Postpartum Psychosis: A Legitimate Defense for Negating Criminal Responsibility (Comment)

Part I traces the slaughter of children throughout history and literature, and reveals the functions and reasons behind the ancient practice of infanticide. Part II discusses the medical debate regarding the causes of postpartum psychosis. Part III evaluates the legal recognition of postpartum psychosis as a defense in terms of usage and success rates. Analyzing postpartum depression to determine whether it meets the legal test of insanity, it compares the English common law to the American perspective of infanticide. Four tests are examined in detail: the M'Naghten test, the American Law Institute Model Penal Code test, the "Irresistible Impulse" test, and the Durham or "Product" test. Part IV looks to the effects of gender on sentencing, and compares sentencing for maternal as opposed to paternal infanticides. It examines how mothers are punished under the Texas justice system. Postpartum psychosis is a gender-specific defense. Part IV determines whether gender is a relevant factor in the charge of murder, and examines the validity of postpartum psychosis as an "Excuse" defense, along with the partial defense of "Extreme Mental and Emotional Disturbance." Evaluating current Congressional bills regarding postpartum disorders, Part IV also addresses the Texas approach to postpartum psychosis, as related to mental illness through the Texas Mental Health Code and the Texas Penal Code. Part V advocates proposed approaches to the defense of postpartum psychosis by either changing the burden of proof or considering such a defense as a mitigating factor at sentencing, if not both; it advocates the possibility of manslaughter for infanticide and involuntary manslaughter for neonaticide. Lastly, the Texas Penal Code and proposed amendments are analyzed and compared to the "guilty but mentally ill" standard' of other states, as well as the Model Penal Code. Part V ultimately looks to various statutes-state, federal, and foreign-for possible answers to the puzzle of postpartum psychosis in Texas courts today