Days after a Plymouth County jury ᴅᴇᴀᴅlocked in the high-profile trial of Lindsay Clancy, the attorney for another Mᴀssachusetts mother charged with killing her children stood outside Dedham District Court and drew a careful line between the two cases while still asking prosecutors to rethink how they treat women with serious mental-health histories.

Joseph Krowski Jr. told reporters after the September 10 hearing that Janette MacAusland “is her own woman” and that “this is not Lindsay Clancy 2.0,” yet he argued the Clancy mistrial had opened a national conversation about whether the justice system should automatically pursue the fullest criminal charges when a woman suffering profound mental illness is involved in an unthinkable family tragedy. Clancy’s trial ended in early September without a verdict after jurors could not agree on whether she was criminally responsible; her defense had centered on postpartum psychosis.

Krowski noted that MacAusland’s children were older and that this was “not a postpartum situation,” but he said his client has a documented history of mental illness and that “insтιтutions have failed her.” He urged outgoing Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey and the incoming administration to take “a different approach” rather than default to maximum prosecution. Inside the courtroom he had asked the judge either to dismiss the first-degree murder charges or to set reasonable bail because the medical examiner had not yet issued official cause-and-manner findings. Both requests were denied. Krowski has not announced an insanity defense and said it was too early to lock in a legal strategy, but he described himself as “cautiously optimistic” that the Clancy outcome might prompt a second look at how cases like his client’s are handled.

The remarks place the MacAusland prosecution at the intersection of two Mᴀssachusetts cases that have forced public discussion about mental-health treatment, criminal responsibility, and the limits of the current system when parents who appear to have been devoted caregivers suddenly become defendants in the most serious charges the law allows. Whether that conversation produces any change in charging decisions remains to be seen as the case heads toward its next court date at the end of October.

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/09/10/us-news/janette-macauslands-attorney-requests-child-murder-case-be-dismissed/?utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=referral