Lindsay Clancy's murder trial ended in a mistrial Sept. 4, 11-1, a travesty of justice for her three young children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan, all of whom she strangled
to death in 2023.
Nothing will bring her children back, but they deserved some semblance of justice. Now we are beginning to learn why they didn’t get it.
Three jurors spoke to NBC News about the trial, the deliberations and the lone male holdout who refused to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.
To say I'm disappointed doesn’t begin to cover it. Their reasoning about the trial, the prosecution and the holdout juror is appalling – an injustice to children who deserved much better.
Lindsay Clancy jurors had misplaced priorities
Massachusetts calls its insanity defense "lack of criminal responsibility." Clancy admitted she killed her children, but her attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued that postpartum mental illness left her unable to bear criminal responsibility.
Prosecutors, though, had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was sane – that she knew right from wrong and could control her actions.
That’s a high bar, and most of the jury believed prosecutors didn't clear it. I assumed this was why the jury was deadlocked for several days. But after watching these three jurors interviewed, it's far worse than that. These women didn't appear to be stuck weighing the state's high bar for the "insanity defense.” Instead, they were fixated on emotions.
Juror Kellie Farina called the prosecution's opening statement "harsh," "biased" and "without a heart" and said prosecutors offered no character witnesses to counter the notion that Clancy was a bad mother.
It is heartless and harsh for a mother to kill her children. Yet Farina used those words for the prosecution – the people trying to hold Clancy accountable on behalf of the kids she killed.
Roni Carlson, a retired fifth-grade teacher, was the jury foreperson. She described deliberations as emotional, filled with “lots of crying, lots of yelling, just lots of tears and then hugging.” The jurors are friends now, and Carlson said she'll attend the retrial if there is one, to support Clancy.
I find this nauseating.
The three women had no patience for the holdout juror, a male, who sounded more logical, stoic and, by their account, inclined to hold Clancy legally responsible for killing her kids. Carlson told NBC10 Boston that he “admitted he had reasonable doubt" but then told the group, “I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.”
Farina said the holdout juror "had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children." If true, good. I'm glad he held the line, even though it cost the case a mistrial.
Clancy jury missed the point
The jurors’ comments reveal they were swayed by emotional appeals, not by the facts, logic or testimony in the case. Perhaps the prosecution could have made a stronger case. But I'm still surprised so many jurors felt Clancy deserved to be found not guilty by reason of insanity after hearing it.
That Clancy sent her husband to the store so he couldn't intervene, "viciously" strangled her children after bringing them, one by one, down to the basement, then crushed and ingested pills, before attempting suicide, suggests a level of planning and methodical behavior that the holdout juror and many Americans have found difficult to reconcile with psychosis.
One expert even testified that Clancy showed no signs of acute psychosis before killing her kids, and that her "command hallucinations" appeared only during the 18 minutes it took her to strangle her kids – never before or after.
I'm not the only one who thinks this way. A YouGov poll found 46% of adults think Clancy should have been found guilty of murder, and just 21% think she should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. Split by gender, it's closer than I expected: 41% of women and 51% of men said guilty. The jury clearly didn't reflect that.
Even this case breaks down along party lines – 61% of Republicans think she should have been found guilty, compared with just 34% of Democrats.
Clancy may have needed more mental health help, or at least a doctor overseeing a cohesive medical treatment plan. But she also killed her kids, and they deserve justice.
I can't explain why Clancy did this, and neither can the jurors. But their job was not to become friends, empathize with Clancy or vow to support her later. It was to decide whether Clancy knew what she was doing was wrong, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Maybe the defense planted just enough doubt that these jurors felt they had to acquit her. But it sounds like they were ready to empathize and support Clancy from the start. It's disheartening that as early as opening statements, these jurors had decided that Clancy deserved more compassion than her children received. Their decision fails to give those three innocent children the justice they deserve.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lindsay Clancy jurors chose empathy over justice | Opinion
