old. She used exercise bands. She then tried to kill herself. Those facts are undisputed, and something at least one member of the jury refused to ignore.

The insanity defense is narrow on purpose. It is not “it is unthinkable that a mother could kill her own children, so she must not have known what she was doing.” It is whether, because of a mental disease or defect at the moment of the killings, she could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or could not conform her conduct to the law. Inability to believe a mother would do it is not the test. If it were, every parent who kills a child would walk.

Postpartum illness is real. Postpartum psychosis is real, rare, and a medical emergency. None of that converts three homicides into a protected class of conduct.

Depression is not a license. Exhaustion is not a license. Childbirth is not a license. Being a woman is not a license. A defendant who can send her husband out of the house, complete the act three times in succession, and later offer a........

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