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I realize this isn’t a top quality post, so I accept the judgement of the mods, but a mistrial has been declared in the case of Lindsay Clancy. Shes the woman in Massachusetts who admitted to killing her kids, but claims she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
The jury deliberated for seven days. Apparently, it came down to one male juror holding out against the other (nine female, two male) jurors. The belief is that he wanted to vote guilty. The jury reported to the judge that the holdout refused to follow the law regarding reasonable doubt, and the defense tried to have him removed. The judge refused. This morning, the judge declared a mistrial but gave defense one hour to get a stay from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Predictably, the online discourse is off the walls. X lifts the holdout up as a hero, while Reddit believes he (we know it’s a male because the defense said so) is an MRA/red piller and needs to have his phone searched.
Personally, I think she’s guilty of premeditated, cold blooded murder. That said, I get the postpartum argument, but am horrified by the defense of her and holding her up as some kind of hero.
I didn't personally watch the trial but Binion's coverage on the topic makes it clear this is way more complex than people on the internet make it seem (shocker, I know). https://reason.com/2026/09/04/the-lindsay-clancy-jury-was-tasked-with-an-impossible-question/
Going off what the law and burden of proof for Massachusetts prosecutors apparently is, personally I'd be inclined to vote not guilty due to insanity if I was on the jury. She displayed tons of warning signs for mental instability before it happened, including trying to get into a mental health facility, getting prescribed a bunch of medicine, and asking to not be left alone. The suicide attempt after suggests a poor state of mind and the defense had some strong experts including one of the forensic psychologists who analyzed her afterwards. If the burden of proof is on the prosecutors in Massachusetts, then they have a tough wall to crack and everything I've heard about this suggests they fucked up hard even before considering this part.
And like many topics, there's plenty of bad arguments to go around from both sides. "Mental illness doesn't do that" yes it does. "Her husband did it", stop listening to true crime podcasts. "She has some planning elements to it" insanity doesn't have to mean complete irrationality. I have an extended family member who had a psychotic break (I've talked about her before on here I think even), an altered state of mind still often contains some logical flow to it, they're just error ridden. For example her crazy accusation of my father of faking grandpa's death was accompanied with claims like "I saw him far away watching me!" and shit like that, it wasn't complete gibberish. It is quite possible that Clancy in psychosis imagined a voice telling her to kill her kids and then herself and acted on it while also still aware enough that her husband would intervene and try to prevent it. Our brains are really complex like that, they can break down in some areas but maintain others.
It seems like the law, at least in the state of Massachusetts, is just riddled with contradictions when it comes to this. What is "reasonable doubt?" What is "Burden of proof?" What is "insane?" These are tough questions for even the wisest of philosophers to determine, let alone regular people in a criminal case. But that's OK, let's just throw it to 12 random people in a jury... surely they'll figure it out, right? We won't need to see the horrendous flaws in their logical because the jury deliberations are all secret.
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