Psychiatric Exam Ordered for Mother Who Killed Her Baby

The judge who declared that Sheryl Lynn Massip was temporarily insane when she killed her infant son Friday ordered the Anaheim woman to undergo a preliminary review of her psychiatric condition to determine whether she should be confined to a state mental institution.

At the same time, Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald answered those who have attacked his extraordinary decision six weeks ago finding Massip not guilty by reason of insanity in a brutal killing that her lawyers blamed on an extreme form of the “baby blues.”

Overturning a jury’s murder verdict, Fitzgerald ruled Dec. 23 that the new mother was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not responsible for her actions when she ran over her 6-week-old son with the family car in April, 1987.

Massip, 24, still could face up to 11 years in a state mental institution.

Fitzgerald’s decision sparked a pending appeal from county prosecutors and alarmed others in the legal community who feared that it signaled an unwarranted expansion of judicial power. It also produced more than 60 letters to the judge, some of which sharply attacked his position and called for his ouster.

Addressing those who have challenged the existence of postpartum psychosis, Fitzgerald said Friday: “It’s my belief that you’re simply not paying attention to the current medical knowledge. And to the people that think I should step down, I tell you a resounding ‘no.’ I won’t do that.”

Fitzgerald, a Superior Court judge since 1980, is up for reelection in 1992.

Later, the judge ordered county health professionals to complete a preliminary review of Massip’s mental condition by the end of the month.

Postpartum psychosis is thought to cause intense anxiety, delusions and hallucinations and even violence in about one to three of every 1,000 new mothers, researchers say.