Three children are dead. Cora was five years old. Dawson was three years old. Callan was only eight months old.

Their mother, Lindsay Clancy, has acknowledged killing them at their Massachusetts home in January 2023. The central question at her trial was whether severe mental illness, including alleged postpartum psychosis, rendered her not criminally responsible. Because the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, the judge declared a mistrial.

Mental illness is real. Psychosis can distort a person’s perception of reality and profoundly impair judgment. Postpartum psychiatric disorders warrant serious medical attention, and every legitimate mitigating factor in Clancy’s case should be carefully considered.

But another question also deserves consideration: When did compassion for the perpetrator begin to eclipse justice for the victim?

American courts have encountered other mothers who killed their children while suffering from depression, suicidal impulses, psychosis, or other serious mental disorders.

In 1994, Susan Smith of South Carolina allowed her car to roll into a lake while her two little boys, Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, remained strapped into their car seats. She had a history of depression and suicidal behavior, and her attorneys presented those circumstances in her defense. The jury nevertheless convicted her of murdering her sons, and she went to prison.

Julie Schenecker of Florida had a substantial history of serious mental illness when she shot and killed her 13-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter. Her attorneys argued that she was legally insane. The jury rejected that defense, convicted her of two counts of first-degree murder, and she was sent to jail.

Then there was Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children while suffering from a profound psychiatric illness, including postpartum psychosis. She was initially convicted, but after that conviction was overturned, a second jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she was set free.

These cases are not identical. Different laws applied, different evidence was presented, and the degrees of mental impairment varied. Still, they illustrate an important distinction: mental illness may help explain a terrible crime, but it should not erase responsibility.

That is a distinction our culture seems increasingly reluctant to maintain. We have become quite adept at telling the perpetrator’s story. We hear about trauma, depression, addiction, psychiatric diagnoses, medications, abuse, failed relationships, and other hardships. Those things matter, and justice ought to take them into account. Nevertheless, explanation does not equal exoneration.

Years ago, in one of my former pastorates, a parishioner was charged after his wife was killed by a rifle he kept on a gun rack in his pickup truck. He maintained that the weapon discharged accidentally as he removed it from the truck while they were getting out of the vehicle. Prosecutors initially charged him with murder, but it was difficult to establish whether the shooting was intentional. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served time in prison.

That case has stayed with me because it illustrates an important principle. Justice does not require us to pretend that every killing carries the same degree of guilt. Intent matters. Circumstances matter. Culpability matters. Yet there was still an accounting for the life lost.

That principle should apply in the Clancy case. Lindsay Clancy has acknowledged killing her three children. Whatever mitigating factors may bear on the degree of her culpability or the severity of her punishment should not erase accountability. In my judgment, justice requires that she be imprisoned for taking those three innocent lives.

The Bible offers us a remarkably balanced principle for understanding this.

Jesus said: “And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes” (Luke 12:47–48).

Notice the balance. Knowledge matters. Understanding matters. Circumstances matter. Degrees of culpability matter. One servant receives many stripes; another receives few. Yet even the servant who knew less was held accountable. His lesser culpability led to a lesser judgment, and not the absence of judgment. This is a profound principle of biblical justice: circumstances may lessen culpability, but they do not erase accountability.

At the great and final judgment, God will know everything human courts cannot. He will know the condition of the mind, the intent of the heart, the degree of understanding, every pressure brought to bear on a person, and precisely how much responsibility belongs to each individual. His judgment will be perfectly proportionate.

Human courts cannot judge with divine perfection, but they should aspire to the principle taught in Scripture. Justice does not demand equal punishment in every case. It demands proportionate accountability.

The Bible warns against injustice in both directions: “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15). We must not condemn unjustly, but neither should sympathy lead us to excuse what justice requires us to confront.

If Clancy was profoundly mentally ill, that should be acknowledged. If her medical treatment failed her, we should examine those failures. If her capacity was diminished, that should affect the severity of her punishment.

Compassion has its place in the courtroom, but accountability even more so. An empathetic society asks what happened to the person who committed the crime. A just society also remembers what happened to those who suffered because of it.

Whatever ultimately happens in the Lindsay Clancy case, three names must never be footnotes in a story primarily about their mother: Cora, Dawson, and Callan.

Compassion may temper punishment. It should never erase accountability, nor should it eclipse justice for the innocent lives that were taken.

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