Jurors at the upcoming trial against mom Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of strangling her three young kids while postpartum, are going to face the “most emotionally disturbing and challenging” case imaginable, her defense lawyer said in court Monday.
Clancy, a 35-year-old former nurse, is slated to go on trial next week in the heartbreaking case alleging she strangled her three young kids with exercise bands and then failed in a suicide attempt, paralyzing herself. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday morning.
Clancy’s criminal defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked Judge William Sullivan at a final hearing in Plymouth, Mass., Monday to give him extra challenges to dismiss prospective jurors during the selection process due to the tragic nature of the case.
“The impact of this case, which, in my decades of trying cases, is probably the most emotionally disturbing and challenging, I think it’s going to have an impact on jurors more so than the usual we deal with,” Reddington said.
Sullivan said he would consider the motion and rule on it in the coming days. Prosecutors did not oppose the request.
The judge said he planned to seat 18 jurors, presumably including a handful of alternates, since the case is expected to last between six and eight weeks and because of the unique circumstances it will deal with.
There are also 200 potential witnesses who could be called to testify at trial, though that list and the length of the trial are likely to be significantly cut down given that Reddington said he would stipulate — or agree — to the facts of the horrific killings.
Instead of trying to prove that Clancy didn’t kill her children in the basement of their Duxbury, Mass., home on Jan. 24, 2023, the attorney will admit to those heinous acts and instead argue she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, since she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis, Reddington has said.
Sullivan shot down Reddington’s last-minute request to call 16 women to testify about their own experiences with postpartum depression.
The judge agreed with prosecutors that allowing that testimony would cause a mini-trial within a trial and the expert witnesses expected to be called by both sides can speak to the effect that postpartum can have on someone anyway.
Clancy allegedly carried out the slayings before she cut her neck and wrists and threw herself out of the second-story window of her home, paralyzing herself. She has attended court hearings in a wheelchair.
Her husband, Patrick Clancy, came home to discover his wife wounded outside their home and his kids dead in the basement. Patrick is expected to testify at trial.
The couple has filed separate lawsuits against the doctors who were treating Lindsay, claiming they misdiagnosed and overmedicated her, causing her to hallucinate voices telling her to kill her kids.
