RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. A jury in Plymouth County Superior Court is now deliberating whether Lindsay Clancy will be held criminally responsible for killing her three young children in January 2023.
The decision will come after a five‑week trial that placed postpartum psychosis and the failures of the mental‑health system under a national spotlight. The verdict is set to determine whether Clancy, who has not disputed the killings, spends the rest of her life in prison or is committed to a state psychiatric facility.
The case has drawn intense public attention, reshaping conversations about maternal mental illness , emergency intervention, and the stigma that keeps families from seeking help. What happens next could influence how clinicians, lawmakers, and families respond to psychiatric crises—especially those involving postpartum women.
The strongest testimony highlighting that urgency came from Jamie Rosen, a New York mental‑health attorney who told Newsweek that stigma and fragmented care often prevent families from intervening before a crisis escalates.
"Public discussion surrounding the Clancy trial has highlighted concerns that many women are reluctant to fully disclose severe postpartum symptoms because of stigma and fear," Rosen said.
Rosen said the Clancy case illustrates how shame and fear can stop mothers from revealing dangerous symptoms—especially intrusive thoughts, hallucinations, or paranoia. "The goal should be to create an environment where those disclosures are met with support, evaluation, and treatment, not judgment," she explained.
In the months before the killings, Clancy repeatedly reported insomnia, intrusive thoughts, hallucinations, and escalating anxiety to clinicians and family members. Yet she also denied suicidal or homicidal ideation during key appointments, a pattern Rosen said is common when mothers fear being labeled dangerous or unfit.
Without full disclosure, providers may underestimate risk, and families may not realize they have legal tools available to intervene.
Rosen emphasized that postpartum psychosis remains widely misunderstood. Many women fear that acknowledging frightening symptoms will lead to child‑protective involvement or social condemnation. That stigma, she said, "prevents families from seeking help early" and keeps warning signs siloed among relatives, clinicians, and crisis responders.
Rosen outlined several existing mechanisms to protect families in crisis, though each has constraints. Emergency hospitalization laws allow clinicians or relatives to seek immediate psychiatric evaluation if someone poses a substantial risk of harm.
"If providers or family members had information suggesting that Clancy presented a substantial risk of harm to herself or others, emergency hospitalization laws could potentially have been invoked," Rosen said.
But families often discover that concern alone is not enough. Rosen described a "fragmented mental health system" in which relatives may recognize severe deterioration but lack legal authority to compel treatment.
In Clancy’s case, relatives such as her husband, Patrick, testified that she was losing weight, becoming paranoid, expressing suicidal thoughts, and fearing her medications were "destroying her mind." Yet she repeatedly declined inpatient care, and providers disagreed about whether she was psychotic.
Families can request emergency evaluations through 911, mobile crisis teams, or emergency rooms. In New York, Rosen noted, they can also petition for a Mental Hygiene Warrant, which allows a judge to order an individual to court for a hearing and potentially mandate a hospital evaluation. But even that process "does not guarantee admission and/or treatment," she said.
In Massachusetts, the Clancy family had several legal avenues to seek emergency psychiatric intervention. Most importantly, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 123, § 12 permits emergency hospitalization when mental illness creates a "likelihood of serious harm."
A qualified clinician can authorize an emergency admission for up to three days, and, in an emergency, a police officer can take someone into custody for evaluation. Importantly, under § 12(e), a family member or other person can also apply to a District or Juvenile Court judge for a warrant to bring the person before the court for psychiatric evaluation. If the statutory danger standard were met, the person could then be hospitalized, with longer-term commitment potentially pursued under §§ 7—8.
The key limitation is that family concern by itself does not authorize involuntary hospitalization. The available evidence must support the statutory finding that, because of mental illness, there is a substantial risk of serious physical harm to the person or others.
So, if Clancy's relatives had information indicating escalating suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, severe paranoia, or other behavior suggesting imminent danger, they could have contacted emergency services, requested a clinical evaluation, or sought a court order under § 12(e). However, whether those mechanisms would actually have resulted in Clancy's hospitalization would have depended on what clinicians, police, or the court knew and whether the legal threshold was satisfied at that particular time.
Rosen said that Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT)—known as Kendra’s Law in New York—allows courts to order psychiatric treatment for individuals with serious mental illness while they remain in the community. AOT can mandate therapy, medication management, substance‑use treatment, and case management.
But postpartum psychosis rarely fits the statutory criteria. "AOT is a tool available to individuals who already have a history of non‑compliance with treatment that has resulted in hospitalizations and/or violent behaviors, not someone who might pose a...
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