What Will Happen to Lindsay Clancy in the Long Term?
New York Times · LC · trust 54/100
Even as a jury failed to reach a verdict in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial, her future is unlikely to include freedom, at least for a long time. But Americans have been divided over the goal of her confinement.
Listen · 7:34 min Share full article Lindsay Clancy at her murder trial in Plymouth, Mass., on Friday. Credit... Pool photo by Greg Derr By Mark Arsenault and Christina Morales
Reporting from Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass.
Even if she is not ultimately convicted, medical and legal experts have said that her future will be one of confinement.
Ms. Clancy does not deny strangling her three children with exercise bands in 2023. Her symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the months before she killed them were at the center of her defense. Her lawyers argued that she was not legally responsible for the deaths.
That view apparently persuaded most of the jury members in the monthlong trial. Notes from the jury suggested that 11 of the 12 jurors seemed ready to acquit Ms. Clancy. But one lone juror declined to join the rest, even after apparently expressing doubts about her guilt.
A similar debate has captivated and divided the American public for weeks. At its core is a fundamental disagreement about how Ms. Clancy should spend the rest of her life. Should she be labeled a criminal and imprisoned? Or should she be regarded as a victim of a sort, who should be provided treatment? In neither case would she go free. But to what end should her confinement serve?
Michelle Oberman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who studies legal issues around pregnancy and motherhood, said it felt like a “watershed moment” that most jurors seemed inclined to support the idea that Ms. Clancy should be helped, not punished.
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