Mad or Bad? The Lindsay Clancy trial

Her insanity defence and the line between madness and murder.

Defendant Lindsay Clancy, 35, charged for killing of her three children. [Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP]

The trial is on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

Three years ago, on January 24th 2023, Clancy fatally strangled her three young children at her home in Massachusetts. Moments later, she slit her wrists and her neck before jumping 6 metres from a second-story window.

She is now currently on trial and facing three counts of first-degree murder.

The trial has brought widespread attention and particularly keen voices of the internet are looking into the innocence of Clancy’s then-husband; Patrick.

I won’t be jumping on that bandwagon.

Instead, I want to look into her defence strategy.

Kevin Reddington, top Massachusetts criminal defence attorney and Clancy’s potential lifeline, has changed his strategy in the last 48 hours, now arguing that there is simply not enough evidence to prove Clancy killed her children.

His previous strategy was the insanity defence. Raised by defendants in less than 1% of all felony cases and largely based on evaluations by forensic mental health professionals.

Clancy with her defence attorney; Kevin Reddington

Let’s revisit what led to the primary argument that Clancy was not legally responsible for the act, due to severe mental defects. The defence team have been running with the notion that practitioners treating Clancy were irresponsible. Reddington proposed ‘medical malpractice’. Clancy was given a dangerous cocktail of medications, including SSRIs that caused an adverse reaction. She reported several side effects (undeniable neurotoxic reactions) that triggered mania, mood instability, hallucinations and psychosis. The symptoms increased as the dosage was increased by Clancy’s practitioner. How surprising…

As doses increased and SSRIs were swapped, like a pick-n-mix at a movie theatre, Clancy suffered more irregular toxic reactions. It was clear her nervous system was reacting very, very poorly to these medications. Clancy became incapable of perceiving reality. Everything became distorted. After being hospitalised, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Yes, you guessed it; more meds. More toxicity. Clancy reached a level of mental distress that rendered her unable to drive or operate alone, as she experienced loud hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, panic attacks, terror and paranoia.

Clancy’s notes about her mental state during her medical intoxication

Someone has stepped in by now, surely?

Apparently not. Clancy herself called a suicide hotline and a secondary crisis hotline. According to reports, she was not considered a high-threat case because she “did not have a suicide plan” per se. That’s the first I’ve heard of such barbaric protocol.

On the day of the crime, Clancy suffered with suicidal hallucinations all day and then, finally, the voices began;

“THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. YOU HAVE TO KILL THE KIDS SO YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF.”

The voices.

The hallucinations.

The instructions.

Jog any memories?

Peter Sutcliffe — The Yorkshire Ripper [c/o BBC News]

The infamous Peter Sutcliffe — dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper — killed 13 women “under the command of God” between 1975 and 1980. His defence team argued that Sutcliffe was suffering from schizophrenia and simply obeying the voices in his head. They proposed diminished responsibility caused by his mental disorder, as all the psychiatrists who had interviewed Sutcliffe agreed that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Extract from Peter Sutcliffe’s trial, as he responds to a question about his motives

Not too dissimilar to what Clancy had been suffering at the time of the murders…

Despite strong psychiatric evidence of Sutcliffe’s schizophrenia, the judge insisted on jury involvement in the decision and the defendant was subsequently found guilty. He was transferred to Broadmoor ‘special hospital’, spending 32 years there before being transferred to a category A prison.

My recent article detailed how vlogger Ruby Franke got sucked into a cult-like state of insanity, as she followed the voice of God (or rather her unhinged accomplice Jodi Hildebrandt) to abuse and lock-up her children as a ‘holy act of God’ to purge their ‘demons’.

All these cases pose a similar notion of diminished responsibility. The hallucinations, the demands or voices of a ‘higher source’ — they all allow for the defendant’s responsibility to be dissolved.

We are still in the midst of an ongoing legal vs. psychiatric conflict: who decides insanity? Hale’s Influence (17th century, mind you) sought to systematise how common law handled mental incapacity and — ultimately — left the decision of insanity up to judges and juries. Psychiatry had a very long road to walk to get their voices heard…

So this leads me to my question:

Why has Reddington shifted his strategy in Lindsay Clancy’s defence?

It appears that Clancy’s plea has always been “not guilty”. However, the insanity defence in itself forces the confession that Clancy did cause the deaths of those three children. A touch of common sense tells you that it cannot be a plausible tactic to argue that “she did not do it” and “she did it but can’t be held responsible because she was insane.”

Surely this top lawyer would… know that?

I’m going to do some deep diving before the potential retrial. At the time of writing, Reddington has filed a motion to dismiss the case altogether, as he argues that prosecution have failed to provide enough evidence to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

According to sources, the insanity defence for Clancy did work “remarkably well”. Not well enough, as she’s not exactly running free…

So; there has been an evolution of the insanity defence that keeps facing the same hurdle. Like a skittish horse on race day. Whilst the insanity defence has succeeded in the recognition that severe mental illness can affect culpability and responsibility, it’s success remains limited by the law’s need to translate such complex psychiatry into rigid legal verdicts. Lindsay Clancy’s hallucinations, psychosis and severe mental distress raise important ‘evidence’, yet this alone still cannot determine her fate at the hands of the jury.

So, are these defendants perpetrators or victims? The question is not simply whether someone is “mad or bad” but perhaps where (and when) the law should draw the line between mental incapacity and criminal responsibility.