Tehran University of Medical Sciences Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine 2008-0387 7 1 2015 10 14 114 114 Kreshnik Myftari Department of Criminal Law, Faculty of Law, University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania. Gentian Vyshka Biomedical and Experimental Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Medicine in Tirana, Tirana, Albania. 2015 10 14 Infanticide is a horrendous crime universally condemned from all ethical, juridical and moral standpoints. However, legislation on infanticide foresees mitigating circumstances for infanticidal mothers, with sentences by far disproportionate to the severity of the crime. The main justification for this abstaining from severe punishments has been the so-called post puerperal psychosis, whose diagnostic criteria and existence are still very confusing. Psychiatric experts and even jurors show excessive feelings of empathy toward defendant mothers, and fair verdicts under this setting and with this judicial tradition are questionable. Albanian courts have in some cases even denied defendant mothers the unwilling albeit necessary psychiatric treatment, thus exposing them to recidivism and to other social difficulties. Upholding the charge of infanticide in an Albanian court is hereby an impossible enterprise, with high chances for defendants to achieve acquittal on mental insanity grounds. Through describing three cases of infanticide and filicide in recent years of Albanian judicial proceedings, authors raise the concern formulated from other sources regarding the excessive empathy surrounding infanticidal mothers, a deleterious obstacle toward achieving justice. https://jmehm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/jmehm/article/view/114 https://jmehm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/jmehm/article/download/114/88