A jury is to determine whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She was being treated for postpartum mental health issues when she killed the children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old. Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William Sullivan is presiding over the jury trial, which began on July 27 and is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Curated by: Meghann Cuniff (223 videos)
The judge in Lindsay Clancy's trial again specially instructed the jury not to consider religion after a prosecution witness testified about Clancy's Catholicism. Judge William Sullivan declined to declare the mistrial that defense attorney Kevin Reddington requested, but he instructed the jury in a more forceful way then he did when the issue arose last week. Sullivan called a side bar after Kirk Heilbrun, a forensic psychologist at Drexel University who evaluated Clancy, testified, "That was part of her expectation that she and the children would be together in heaven with God.... She was raised as a Catholic, and this, as I understand Catholic considerations, that's not necessarily what happens, but when I ask her about that, when I said, 'Isn't suicide a mortal sin?'" With the jury out of the courtroom, defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked Sullivan to declare a mistrial. 01:37 "The reason is that this is intentional misconduct on the part of the prosecution. You know that this whole idea of injecting Roman Catholic faith, the concept of mortal sin, into this trial occurred I don't even remember now, about a week ago, and I objected. But before I could get the objection out. Your Honor had us at the sidebar at the same time, and very forcefully, in my opinion, indicated to the jurors that they should not consider that to any degree." "At the time, I put on record the fact that I did not feel that I felt that the court's instructions were sufficient. They were forceful. They were right on point, and we moved forward without a motion for a mistrial. I made a tactical decision, but unfortunately, at this point, it's a concern I have because this is just over the top." "It's the same thing again, talking about religion, talking about heaven, talking about killing people and the and the impact or the effect that it would have on on Lindsay as well as her children. The fact that this is not the first time that it occurred during the trial, and the prosecution has previously brought up the concept of mortal sin, based on your ruling in the past, in conjunction with the fact that they brought it up again, I believe it was intentional misconduct, and I feel that the court should grant the motion." 03:15 Jennifer Sprague, an assistant district attorney in Plymouth County, Massachusetts "There's nothing on the slide about Catholicism, about mortal sins, about any of that. The witness was explaining his reasoning. I don't think it was intentional on part of the witness either. If we look at his interview of Ms. Clancy, one of the things that this witness has to do is determine whether the defendant knew the wrongfulness of her conduct, and that can be either that it was criminally wrong or morally wrong." "And he explored that with her in the interview and asked her about whether she knew it was legally wrong, and she said she she had no concept of legal consequences. And then he went on to ask her about moral wrongfulness and about her religion, and and whether she knew it was morally wrong. And she did say that she had knowledge that suicide was considered sinful. So I believe that's where the witness was going in trying to explain his reasoning." 05:16 Judge "Well, here's a concern I have..." 05:31 "He indicated that was part of her expectation that she and the children would be together in heaven with God. Alright?" "Now we're getting a little closer to problematic area. Then he testified she was raised as a Catholic, and as I understand Catholic considerations, that's not necessarily what happens. How is any of that proper at this point? It was not." "I'm not going to declare a mistrial at this time. What I am going to do is, I'm going to bring the jury in. I'm going to tell them to disregard it. I'm going to tell them that's an inappropriate area of inquiry, and that this witness's understanding of Catholic dogma or Catholic teaching is irrelevant." 09:48 "Just before we broke, there was some testimony from that last witness, and I just want to give you some instructions in regards to that testimony, and I just wanted to let the religion that the defendant was raised with is absolutely an inappropriate area of testimony. It is to be stricken. It is not to be considered."