There are far too many among us who demand the guilty go free, and those who haven’t yet been charged with any crime be punished, as a result of what might or might not have happened to others of the same class.
We used to believe that justice was blind. The many depictions of Lady Justice familiar to most of us date back to the sixteenth century, showing a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales and a double edged sword. Rooted in the Greek goddess Themis and her Roman successor, Justitia, the blind-fold represented neutrality, that the appearance, status, or background of the accused and the accuser didn’t matter, the scales, a desire to weigh the evidence fairly and impartially, and the double-edged sword, the authority and reason of the law, but this wasn’t always the case. The Greek, Roman, and even related Egyptian traditions, generally show the goddess, who was frequently responsible for a more amorphous set of duties – truth, justice, and order, for example – as opposed to merely justice without an eye covering of any kind, so that she may easily see the merits of whatever issue was before her. Indeed, even today, the images inside and outside the Illinois Supreme Court show a clear-eyed depiction, including Charles Mulligan’s statue of Justice at the building’s entrance, Edgar Spier Cameron’s mural of Lady Justice in the Law Library, and Albert H. Krehbiel’s several murals featuring Lady Justice in the Supreme Court courtroom and Appellate courtroom. While this is a rarity in the modern world, it wasn’t until the fourteenth century that artists began adding the blindfold on a regular basis, and at the time, it was meant to be satirical, linking Lady Justice to more random and less impartial aspects of the human experience like love, anger, and death, suggesting that if she couldn’t see clearly, she couldn’t properly judge.
During the Renaissance, however, the notion that justice being blind was preferable began to take hold. The updated depiction held a seeing justice could be a prejudiced one who might also rush to judgement, whereas a person wearing a blindfold would likely be slow, deliberate, and cautious. If you were born in the 20th century, most of us grew up taking this notion and the resulting depiction for granted. While we might not have believed justice was perfect by any means and we all understood that sometimes the law, the judge, or the jury simply got it wrong for whatever reason, we implicitly accepted a few underlying principles that were largely sacrosanct to ensure a fair, impartial process, or as fair and impartial as any process can get when fallible human beings are involved. These are known by various names depending on your familiarity with legal terminology, but can generally be reduced to some combination of crimes requiring at least some amount of evidence to be investigated and pursued, the ability to face and respond directly to whoever has accused you of wrong doing, the notion that someone is innocent until proven guilty and has the right to mount a defense against any charge, the acceptance that guilt should be determined by the courts rather than public opinion, and that everyone is entitled to a trial by a jury of their unbiased peers, that is a group of people that enter the courtroom without having reached any conclusion on the matter at hand. While no one believes these things can be perfectly achieved in the real world, almost everyone appeared to agree they should be aspired to wherever possible and if for some reason it was revealed a principle was violated, it would generally be grounds for believing an injustice had occurred rather than the ideals of justice we hoped to achieve – or at least, most of us thought that was the case.
If two recent stories are any indication, however, either the ideal of justice has changed radically in recent years or far fewer people than I thought embraced the ideal to begin with. In one of those ironies that seem to increasingly define our times, the stories represent far opposite extremes, even as those opposite extremes are held by some of the same people at the same time. First, the Lindsay Clancy trial polarized the nation both before and after an unsatisfying hung jury determination on September 3, 2026. In this case, there was the clear, indisputable evidence of a crime – three children – five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan were brutally murdered on January 24, 2023 – and reasonably clear evidence of guilt. Ms. Clancy was the only person home at the time and appeared to have specifically sent her husband from the house to commit the heinous act, and to this day, even in court, she doesn’t deny she was at least physically responsible. During the trial, however, the defense asserted that Ms. Clancy was suffering from at least two psychiatric conditions, postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, and had been receiving treatment including numerous prescription drugs, which rendered her incompetent to face justice. Prior to the murders, she had repeatedly sought treatment for insomnia, intrusive thoughts, and suicidal ideation, and therefore she could not be held responsible for the crime due to reasons of insanity. For their part, the prosecution didn’t deny that she was suffering from some form of mental illness, but whatever the symptoms or root cause, asserted that did not absolve her from guilt because she still understood right from wrong, and had meticulously planned the murders beforehand.
Under normal circumstances, an outside observer might have an opinion on the matter, but would simultaneously understand they aren’t in the court room, hearing all of the evidence, and legal determinations of insanity can be complex, subject to at least some opinion and judgement on behalf of those involved. We might also conclude that even should Ms. Clancy be proven guilty, the situation was tragic, heartbreaking, and as a mother, she likely didn’t act out of a fully sound mind. In other words, we might have sympathy even for a killer. Being aware of these things, this hypothetical outside observer, such as myself, would generally leave it to the jury to determine guilt, but that was far from the case. Instead, a significant segment of the population rallied around Ms. Clancy, believing she could not be held responsible because of her claim of postpartum depression and therefore, she must be deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. In some cases, it was asserted the husband was somehow the guilty party up to and including killing the children himself, complete with claims his role in the murders was never properly investigated because he is a man, and even in the event he didn’t personally strangle them, he failed to provide his wife the support she needed, making him somehow guilty anyway.
While those making these claims were not psychiatrists or psychologists, were not in the courtroom or privy to all of the facts, they proudly announced how they “Stood with Lindsay” and as the verdict approached, hundreds gathered at the courthouse in support. PBS characterized the rallies this way, reporting that “Hundreds of Lindsay Clancy supporters, many wearing pink clothing emblazoned with phrases such as ‘Believe,’ ‘She Needed Help’ and ‘Peace For Lindsay,’ gathered Thursday outside the courthouse where she is on trial in the killings of her three children. Several of the 300 women, and a few men, said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women.” “Women are being dismissed, neglected and ignored when we speak up,” explained April Vincent, a 52-year-old paralegal from Providence, Rhode Island who attended the rally. “We’re scared because nobody takes us seriously.” “It’s very sad,” echoed Jeanne Zaborski, a 72-year old retired nurse from neighboring Massachusetts. “I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I have a sister who had problems after birth and it’s just very sad. I hope Lindsay gets the care she needs and deserves and other women will come together like we did today.”
In their view, the case and the verdict is about more than the facts of the murder, and justice in the matter is clearly not allowed to be blind. Instead, their perception of how the healthcare system as a whole treats women in general is on trial and whether or not Ms. Clancy was treated fairly herself, other women have been “dismissed, neglected and ignored,” making a not guilty verdict the only acceptable outcome. Putting this another way, the final judgement from the jury shouldn’t be based on the facts of the case and an impartial application of the law, but the treatment of all women under the system and because other women might have been harmed or mistreated, Ms. Clancy cannot be held accountable. Crucially, the same benefit of the doubt would not by definition be extendable to men with mental illness. Since they have not been “dismissed, neglected, and ignored,” the regular legal standards apply, turning women into an exception based on their membership in a class. While these rallies were occurring, one of the most macabre and disturbing trends in recent memory took over social media. Women, in an effort to stand with Ms. Clancy, posted video of themselves claiming they too had considered killing their own children, that their children were such a burden on their lives they imagined all sorts of gruesome ways they might rid themselves of them, and in at least one case, a social media user substituted a doll for a baby, showing the poor child getting thrown down the stairs, stuck in the dryer, and more. Presumably, should these or other women go through with the horrific act, they too should be found innocent of the crime because of their membership in the class of women, the unique burdens they face, and their treatment as a whole, rather than the merits of any individual case.
While we await what, if any, further legal actions will be taken against Ms. Clancy, another story has gripped our attention, this one also dating from some years in the past, but as mentioned earlier, represents the opposite extreme. Instead of believing a person should be found not guilty because of the circumstances surrounding a potential crime, we are now told that some crimes, whether or not they actually occurred, require justice no matter what, also because of the circumstances surrounding them. On October 19 or 20, 2024, Jane Doe attended a party hosted by the Chi Pi fraternity off campus at Cornell University, when after indulging in large quantities of alcohol and ketamine, she engaged in a consenting sexual encounter with two men followed by a potentially suspect sexual encounter with a larger group of individuals, some seven of them in total. To be sure, the details remain murky, except that Ms. Doe ended an evening of visiting local bars in a fraternity member’s room, during which she consumed around ten drinks and other substances. Once in the room, a small parade of men came and went, performing various sexual acts until almost six in the morning. At least some of the events were said to have made Ms. Doe uncomfortable, even as it is unclear whether she said no or was even capable of saying no. Though she initially claimed nothing illegal had occurred and she specifically noted that she enjoyed the threesome with the two men, Ms. Doe reconsidered the events in the few weeks following, and ultimately reported the incident to the police on November 8. At some point afterwards, a six part summary of her statements and the investigation was provided to Tompkins County District Attorney, Matthew Van Houten, who declined to pursue charges.
He explained the decision by noting, “Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. Finally, there is no evidence in Jane Doe’s statement indicating that she clearly expressed that she did not consent to the act. According to the statement, each time Jane Doe asked to stop the sexual conduct, the sexual conduct stopped. Thus, with no evidence of a ‘lack of consent,’ criminal charges simply could not be sustained. To instruct otherwise would have been to violate my prosecutorial obligations under New York State Law.” While these events were largely forgotten for almost two years, Ms. Doe filed a civil lawsuit against the seven men in question, the university, the fraternity, the bars she visited before the party, and even her own sorority last month, prompting what can only be described as a mad rush to judgement. Though no one can say if a crime was actually committed – or even how we can ascertain that with any surety two years later – many of the same people who believed justice for Ms. Clancy required absolving her of cold blooded murder, are now demanding the accused be charged and presumably found guilty.
Once again, Ms. Doe’s gender and the belief that other women have been unfairly treated after making similar allegations underlies this position. Writing for USA Today, Sara Pequeno claimed that “Cornell failed Jane Doe.” “I lost count of the number of women I knew who experienced sexual violence on my college campus and how many of those instances happened in fraternity houses,” she began. “Cornell University failed Jane Doe, as colleges have failed the women who attend them since we were first allowed to become part of the campus community. Things aren’t getting better.” In her view, “Jane Doe’s recounting of the events to local police reminded me of so many friends who had similar experiences a decade ago. Her lawyers said criminal investigators never contacted her after her initial statement. The district attorney’s office later said Jane Doe’s statement was unclear. My heart goes out to all the women who have been told their story was not perfect enough to be believed. It is the terrifying reality of a patriarchal society, and it is something that must change.” New York’s Governor, Kathy Hochul appears to agree. While announcing that a special prosecutor, Letitia James, has been appointed to the case despite having previously decried what Ms. Doe was “forced to endure” as “horrific and unacceptable” and insisted, together with “all survivors,” “we stand with you,” she claimed “In what world would the police learn from a victim that she’d been literally gang raped while intoxicated by five men in a fraternity house and not elevate those allegations to the district attorney? In what world does the district attorney not even interview her, or anyone else involved, or even request the full transcript?” Also at issue is a law that excludes victims who become voluntarily intoxicated to the point where they are not able to either consent or object. Though no one denies this was the prevailing legal framework at the time, and everyone seems to agree Ms. Doe voluntarily consumed large amounts of alcohol and other substances, that no longer seems to matter. “If someone is too intoxicated to consent, it should not matter whether they chose to use drugs or alcohol,” Governor Hochul, who swore to uphold the laws in her state said on Friday. “Voluntary intoxication is not a license for sexual assault or gang rape. Period.”
Of course, none of this means that Ms. Doe was not raped, as she has claimed. It means simply that we do not know and if justice was blind, cautious, and sober, fair minded people would await more facts before reaching conclusions, nor would both pundits and politicians be making statements condemning a university – indeed all universities – a fraternity – indeed all fraternities – and the law – which we might agree is less than ideal, but has seemingly been correctly applied without having access to those facts. Ms. Doe’s gender and the treatment of other women in a similar position are not relevant to whether the seven men in question are guilty of the crime for which they are accused, anymore than Ms. Clancy being a woman in a world where other women’s mental health issues have gone untreated is relevant to her own guilt. Blind justice requires us to look at each case individually, according to the merits of the charge and the preparing law, but increasingly, it seems that justice is no longer blind. Today, there are many who demand the obviously guilty go free, and those who haven’t yet been charged with any crime be punished, as a result of what might or might not have happened to others of the same class. This isn’t justice, however, it’s insanity, the rule of the mob masquerading as jurisprudence.
