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)
After the jury left this morning, the attorneys in Lindsay Clancy's trial discussed the jury instructions with Judge William Sullivan. Sullivan said he'll hold a "charge conference" later to finalize the instructions. 01:05 Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague "For individual instructions, we have listed opinion testimony, prior inconsistent and prior consistent statements, redactions. I don't think there are too many, but there were some on the death certificates, stipulations and consciousness of guilt instruction." "In terms of what we're looking for the charges, we'd be looking for instruction on first and second, with the theories of first being both deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty." 02:59 Judge Sullivan "Let me ask you this: I'm going to ask the defendant as well because I did read through those and I was trying to find the definition of intoxication as it applies in the homicide instructions. Most of the cases that I was able to find so far is the dealing with the OUI statute, chapter 90, and trying to find the real definition in regards to that. Is the is it the Commonwealth's position that the intoxication is beyond what was the considered effect of the drugs." 03:48 "Because if you know what I'm saying, so if if she takes ... If a defendant takes prescription drugs, and it does create some effect would that be considered intoxicated for the instruction?" 04:10 Sprague: "I don't believe so. I think in the instructions it talks about having and being intoxicated to the point where it affects your state of mind or ability to control yourself." "I think intoxication, especially where there's not a specific definition given in the homicide instructions, I think you go to the general definition of intoxication, which would not just be taking medication as prescribed, but it would be overtaking medication or combining with alcohol or other drugs." 05:37 Defense attorney Kevin Reddington: "I don't know if the government has been listening to the same evidence in this case. This is clearly an involuntary intoxication defense, at least as far as the judge's charge to the jury, based upon the evidence that's been presented." 06:12 "all of those factors contribute to the state of mind of Ms. Clancy that was expressed to a lot of people, family members, people that knew her, she had indicated, I think your honor knows , the evidence repeatedly indicated that she was affected by the benzos. She was affected, felt that she was being addicted to the benzos, trying to get off the benzos. She indicated that the sertraline was was obviously killing her as far as going from 25 to 50 milligrams, and then subsequent to that, when there's additional SSRIs prescribed." "To suggest that there's no basis to give the jury the instruction — They may determine, based on the evidence, that is as a result of the involuntary intoxication from narcotics, not not alcohol, obviously, from the prescribed narcotics, not illegal drugs." 09:02 Sprague: "Commonwealth did request first and second degree instructions. It's our position that involuntary manslaughter wouldn't apply here. The evidence is that there was a specific intent to cause the death, so there's nothing that I can think of in the involuntary instruction that would apply here." 10:10 "Judge So, so the Commonwealth's position would be that the relevant analysis is what she was taking on or about on or around that January '24?" "Yes." 11:25 Reddington: "We did not submit the instruction list cookbook or whatever you want to call it to the jury. So I think that the court's instructions would be sufficient. I would not want to have that chart that is referenced in the model instructions. That's discretionary. It's not obligated. They just say that it might be helpful for the court to give the jury some type of a checklist. But I don't think we should reduce instructions on a murder case to a checklist." 12:05 Judge: "my general practice is not to have that kind of list." 13:23 Reddington: "hopefully we finish the evidence tomorrow. We would be closing Monday." 13:37 Judge: "I would expect either Monday or Tuesday if the parties may need, you know, I'll leave. We could talk about that, but you know, my old experience, there's been a lot of evidence, and there's a lot of witnesses, and so if the parties feel that they need like a day to kind of marshal their thoughts, we could talk about that. So, so either probably Monday or Tuesday, we could talk about that tomorrow."