Boston College Law School Professors Cathleen Kaveny and R. Michael Cassidy joined an interdisciplinary panel of experts on September 29 to examine the complex legal, medical, and ethical questions raised by the Lindsay Clancy case. Held on BC’s Chestnut Hill campus, the event, “Moral Evil, Mental Illness, and Criminal Responsibility,” was organized and moderated by Kaveny, a professor of law and theology, and brought together perspectives from law, nursing, theology, and social work.
The discussion followed the recent mistrial of Clancy, a Massachusetts mother charged with murdering her three young children in 2023. Cassidy, a former prosecutor and expert in prosecutorial ethics, explained the legal standards governing criminal intent and responsibility in cases involving mental illness. He also advocated for Massachusetts to consider a “guilty but mentally ill” verdict, which could allow courts to recognize criminal responsibility while providing for psychiatric treatment.
Joining the BC Law faculty were Ann Burgess, a professor at BC’s Connell School of Nursing and a pioneer in criminal profiling and victimology; Robin Darling Young, professor of church history at The Catholic University of America; and Meg Kaveny, a clinical social worker who works with the Portland Police Bureau’s Behavioral Health Response Team. Their contributions explored postpartum mental illness, cultural expectations of motherhood, historical understandings of evil and sickness, and the challenges of responding to individuals experiencing psychiatric crises.
The panel underscored the importance of looking beyond questions of guilt or innocence to consider what the Clancy case reveals about the intersection of criminal justice, mental health care, and broader social systems. By bringing legal analysis into conversation with medical, historical, and social perspectives, the discussion highlighted both the limits of criminal law and its potential role in prompting critical examination and reform of the systems intended to protect vulnerable individuals and families.
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Photograph by Caitlin Cunningham, Boston College