The facts are gut-wrenching. In murder cases they often are.
Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children, Cora, age five, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan, at their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts and left their bodies in the basement.
She then slashed her own throat and wrists before jumping from a second-story window. Her suicide attempt failed, and she was left paralyzed from the waist down.
Clancy was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. There was never a question about whether she killed her children. She did. She admitted that.
Her defense was not guilty by reason of mental illness — that she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis and lacked criminal responsibility.
Here’s the law. Not-guilty-by-reason-of-mental-illness means the defendant (1) suffered from a mental disease or defect that (2) caused her to lack the capacity to either conform her conduct to the requirements of law or appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct.
A jury is given a binary, guilty or not guilty, words that have a specific meaning in criminal law, in a criminal trial.
“Guilty” means that the commonwealth has proven every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, which Massachusetts law defines as the juror having “an abiding conviction to a moral certainty that the charge is true.” The judge further instructs the jury that moral certainty “mean(s) the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs.”
“Not guilty” means the prosecutor has failed to meet that burden. Nothing more. Nothing less. When there’s a mental illness defense, the prosecutor bears the burden to prove the defendant’s criminal responsibility.
In Clancy’s case, government experts, after reviewing all the evidence, medical reports and psychiatric history and conducting their own independent evaluation of her, testified that she was criminally responsible. Eleven of the 12 jurors did not agree.
The trial judge, William Sullivan, questioned the hold-out juror, Michael Desronvil, on whether he could follow the court’s instruction on reasonable doubt. Desronvil assured the judge that he could, and Judge Sullivan did not replace him with an alternate.
The judge ultimately declared a mistrial because the jury, with 11 votes for acquittal and Desronvil’s for conviction, could not reach a unanimous verdict. After the trial the foreperson said that Desronvil during deliberations admitted having reasonable doubt but was voting to convict anyway. Desronvil claims that wasn’t true.
Clancy was entitled to a verdict rendered by this jury. But when a judge finds that the jurors, acting in good faith and following the law, disagree on whether the commonwealth has met its burden of proof and concludes that further deliberation would not resolve the impasse, the judge can declare that there is a “manifest necessity” (that’s the legal standard) for a mistrial. If the judge’s mistrial order was proper, the government gets a do-over.
It shouldn’t. The official 1-11 non-verdict here turns the constitutional requirement for a unanimous jury in a criminal case on its head. That constitutional guarantee is designed as a protection for defendants, not as an end-run around the double jeopardy prohibition for prosecutors.
The Plymouth Country District Attorney, Timothy Cruz, has stated that he’s seeking justice for the victims. In a murder case, the victims usually are considered the surviving immediate family members — in this case the mom, the defendant Lindsay Clancy, and the dad, her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy. Patrick Clancy says he wants his ex-wife committed to a mental hospital, not imprisoned. So the DA’s purported justification argues against a retrial.
Here’s what I believe should happen now. The prosecutor should reduce the charge from first degree murder to second. Reducing the charge would allow the defendant to waive a jury and have the trial in front of the judge.
At that jury-waived trial, the prosecution should inform the judge that the commonwealth agrees that the evidence fails to meet its burden regarding mental illness, thus ensuring a not guilty verdict. The evidence would be presented quickly. The trial could take hours, instead of a month. The prosecution and defense would then agree on her commitment to a mental hospital.
I know this works. It’s the procedure utilized in a murder case I handled years ago in Hampshire County Superior Court.
And most people are familiar with mandated hospitalization following a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental illness. Remember John Hinckley?
Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. After a jury found him not guilty by reason of mental illness, he spent 35 years in a psychiatric hospital before his release, in stages, with court oversight for an additional six years.
People with an eye-for-an-eye mindset will never be satisfied absent a first-degree murder conviction for Ms. Clancy and its punishment of mandatory life, and thus ultimately death, in prison.
But Lindsay Clancy will experience unremitting punishment. Every minute of every day that she spends in her wheelchair will remind her that she killed her three beautiful children.
Justice would have been for those children to have lived their lives. Their deaths are tragic. The best this case can do now is not create more injustice.
Bill Newman, a Northampton-based attorney and co-host of Talk the Talk on WHMP, writes a regular column. As of the time of his writing this column, Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, had just filed motions asking the judge to review the hold-out juror’s answers on his jury questionnaire, his potential domestic violence history and his alleged cell phone use during deliberations. The defense also filed other, potentially dispositive, motions — for a required finding of not guilty (because the prosecution’s evidence was insufficient to sustain a conviction) and to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds. The next court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29.