\n Prosecutors will have to overcome two \u201cprongs\u201d to prove Lindsay Clancy was not suffering from mental illness, CNN contributor and criminal defense attorney Elyse Hershon said Thursday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn Massachusetts, once a mental illness or mental health defense is raised for lack of criminal responsibility, the prosecution has to prove that they were criminally responsible and were not suffering mental illness,\u201d Hershon said on CNN All Access.\n <\/p>\n
\n Understanding the difference between right and wrong is different than having the knowledge that something is wrong, Hershon said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLindsay knowing that what she\u2019s doing is wrong is not enough for the prosecution to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt,\u201d she said. \u201cThey would have to prove that she understood \u2013 not just know, but understood \u2013 and could appreciate the wrongfulness.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In addition, prosecutors would need to prove Lindsay Clancy \u201cwas able to function normally.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to hit that because she was able to call and order takeout, she was able to converse with her husband, she was able to feed her kids chicken nuggets and green beans,\u201d Hershon said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Hershon also described the way the prosecution is approaching mental health in the trial as \u201carchaic.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cTo say that because somebody\u2019s smiling or functioning normally and feeding kids and going through these motions of being a functional human is dispositive of her not being in psychosis is just absolutely wrong,\u201d Hershon said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutors will have to overcome two \u201cprongs\u201d to prove Lindsay Clancy was not suffering from mental illness, CNN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,84,377],"class_list":["post-836108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}