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 today ruled that jurors will be instructed that they can consider manslaughter as a lesser included charge to murder. They'll also consider second-degree murder. The judge rejected a defense request to instruct jurors about how evidence of a flawed police investigation could be request to acquit. Judge William Sullivan finalized the instructions in a 33-minute charge conference this afternoon (Wednesday, August 26, day 21) after testimony ended and the jury left for the day. 01:06 Prosecutor: "Your Honor's instruction regarding criminal responsibility is pretty much the cut and paste of the model instruction. So, overall, there's no objection to it. However, the Commonwealth would just like to put on the record that we don't think that voluntary intoxication-the three points that were added in to Your Honor's draft-are necessary." 02:11 "We're talking about mental status at the time of the event on the day in question, January 24, 2023. There is no evidence to support that there was intoxication to a debilitating effect, as the Brown case indicates." "I think what the best evidence the court has is that the defendant, in her journals and in some statements that she made to the experts, indicated that at the time of the offense, she was taking amitriptyline and one other medication that she had been on for quite some time, and Your Honor, now has evidence that it was a very low dose of amitriptyline, and there is nothing about the observed behavior of her on that day suggesting that there was any debilitating effects of the consumption of the prescription medications on that day." 05:01 "And as far as the instruction on involuntary manslaughter, the Commonwealth would object to the involuntary manslaughter..." case law: "So, in that particular case, the court held that an unlawful battery was quite likely to endanger life, and hence could not be classified as involuntary manslaughter." "So, where it's a wanton and reckless conduct theory, I think that [case law[ is right on point to say that in situations like this, where we have the strangling of the individuals, of the babies, the kids, the unlawful battery is quite likely to endanger life, but that it shouldn't be an instruction for involuntary manslaughter. So I'd rely on that case to argue it should not be included in the instructions." 09:03 Kevin Reddington: "You don't define it, but you talk about mental disease and defect. I understand that the law is pretty clear that the court does not have to define mental disease and defect, but you've given them a framework within which to make that decision, which is acceptable to the defendant. There is one reference in there where, if I may, does not include abnormality." 11:50 "I would ask that on the next paragraph you add in before wrong in the second sentence, Commonwealth must prove that the defendant knew and understood that her conduct was illegal, or it was, and I would ask that you put in there morally wrong, in front of wrong, and then the rest of that paragraph is fine from my point of view. Last sentence, the court notes, defendant must have been able to realize in some meaningful way that her conduct was illegal or wrong." 15:14 Reddington on case law: "I think it does also reference voluntary intoxication, and here you're specifying prescription drugs. And if the defendant knew or had reason to know that her intoxication would trigger or intensify a mental disease or defect, I don't think that the evidence supports that." 15:39 Judge Sullivan: "so by agreement, nobody's requesting paragraph three, and I'm highly likely not to give that." 17:11: "What's the argument in regards to the involuntary manslaughter?" "Well, the argument regarding the involuntary manslaughter is clearly that the defendant intended the conduct that resulted in the death of the deceased, and the conduct in the event that it was not such that her conduct was, as a result of her suffering from a disease a defect, intentional, premeditated, and intended to be cruel and atrocious, that would reduce it down to manslaughter, and it would most certainly be wanton or reckless." 27:05 Proseceutor: "we would object to the Bowden instruction again. Counsel is free to argue whatever he wants about the police investigation in this case. But as far as failures of the investigation that have been identified in the course of the trial, I don't see that there is any" 29:34 " Well, I'm I am going to give a manslaughter instruction in line with basically what's on page eight. I am not going to give a Bowden instruction. The defendant is free to argue that any deficiencies that he feels that are in the investigation certainly free to argue. I will not give the voluntary intoxication instructions in regards to the criminal responsibilities."