Lindsay Clancy Defense Strategy

True Crime junkies will love this!  I'm doing it for police educational purposes, but we will touch some true crime stuff - which I usually don't because it's such an oversaturated area.  And because I usually don't care.

Let's get into her defense, how she's doing it and what her goals are.

-LEO

Transcript

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Good afternoon, listeners. It's Thursday, and I want to get into the Lindsey Clancy trial. For those of you that are not aware, my true crime freaks, I'm sure are. But there's a mom up in the Northeast outside Boston, I think. She killed her three kids. They were eight, five, and, or maybe they're, no, no, no, not eight. I'm sorry. They were five, three, and eight months. She strangled them with fitness bans and killed them. She's on trial right now. So some of us, as law enforcement people, have been to trial, been to jury trials. Defense strategy is not really our problem. It's the prosecutor's problem, but we are generally aware of it. And if you've ever sat table or been the primary investigator on a trial, you do want to be aware of what the defense's strategy is. The trials that I've had, or they pick a jury and, you know, they sit and they listen to everybody testify, and you have to prove it. Basically, what a jury trial is, then the jury decides if they're guilty or they're not guilty. Trials I've had, the defense strategy has generally been pretty straightforward. Try to discredit witnesses, try to get evidence thrown out beforehand, try to put up some kind of smoke and mirrors about what went on and confuse the jury a bit. So this defense strategy is different. We've all heard the insanity defense. I'm not sure if that's exactly what they're calling this, but it's basically what they're claiming. So, as I said, Lindsey Clancy's youngest child was eight months old. And her claims, her lawyer's claims, her lawyer's 75 years old, very fiery, you know, condescends to witnesses, talks crazy to people, seems to be a pretty sharp old dude. What they're claiming is that she was on this concoction of medications and that they're pointing the finger at her psychiatrist and Dr. Tufts, I believe is her name. And they had the psychiatrist on the stand for a really long time going through her notes, picking apart the semantics of, I don't know if semantics is the right word, but the how she worded her notes, where she put the word no. There's a piece on crime TV where she put no, as I rapid talking or pressurized speech, but she didn't put no twice. This was in her personal notes, and they were going after what the meaning of her notes were. So the whole theory is that the psychiatrist didn't do her job, and that Lindsay had told the psychiatrist that she was drinking, not heavily, but like one or two drinks a day, I think it was, but that she was having alcohol and that these medications are reactive with alcohol. They put on somebody from the crisis line where you can call if you're in crisis. I'm a veteran, you know, there's the veteran crisis line, and then there's civilian ones. There's suicide hotlines and stuff like that. I don't know if it's the same one or not. I have no idea. But they put on somebody from the crisis line, which she had called and been turned away like twice. I don't know if there were too many people in line. I didn't watch that whole bit of testimony. But they're making it clear that their defense is that she was seeking help and she didn't get it. Which is really interesting because most of our gut reaction is probably you killed three babies, or you should be in prison. And she's not saying she should be free, she's saying she should do her time in a mental hospital, which is just a really interesting differentiation of I I don't want to beat this case, basically. I don't know how that works out legally. If they still find her guilty or if they find her not guilty, they change the plea deal or what. Obviously, she shouldn't be free and walking the streets. But the psychiatrist, I watched a good bit of her testimony. She was on for a long time, uh, so I didn't watch the whole thing. But she seemed to be trying to help Lindsay Clancy. It's hard to say, as somebody that doesn't know psychmeds like that, how far she should have gone into what Lindsay's personal habits were that would that would, you know, react with these psychmeds or what was working or how often Lindsay should have been there. The the pre-crisis intervention angle is kind of interesting. How was the intervention done grossly wrong? Uh, there is a civil lawsuit by Lindsay Clancy and her, I believe now, ex-husband. I think he's remarried already. He gave up on that marriage. But they they did sue the psychiatrist. So, yeah, just a really interesting case. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out. Lindsay Clancy's been sobbing in court. Doesn't look like fake tears. We've all seen people that do the fake tears, either blinking their eyes or just, you know, to make them wet, or just they're sobbing, but there's no tears. Like they're just completely fake. Like she was sobbing, and there were tears and snot during the autopsy, which several jurors had to leave as well, you know, looking at cut-up children, not great. I think she said, like, I just I can't do this or something. And they wheeled her out in a wheelchair. And when that was going on, the judge j the judge did intervene. And, you know, for those of you that haven't done trials, there are jury instructions, and they're told, you know, what the standards are of proof and how they should basically how they should be acting as a juror, what the expectation is of them as a juror. So when all this was going on, the judge revisited and said, members of the jury, I just want to revisit an instruction I've given you a few times. I think during the course of this trial, it's important to understand. Remember, sometimes as evidence is presented in the trial, that creates an emotional reaction. But as jurors who have taken an oath to follow the law, I'm instructing you that the law says you must separate any emotional reaction on your part from the informational value and weight that the evidence produces. Your verdict in this case is going to have to be based solely on the evidence, and it cannot be based on sympathy, anger, or passion or prejudice. So you've got to keep that in mind. So some reminders that need to be given during baby autopsies. You see it a lot with these emotionally reactive cases. You see, you know, the public sentiment of fry them, put them under the prison, fry them. They're a monster. But it's up to the court system to decide. Usually it's not like this. Usually they're deciding, they're denying blame completely. They're saying, I didn't do it. In this case, she's passing blame. She's accepting blame, but passing it. So it'll be really interesting to see how it plays out. Check out, it should be wrapping up. It's been on, I think, 10 days. So check out the Lindsey Clancy trial. And if you're law enforcement, if you haven't been to trial, you know, if you're a patrol cop, you probably haven't been to trial. You've been to court for tickets for a handful of felonies. Uh you might have done some suppression hearings, you probably haven't had a jury trial. If you're a homicide detective, you've had plenty. If you're a federal agent, you may have had them, you may not. They're usually not super frequent, but it is good to know about it, like anything, before you do it. So go ahead and learn how it works. Instead of just as an entertainment angle, like most people are looking at it, look at it to learn about what to expect in a trial. Thanks. Have a great day.