What we often think of as being insane does not necessarily meet the legal definition of the term. It will have to be shown that she was not aware of the consequences of her acts. Not that she was not in her right mind to want to kill her five children but that somehow she could not comprehend she was killing them. Another legal theory on insanity is that it was an uncontrollable impulse to kill. Neither of these things is a necessary result of severe depression. Whether or not it was a result of legal insanity has yet to be seen.
Personally, I find the difficulty with heinous crimes to be they are so unfathomable to those of us who would not do such a thing, people are quick to say "she must be insane to do that." I think that is a more comforting thought than she is not insane and STILL did it. She may in fact be legally insane in this case but there are many who are not. On one level it seems that every mass murderer/serial killer must be insane to do what they do but we convict them all the same.
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