That argument was made to the judge at a hearing.
Some quotes to consider from a newspaper article:
According to two psychiatrists interviewed for this story, there is inadequate recognition of postpartum psychosis among medical professionals in this country. If diagnosed, the condition is readily controlled by hospitalization and drug or electroshock therapy, the psychiatrists said. Untreated, however, the psychosis can become so severe as to cause the mother to commit suicide or infanticide …
… The illness is a temporary condition that occurs in new mothers (the majority of whom have no prior history of mental illness) due to hormonal changes that are not yet completely understood, said San Francisco psychiatrist Dr. James Hamilton, who has treated more than 300 such cases.
He cautioned that when the illness is used as a defense for infanticide, “One needs to have a certain amount of evidence of some sort that this is indeed a psychosis. It would be a disservice to sick people if a lot of non-sick people who are just garden-variety child abusers got under this wire.” …
… Doctors are literally ignoring mothers to death on this thing …
Nothing new in this article but the notable bit is that there is nothing new in it: this article was written nearly 40 years ago.
Anyway. Judge denied the defense motion. No surprise.
The results are in: the prosecution did present sufficient evidence of guilt at trial to “permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused did the deed.
Doesn’t mean the judge is saying she did it, only that there was enough evidence for a hypothetical reasonable juror to hang their hat on and convict, such that the judge won’t declare her not guilty himself.
I love Mark Lopez. Every video of his is like a little sequel to My Cousin Vinnie.
Don’t you do majority verdicts in USA?
In UK the judge would have ordered a majority verdict and accepted 10-2 as an aquital
I like the current legal definition of sanity, which entails the individual knowing what they were doing during the commission of the murder. By that definition, she needs to spend the rest of her life in prison. They can treat her there, but THERE she should be.
I don’t think there is anywhere in the US that accepts majority verdicts in criminal cases. The verdict must be unanimous. Some states may allow it in civil cases.
ETA: Apparently majority verdicts were allowed in state courts from 1972 until a Supreme Court decision concluded that unanimous verdicts were constitutionally required even in state courts in 2020.
Cite: U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimous verdicts required to convict for serious crimes | CBC News
Yes, most states require 10 out of 12 (or 9 out of 12) for a civil verdict. There may be exceptions, but I’m not aware of any. Criminal cases (and federal civil cases) must be unanimous.
In the past, some states allowed majority verdicts in criminal cases, but the Supreme Court held in Ramos v Louisiana in 2020 that the Constitution required unanimous verdicts.
I think majority verdict is still possible in civil trails