September 14, 2026: DA Hochman Op-Ed - Is Mental Illness Legal Insanity: What Lindsay Clancy Would Face in California

By Nathan J. Hochman, Los Angeles County District Attorney

Link to Op-Ed published in the California Post

There is little dispute that Lindsay Clancy was mentally ill when she killed her three young children in Massachusetts. Before the killings, she struggled with depression, anxiety, insomnia, paranoia and suicidal thoughts. She sought treatment from multiple providers, spent time in a psychiatric hospital and took numerous medications. After strangling her children, she attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window. She survived but was left paralyzed.

That history is heartbreaking. But it was not the central legal question at her trial.

The question was whether Clancy was legally insane when she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan.

Mental illness and legal insanity may sound like the same thing, but they are not. A person can suffer from a severe psychiatric disorder-even one involving hallucinations or delusions-and still be legally responsible for a crime. That distinction can determine whether someone is committed to a state hospital or sentenced to life in prison.

Clancy's Massachusetts trial ended in a mistrial after jurors could not agree on a verdict. Had the case been tried in California, however, she would have faced a significantly tougher legal test. Two recent Los Angeles County murder cases-People v. Kevin Salazar and People v. Jianchun Li-show why.

Massachusetts applies a relatively broad standard. A person is not criminally responsible if, because of a mental disease or defect, she lacked the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the law. Once sufficient evidence raises the issue, Massachusetts requires prosecutors to prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt.

That gave Clancy's lawyers two potential arguments.

First, they could argue that postpartum psychosis prevented her from appreciating that killing her children was wrong because she delusionally believed she was protecting them from suffering or sending them to heaven. Second, they could argue that a command hallucination or psychotic episode deprived her of the substantial capacity to control her conduct-even if some part of her understood that the killings were wrong.

California does not recognize that second argument by itself.

Under California law, a defendant is legally insane only if a mental disease or defect made her incapable of understanding the nature and quality of her act or incapable of knowing that the act was morally or legally wrong. An uncontrollable or irresistible impulse is expressly not enough.

California also places the burden on the defendant. After prosecutors establish guilt, the defendant must prove insanity by a preponderance of the evidence in a separate sanity phase. In plain terms, the defendant must persuade jurors that it is more likely than not that she was legally insane. Prosecutors do not have to prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt.

The result is a demanding rule: A defendant may be genuinely ill, hallucinating or delusional and still be found legally sane if jurors conclude that she understood what she was doing and knew it was wrong.

Consider People v. Kevin Salazar. Salazar was convicted of ambushing and killing Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer in Palmdale.

The evidence of serious mental illness was substantial. Salazar had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had a history of psychiatric hospitalization and reportedly experiencedauditory hallucinations. His lawyer said Salazar believed satellites controlled him and sent electric shocks through his body. Three mental-health professionals reportedly concluded that he was legally insane when he killed the deputy.

Even so, a Los Angeles County jury rejected his insanity defense.

Prosecutors focused on Salazar's conduct before, during and after the shooting. He followed Deputy Clinkunbroomer as the deputy left the Palmdale station, pulled alongside the deputy's marked patrol vehicle, shot him at a traffic light and fled.

Those actions were deliberate and organized. Jurors could accept that Salazar had schizophrenia and experienced delusions while still concluding that he understood he was shooting a deputy and knew the act was wrong. After approximately a day and a half of deliberations, the jury found Salazar legally sane ⁠.

People v. Jianchun Li demonstrates the same distinction in a different setting.

Li worked overnight as a caretaker at an assisted-living facility in Diamond Bar. Shortly before 7 a.m., he took a 75-year-old resident who used a walker into a bathroom, placed a plastic bag over her head, secured it with electrical tape and strangled her. Approximately 30 minutes later, he brought an 83-year-old resident into the same bathroom and killedher using the same method.

Li pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Evidence later discussed at sentencing indicated that he suffered from depression, was overworked and was struggling as a recent immigrant. A defense expert testified during the sanity phase.

The jury nevertheless found Li legally sane. The sequence of his conduct-isolating one vulnerable victim, killing her in a particular manner and then repeating the process with a second victim half an hour later-supported the conclusion that he understood the nature of his actions. The jury rejected his insanity defense⁠, and Li received two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

The lesson from both cases is straightforward: A psychiatric diagnosis does not resolve the legal question.

Hallucinations, depression, hospitalizations and expert testimony may be compelling evidence. But California jurors must ultimately answer something narrower: Did the defendant understand what was happening, and did the defendant know the act was wrong?

If Clancy's case had been tried in California, that distinction would have presented her attorneys with a formidable challenge.

The evidence strongly suggests that Clancy understood the physical nature of her actions. She used exercise bands to strangle each child separately. Her California defense therefore would have depended almost entirely on proving that postpartum psychosis made her incapable of knowing that killing the children was wrong.

Her attorneys would have had powerful evidence. Her psychiatric condition had deteriorated for months. She repeatedly sought help. Dr. Phillip Resnick, a prominent forensic psychiatrist and expert on parents who kill their children, concluded that she was clearly psychotic. He testified that Clancy believed her children would be better off dying with her than living without her. The defense also maintained that she heard a male voice commanding her to kill them and believed she was sending them to heaven.

To many people, that account may sound like the clearest possible evidence that Clancy was not thinking rationally. But California law would require more than irrationality, psychosis or a belief that she acted for a protective reason. Clancy would have to prove that her illness rendered her incapable of knowing the killings were wrong.

Prosecutors would focus on the steps she took before the killings. Clancy asked her husband to leave the house to obtain medication and takeout food. She checked how long the trip would take. While he was gone, she killed the children one at a time in the basement and attempted suicide afterward.

Those details could be viewed as evidence of planning and awareness. Prosecutors could argue that Clancy arranged her husband's absence because she understood that he would intervene and stop her. If she knew she needed secrecy to carry out the killings, they would argue, she understood that what she planned to do was wrong.

Her attorneys would respond that planning does not prove sanity. A psychotic person can act methodically in pursuit of a delusion and may hide conduct because she knows others will interfere, even while believing the act is morally necessary. That is a legitimate and important response-but in California, Clancy would carry the burden of persuading the jury.

Prosecutors would also challenge her account of the commanding voice. Clancy had not previously reported auditory hallucinations to her medical providers. She reportedly gave evaluators different accounts of when the voice began. Prosecution experts considered it highly unusual that the voice appeared around the time of the killings, continued while she killed all three children and stopped immediately afterward.

Her suicide attempt would also support competing interpretations. The defense could argue that it completed a psychotic murder-suicide episode and confirmed the depth of her delusion and despair. Prosecutors could argue that attempting suicide after killing the children showed that she understood the enormity and consequences of what she had done.

None of this diminishes the seriousness of postpartum psychosis. It is a psychiatric emergency that demands greater awareness, faster intervention and better treatment. Nor does finding a defendant legally responsible mean denying that her illness was real.

The law is asking a different question.

Mental illness may explain why someone committed a terrible act without legally excusing it. Salazar's schizophrenia did not compel a finding of insanity. Li's depression did not prevent a jury from finding him sane. In each case, Los Angeles County jurors concluded that the defendant understood what he was doing and knew it was wrong.

A California jury could reach the same conclusion about Clancy. Jurors could believe that she was severely mentally ill, that the mental-health system failed her and that she was overwhelmed by suicidal and delusional thinking. They could still decide that she had not proved legal insanity.

That result might strike some as harsh, but it reflects the narrow purpose of the insanity defense. It is not a general finding that someone was sick, suffering or behaving irrationally. It is a legal conclusion that mental disease rendered that person incapable of understanding the nature or wrongfulness of the act.

Recognizing mental illness and demanding accountability for the deaths of three children are not opposing positions. A fair legal system must be capable of doing both.