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Very meagre for a top-level comment, I know, but I felt it was worth sharing because it's peak culture war: it turns out the sole holdout in the Lindsay Clancy case was a Black man.
(For those living under a rock: Lindsay Clancy was the woman who killed her three young children, pleaded non guilty on the basis that she suffered from post partum psychosis, and the murder trial ended in a mistrial because only 1 out of 12 jury member found her guilty.)
I think this revelation will end the debate about whether the jury failed to reach the right verdict. Although ostensibly the discussion revolved around what level of proof was provided (Massachussets has an unusually low bar for insanity defenses, in that the prosecutor must prove that the defendant was capable of discerning right from wrong beyond reasonable doubt, rather than the defense proving their client was incapable at least to the level of preponderance of evidence, as is the case in most jurisdictions.)
In practice, the issue seemed to be mostly framed in terms of identity politics, along the lines of “mistrial caused by obstinate man who refused to listen to reasonable majority of mostly women”. Substitute “black man” and “white women” and this loses its cachet: suddenly it reads like a proud person of color bravely standing up against a group of Karens trying to browbeat him into submission.
I'm surprised at which side of the culture war this falls on. Alternate incendiary explanations: black guy was too dumb/lawless to understand that his purpose on the jury was to apply the particular oddities of MA law when it comes to insanity and instead just nullified the law?
If Xitter can have an endless circle jerk about how online white women are making sexual bigoted arguments for why women should be treated like infants because of their hormones, why can't they also make racial bigot arguments for why black people can't weigh complex topics in a jury box? The white people upheld law and order. The black guy went with his gut.
Since we're rehashing the case, do see Throwaway05's comment from the other week:
As a legal matter, a dumb juror might just well say "fuck all that shit I'm not letting you use a bunch of fancy words to try to trick me into saying that bitch walks"
I don't believe this myself. I'm not sure what I believe. I barely followed this case. But the culture war spectacle around it is fascinating.
There are no true experts—the psych field is a mess scientifically and predisposed to view everything aberrant as mental illness.
The legal experts expected a hung jury in large part because of the support for Clancy.
It is really hard to look at the facts and not get to beyond reasonable doubt. To explicate:
A. The standard is that Clancy either didn’t know what she was doing was criminal or she was incapable of not engaging in the activity.
B. The evidence is:
I. Clancy had thoughts of harming her kid for awhile. II. Clancy planned out her murder if the kids including making sure the husband was out of the house. III. Clancy in the middle of the murder spree took a call from her husband and was not demonstrating any signs of craziness. IV. Clancy only heard a voice allegedly once and only once.
C. So here we see that she had desires to commit the crime previously and was able to not commit the crime.
D. The defense would have to make the argument that she had a mental break (instead of just fighting off the intrusive thoughts) that means she either no longer knew it was wrong or lacked the capacity to not commit the act.
E. But the defense has a problem. She acted with forethought before the murders. So she was able to deter the compulsion to murder for a time and was trying to hide it suggesting she knew it was wrong. Also the planning indicates she still retained some thinking (ie didn’t have a full break with reality). While there is an argument that in very abnormal situations crazy people can remain perfectly rational in their actions towards their crazy goals, the standard is beyond reasonable doubt; not beyond any doubt.
F. But to make it even worse, the phone call that interrupted the murders seems to again undercut that she was incapable.
G. So here the defense has to argue this wasn’t a continuation of her prior ideations AND that notwithstanding her tactical rationality both before and during the murders she didn’t know what she was doing or could not control her actions.
H. Add to that the oddity of hearing the voice once and only once (pretty convenient).
I. The standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. The common example is better ten guilty go free than one innocent go to jail. That suggests about a 90% certainty.
J. Given these facts, it is really hard to say there is more than 10% doubt that Clancy could not control her actions or didn’t know they were wrong
Normally, but Clancy's lawyers were using the NGMI defense which in Massachusetts puts the burden of proof on prosecutors to overcome it. And as Reason writer Binion pointed out, it's a difficult question with no clear answers to determine when mental unwellness crosses over into psychosis. https://reason.com/2026/09/04/the-lindsay-clancy-jury-was-tasked-with-an-impossible-question/
There's some pretty difficult to overcome evidence towards her defense as well.
She harmed herself and tried to commit suicide after, ending up permanently disabled (so we can't even say it was clearly a fake attempt or something).
Expert witnesses existed on both sides, but since the burden of proof is on the prosecution even just showing the medical field is divided is a plus for the defense.
She was undisputably mentally unwell beforehand, so they have to show that it couldn't have crossed over into something worse.
And then there's other factors not even discussed in the article, like prosecution has to overcome the possibility of drug interactions causing it for instance.
I really try not to follow this story, but it seems like a really high bar for the prosecution to meet, in any case. If I'm a juror, I have a hard time imagining any evidence the prosecution could bring to make it beyond a reasonable doubt, short of a recording of the defendant bragging that they were faking it.
What do you interpret “beyond a reasonable doubt” to mean? What’s the percentage odds?
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