Lindsay clancy trial

[Widowwith2]

Has anyone else been following the lindsay clancy trial? What is everyone thinkin? I dont think she done it

"The second note said " Juror number X has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states, this is why we cannot come to a unanimous decision""

I would point to my previous post that having doubt may not constitute "reasonable doubt"

"So by the sounds of that they were saying that he was not following the instructions as given, and was expressing stronger doubts.

I do t know where the "stronger doubts" is coming from based on those notes above. Nor do I see where the prosecution point about "ignoring evidence" comes across.

Perhaps the other jurors felt that "any doubt" prevented reasonable certainty but the judges instructions did not say "absolute certainty"

It might be that the other jurors felt that the holdouts " reasonable and moral certainty"was
unreasonable and immoral and hence against the judges instruction.

The hold out took what they thought was a moral stance as they must have come under a lot of pressure from the other 11. This is why we have juries in the first place even if you disagree with this result/ mistrial

As many people point out there will be " nuance" to these deliberations which those notes cannot possibly convey

The judge had just explained reasonable doubt to them and moral certainty and yet the jurors came back with a second note afterwards saying that the juror has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states.

So that's where 'stronger doubts' is coming from, it sounds from that note like he has expressed stronger doubts to the other jurors but yet will not follow the law.

Yes I am aware that there will be nuance to these deliberations that cannot be conveyed by the notes, but the foreperson of the jury was privy to all of these deliberations and still chose to send that note to the judge which is clearly stating that the juror will not act as the law states.

"So that's where 'stronger doubts' is coming from, it sounds from that note like he has expressed stronger doubts to the other jurors but yet will not follow the law."

Not seeing this at all

Note 1 summary implies the juror is not following reasonable doubt - implying he/she has expressed doubts already .

Note 2 confirms juror has expressed doubts and claims this is not following judges instructions.

Said juror already confirmed he/she understood judges instruction and I infer the deliberations Impasse hinged on whether their doubts constituted reasonable doubt versus reasonable certainty.

I still don't understand how the defence decided this was not a "good faith" issue from these notes.

I still don't understand how the defence decided this was not a "good faith" issue from these notes.

It's obvious from the wording of the note why they would decide that it was not a good faith issue, but you are free to infer whatever you want from it.

"It's obvious from the wording of the note why they would decide that it was not a good faith issue, but you are free to infer whatever you want from it"

It's a moot point I suppose; the judge and the supreme court of Massachusetts decided it wasn't.

Five men have slaughtered their entire families since the trial began, not sure why she is the focus of so much attention.

Her husband fired their nanny, leaving her alone with the kids. He kept going away on trips, multiple times in the lead up to the murder. And on the day left her home alone.

This is AFTER she had been hospitalised for postpartum psychosis and suicidal/homicidal ideation and had expressed intrusive thoughts of harming the children.

She messaged her mum, a couple of weeks before the murders "Mom, will you please come up and stay with me for a bit? I'm really sick. Something is wrong...I had horrible insomnia all night, and I just don't know how I am going to get through the day. I started taking the medicine the doctor prescribed for anxiety, and I think it's made things worse. It's just really scary, and I don't want to be alone."

He was home when she wrote this and she still needed her mum because he kept leaving her alone with the kids.

On January 1 2023 she was admitted to an inpatient program at a top psychiatric institution, McLean Hospital, but was discharged after just five days and later tried to get herself admitted to other psychiatric care, but was turned away several times. She was prescribed 13 different anti psychotics in the lead up to the murders.

He had a new girlfriend a couple of months after the trial and has since married her. And Lindsay Clancy has never formally admitted guilt, and said a male voice told her to kill them and then herself.

I don't know if she did murder them or not, though I lean towards yes she did it. And if so, she should never get out of psychiatric care again.

And in my opinion he is equally to blame if she did kill them.

And yep, I would absolutely definitively say that about any woman who left her children with a man who had made these statements. 100% definitely.

She should never, absolutely never, have been left alone with those kids again.

Assuming she did it, he's just as much to blame as she is.

Short to medium term yes. But not 3 yrs down the line of inpatient treatment. She can be heavily ‘medicated’ without those meds having a ‘sedative’ effect.

anti psychotics are well known to have sedative effects hence advice to take before bed time.

Again to point out she is now being treated for Bi-Polar - Lithium is the main treatment which is not sedative.

This is not the same as your ‘lived experience’ and it’s not appropriate to judge her presentation against your own when you are clinically incomparable.

So you’re comparing the sedative effect of medication on someone prescribed it for insomnia short term, versus the medical effect of someone diagnosed with BI Polar amongst other things and 3 year inpatient treatment.

if she were taking meds that have a sedative effect such that she’s drowsy in court - she wouldn’t be allowed in court. She wouldn’t be deemed fit for trial.

So yes the notion that some people expect her to be so heavily medically sedated that she’s sliding off the chair is nonsense.

‘she doesn’t look medicated’. No. And nor should anyone who is receiving the right treatment.

It's a moot point I suppose; the judge and the supreme court of Massachusetts decided it wasn't.

This.

Interesting hearing the defence guy lay into the hold out. I wonder how many dozens of times in his career he's feted a hold out for being brave true to their convictions and getting his client off.

They can actually, it might be rare but it can certainly happen that people can continue to experience those side effects.

Five men have slaughtered their entire families since the trial began

Is it their spouse's fault for not supporting them peoperly? Should the world have sympathy for their mental condition and find them all not guilty?

The judge says "That note does not indicate that this a person who has refused to follow the law."

Just after 9m20s here:

Of course they can and it should be rare

In this case people are complaining that she isn’t .

Imagine complaining because a mentally ill woman appears to be receiving appropriate care.

So how do you get a fair retrial unless you find jurors who have been living under rocks?

There is so much press coverage on the internet how would you go about getting a new jury to effectively forget what they have read and somehow induce a n men of amnesia?

Is there some non trial way forward with this?

No there is no provision for trial by judge only. There was previously obviously a lot of publicity but nothing like as detailed as a fully televised trial - plus knowledge of the fact that the first jury was 11-1 in favour of finding her not guilty by reason of insanity.

Assuming they go again for first degree murder (nb no trial will start on 29 Sept that’s the status hearing - a huge amount of diary work / court time / counsel & witness availability needs to be set aside) - the judge will direct all to set aside any pre existing opinions etc. Hard to do in reality.

The strong line comments of the Plymouth County DA on the court room steps yesterday when he spoke strongly about the criminal responsibility of LC suggest strongly they will not accept a lesser plea deal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57190882

this case may have been mentioned upthread. Apologies if so. The parallels are uncanny. Childrens nurse. 3 children. Planning in advance which isn’t as at odds with true delusion and psychosis as our natural instinct suggests it may be.

She remains in Dublins central mental hospital to date.

It will be easy and the courts deal with that problem all the time. People get their news online these days which means we aren't all served the same stories. I hadn't even heard of this trial until it was nearly over and only then when I saw a thread on MN. (Of course now youtube is showing me endless legal analysis of it.)

Much harder in the days when everyone saw the same 20 news stories on TV and newspapers.

I think she had a history of Psychosis. She wasn't just claiming to be conveniently out of it for the time it took her to commit the murders.

Plus, like LC, it seems likely she will never be released so the guilty/not guilty distinction is a bit meaningless as it always is for the criminally insane.

The strong line comments of the Plymouth County DA on the court room steps yesterday when he spoke strongly about the criminal responsibility of LC suggest strongly they will not accept a lesser plea deal.

Yeah, you can't really make planning part of your case and then remove the only "murder with an element of planning" charge.

All the informed comment I've seen was that the prosecution case was a car crash and the defence played a blinder. The retrial could be very different.

Definitely not juding her presentation against my own. I just wanted to correct your erroneous statement about meds not causing drowsiness.

Having read some conspiracy posts that are about half of the threads, and a huge load more outside mn I’m sure, I hope the re-trial can happen without conspiracy influencing it.

“Easy”???

Are you in the US? This trial has been immense nationally but particularly in the Massachusetts area. Full live televising of it is certainly much more intense than newspaper reporting. Add to that tok / Reddit / podcasts - most of which are totally unfact checked. It’s a Wild West of opinion and conjecture.

The defence will certainly argue that it will be difficulty for her to get a fair hearing as part of their application for full dismissal (which definitely won’t succeed) or a (maybe) a lesser homicide plea deal. But as you say retrials are a lot more common in the US due to unanimity requirements and also come might argue the fact that DAs are publicly elected officials and can be more prone to seeking retrobutive justice than here in the UK.

Both sides will have learnt lessons and may play their hands slightly differently in retrial . Calling Patrick Clancy as the first prosecution witness (even though he was a witness for the defence) was considered by many to be an error.

The main conspiracy element was that PC carried out the murders and “told” LC she did it which in her psychotic state she then agreed to.

Given that it was an accepted fact by both defence and prosecution that the children died at the hands of their mother, I don’t think that could influence a jury (hopefully).

The jurors may not know which of them is not in agreement with the majority. How can the defence lawyer possibly know? I was on a jury in the UK and I could not tell you what two of the jurors thought because they didn't articulate it in the discussions. We held anonymous ballots and reached a majority verdict on some of the counts, after asking the judge for direction. I discovered afterwards it was a retrial. Jury cases are already difficult cases and requiring unanimous decisions in certain cases makes things even more difficult.

Of course the jurors knew. They sent a note to the judge about the juror.