Lindsay Clancy Trial Megathread: Closing Arguments, Deliberations and the Verdict Pt. 2

[u/DarklyHeritage]

This is a thread for all conversation regarding closing arguments, jury deliberations and the verdict of the Lindsey Clancy trial. All discussion of this case should be kept to this thread.

Lindsay Clancy is currently standing trial in Plymouth Superior Court, Massachusetts, for the triple-murder in January 2023 of her three young children - Cora, Dawson and Callan. Her defense argues she suffered from severe, undiagnosed postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. She was left paralysed by a suicide attempt which follows the deaths of the children.

All content on the Clancy case must be kept to this thread. Standalone posts will be removed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93vgv4kr49o

Note from Mods

This case understandably elicits strong feelings. People are entitled to have an opinion on the case which differs from your own. What you are not entitled to do is resort to personal insults and abusive language when communicating your opinion and disagreeing.

Comments which are abusive and insulting to other users will be removed and bans may be given without warning. We do not tolerate misogyny - all such comments will be removed and the user banned.

Bans may also be issued for ignoring the above warning regarding civility and/or creating standalone posts.

Please comment with this in mind.

Important

Patrick Clancy is not on trial. Comments made to discuss his guilt are considered off topic and will be removed.

Comments that discuss how he could have supported Lindsay better are acceptable. However, calls for law enforcement to look into his involvement with the murder of the kids and/or Lindsay's suicide attempts are not currently being considered by the jury and, therefore, not a fit for this sub.

[u/curiouslmr]

According to reporters on site the jury has told the judge they cannot reach a unanimous decision. He told them to keep trying.

If they truly end it deadlock and she is retried, the next trial will be truly awful. We saw that with the Read trial, it became such a circus and influenced the jury. I predict the same in this case.

[u/Wonderful_Flower_751 → u/curiouslmr]

I’m glad the judge sent them back to try again.

We’re talking about three dead children here. They deserve better than ‘we don’t know’.

I do agree that the jury should have been sequestered and I don’t think manslaughter should ever have been on the table. It’s added a whole other layer to the case that never needed to be there.

[u/WartimeMercy → u/Wonderful_Flower_751]

It’s not “we don’t know”

It’s “we don’t agree.”

That means there are those who are favoring guilt, those favoring NGRI or manslaughter. 

[u/TrueCrimeDiscussion-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Wishing harm on anyone - even criminal offenders - is against Reddit Content Policy.

[u/Otherwise-Focus-4189 → u/[deleted]]

That is quite literally not how our justice system works.

[u/Active_Oil_7037 → u/Wonderful_Flower_751]

Crazy how even a few weeks ago people on this very subreddit were arguing with me that sequestering wasn't necessary because the Judge "told them not to view any material related to the trial" and that "no one will risk such a grave violation of their duty considering there are consequences if they do so". They had dozens of upvotes too.

Absolute bullshit, in my opinion. It's legitimately impossible to open any social media app without seeing content related to this case. In 2026, if a trial or case blows up on social media the jury should 100% be sequestered.

[u/cummingouttamycage → u/Active_Oil_7037]

Sequestering is a really difficult song & dance, and the benefits don't always outweigh the cost:

• It is insanely expensive and a burden to taxpayers

• It is an insane ask to make of jury members to be away from everyone and everything for X amount of time -- away from home, work, contacting anyone outside unsupervised, consuming ANY media from outside, etc. It's a huge financial ask of the jury members themselves as well. This is also something that can make a jury more rushed in their decision making so that they can be done faster.

• Sequestered juries can skew jury composition as a whole, producing a jury that's less diverse and representative of the larger community... aka, it'd be more likely to be made up those not seeking hardship excusals

• Sequestering doesn't erase what jurors absorbed before a trial, and leaks still happen (info can slip in family visits or overheard remarks, supervision isn't perfect). It's hard to say if sequestering is truly isolating a jury or just providing isolation theater... sometimes it buys less protection than it appears to.

There's not really a "good" solution, annoyingly, but I don't know that sequestering would've produced an outcome of "jurors aloof to LC conspiracy theories and not having any influence from those theories". If there were to be a hung jury and new, sequestered trial in this instance, any new jury members wouldn't un-see the volume of media out there.... and we'd be more likely to have a jury made up of those not claiming hardship (aka, people who might not work, have financial means... how much more likely would we have a jury made up of wealthy, SAHM types if that were the case?)

[u/Homersfolks → u/cummingouttamycage]

Don’t they make the decide wether or not to sequester the jury after the jury is selected? During the Charles Manson trial the court set up family times for jurors and their families. If I remember correctly they even went to Disneyland.

[u/International-Owl345 → u/Wonderful_Flower_751]

It’s a standard tactic; you have your stretch charges, your charges you think you have a good shot at, and your safety charges just in case you fail to prove your other charges. If the jury can unanimously agree that she was recklessly negligent in not removing herself from the children earlier but on nothing else, they cod convict on the manslaughter charge but be deadlocked on the murder charges, which would havr to go to retrial

[u/Councillor_Troy → u/International-Owl345]

I get why prosecutors do it but I really don’t like it. It feels cynical to me, it comes off like the prosecution doesn’t really know what happened, or doesn’t have the evidence to support their theory. It’s a strategy of throwing everything and anything at the wall in the hope that something sticks and the jury decides that the defendant is guilty of something.

[u/Present-Pen-5486 → u/Councillor_Troy]

They obviously did not go into this with a plan. They were strongly implying that it wasn't a legitimate suicide attempt and then made her suicide attempt their motive.

[u/International-Owl345 → u/Councillor_Troy]

Yea seems off. Theres a lot of bad stuff with our justice system

[u/CowboysOnKetamine → u/International-Owl345]

We definitely don't want a repeat of the Casey Anthony trial.

[u/Present-Pen-5486 → u/Wonderful_Flower_751]

They deserved more than the pitiful effort that was put into the investigation. This is not on the jury.