Lindsay Clancy’s attorney on Thursday formally launched a long-shot effort to have a judge rule that she is not guilty by reason of insanity, even after the closely followed murder case ended in a hung jury.
In newly filed court documents, defense lawyer Kevin Reddington argued that prosecutors failed during the five-week trial to prove the 36-year-old Duxbury, Massachusetts, mother understood her actions were wrong or was capable of obeying the law when she strangled her three children on Jan. 24, 2023.
“No rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that she had no mental disease or defect when the Commonwealth’s own proof established that she did,” Reddington, 75, wrote in the filing.
Here’s the latest on Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial:
Reddington is expected to press the argument at Clancy’s next court hearing on Sept. 29, when a date for a potential retrial could also be set.
During trial, the veteran defense attorney urged jurors to find Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, not criminally responsible. He argued she was experiencing severe postpartum psychosis and hallucinated a voice that compelled her to kill her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — before she tried to take her own life.
Prosecutors, however, maintained that Clancy was clear-minded enough to plan and carry out the killings deliberately.