Weeks before the Lindsay Clancy jury deadlocked, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh sat down on Episode 85 to walk through the evidence and the defense strategy. Looking back, the episode explains much of why the jury split the way it did.
Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse and mother of three, was charged after the deaths of her children. Her defense centered on postpartum psychosis. According to the defense, she had sought help several times and had been prescribed 13 different medications.
The legal test
Massachusetts uses a version of the McNaghten standard for criminal responsibility. The panel explains how that test works and what reasonable doubt looks like when a defendant's mental state is the central question.
Planning or a psychotic break
The prosecution argued premeditation and suggested Clancy was exaggerating her symptoms. The panel weighs the evidence of planning against the evidence of a psychotic break, asks whether the medications themselves could have played a role, and looks at the role of expert witnesses on both sides.
The episode also covers why involuntary commitment is so hard to obtain in the United States and ends with each panelist's prediction for the verdict. For what happened next, see the panel's breakdown of the 11 to 1 hung jury in Episode 90.
This brief summarizes reporting and analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. It is not legal advice.
