As EA noted from the beginning of the Lindsay Clancy Ethics Train Wreck, the trial presents an excellent argument for why women should be subject to peremptory challenges in voir dire when their biases are likely to result in jurors like this woman.
The prosecution isn’t supposed to show “compassion” for accused murderers. Nor are prosecution opening statements supposed to be warm and fuzzy toward a defendant. The state’s concern is with the victims, as well as the fabric of society wounded by terrible crimes.
Moreover, no “character witnesses” need testify that a woman who murders her own children is a “bad mother.” In a sane world, a woman who strangles her own children is by definition a bad mother. Presuming that a mother must be insane to do this is a pre-existing bias that should have disqualified this juror and any juror.
All i can say is, WTF!
“All i can say is, WTF!“
To paraphrase Don Corleone: “Now Listen, Whoever Agrees With This Juror, They’re The Traitor. Don’t Forget That.”
PWS
I am perplexed by the juror’s familiar reference to the defendant as “Lindsay” as if they are more than members of the legal system. The use of “Lindsay” indicates that the wall between the accused and the judicial process has broken down and, at least this juror, has become emotionally connected to the accused. If that is what happened, then the defense counsel did a masterful job in deflecting attention away from the horrific murders and “humanized” the defendant, working on the jury’s sympathies for the accused’s mental state. It reminds of the Robert Durst case in Galveston where Durst’s defense counsel told the jury to ignore the fact that Durst may have killed the victim but to think that beheading and dumping the victim’s body in the Bay was the act of a desperate man the whole world simply didn’t understand.
As for her criticism ot the prosecution, I wonder what she was expecting the DA to present. DId she think the DA would show photos of the accused in her pjs with her kiddos wrapped around her while watching original episodes of “Little House on the Prairie”?
jvb
The juror interviews reveal them to be ghouls.
Let me argue in the alternative, and make a statement why it would not have been unethical for jurors to acquit Lindsay Clancy.
In order to convict a defendant the burden rest on the prosecution to proof beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of what he/she is charged with. In some case the defendant may be not guilty by reason of insanity. In most states the burden to proof criminal insanity rests on the defense, which is a high burden as you need to proof that the defendant is so insane that he is unable to discern right from wrong. In some states, Massachusetts the burden rests on the prosecution to proof that the defendant is not criminally insane.
Our criminal justice system has a bias in favor of protecting the rights of the defendant. As the the legal scholar Blackstone once said “It is better to let hundred guilty people go free than to convict one innocent person”. The conviction of an innocent person is a miscarriage of justice. The incidental acquittal of a guilty person is a feature of our legal system. Acquittals can occur on technicalities. Acquittals can also occur because the prosecution does not meet the required burden of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
So there are two questions that need to be answered in relation to this post:
The movie “Twelve Angry Men” may illustrate a number of issues. In the dock is a defendant who is almost surely guilty of capital murder. Eleven jurors vote to convict, with conviction carrying the death penalty. There is one holdout, juror number 8 (Harry Fonda) who turns out to be the hero of the film. Juror number 8 questions the evidence presented in trial, and one by one the jurors become convinced that the evidence is not as watertight as it needs to be in a capital murder case. In other ways there was reason for doubt, and an ethical juror who follows the instructions of the judge may vote to acquit for that reason even if he believes and knows in his mind that the defendant is guilty as sin.
In the Lindsay Clancy case there was also a holdout, one juror who stuck with his guilty vote. In a previous post our host called his approach an example of jury nullification. Comparison were made with the Nuremberg trials where Nazi were convicted based on ex post facto laws. I am not going to argue that this juror acted unethically. I just want to note that judges frown on jury nullification, and will declare a mistrial if the defense hints at the possibility of jury nullification. But I am not going to conclude that there exist an ethical duty of jury nullification. So I would like to ask whether there is any indication that the eleven members of the jury misinterpreted or disregarded the instructions of the judge. If that is not the case, and if the prosecution did not have an airtight case against legal insanity than I do not see the mere vote to acquit as unethical. Instead I see it as expected.
So we need to put the spotlight on how the prosecution handled the case. I will rely on and quote from a SubStack article by Holly MathNerd, link below.
https://hollymathnerd.substack.com/p/how-to-convict-lindsay-clancy
“Your problem was that you did not organize your strongest evidence into a coherent narrative that the jurors could accept as true beyond a reasonable doubt. Your opening and closing statements are instructive here. They do not merely emphasize different pieces of the same theory, as openings and closings naturally will after weeks of evidence. They tell meaningfully different stories about why Lindsay Clancy killed her children.
In opening, Assistant District Attorney Buckingham told the jury that the evidence would reveal another side of the doting mother and dedicated nurse: someone “extremely controlling, meticulous, and manipulative.” The theory was that after Callan’s birth, Lindsay found it increasingly difficult to control the life she thought she wanted; when she saw an opportunity to escape that life, she made the calculated and selfish choice to kill the children and then herself.
That was a coherent theory. The problem was that much of the evidence that followed did not develop it very well. Witness after witness, including witnesses called by the Commonwealth, described a loving mother who was deteriorating psychiatrically rather than gradually revealing the manipulative woman promised in the opening.
By closing, the motive had changed. Assistant District Attorney Sprague argued that Lindsay was depressed, exhausted, damaged, and finished trying. She wanted to kill herself, but the children were her “protective factor”: they were keeping her alive, so she chose to remove that obstacle by killing them and then herself.
That is not simply a more detailed version of the opening theory. “My life is becoming impossible to control, so I will escape it and take my children with me” and “I want to die, but my children prevent me from doing it, so I must kill them first” are two very different explanations for the same crime.
In a case in which the Commonwealth bears the extraordinary burden of proving Lindsay Clancy’s criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt, that difference is in and of itself reasonable doubt for most jurors. A jury hearing five weeks of complicated and contradictory psychiatric evidence should arrive at closing feeling that the prosecution’s opening theory has become progressively more inevitable as each piece of evidence was added. Instead, your closing asked them to adopt a new synthesis of the evidence at precisely the moment when they were about to become responsible for synthesizing it.
When you retry the case, choose a narrative and prosecute it relentlessly, rather than presenting a mass of facts and expecting twelve people to synthesize them — and hoping that twelve separate syntheses somehow arrive at the same legal conclusion.
So the conclusion is that there is a conflict between the opening statement and the closing statement. In the opening statement the prosecution brings a narrative with the theory of what happened, which the prosecution then will prove during the trial. In the closing statement you then expect the conclusion that the theory in the opening statement has been sufficiently proven. If the closing statement and the opening statement do not match, that is a problem. The more analytical jurors (engineers, accountants, software developers, scientists) will pick up on this inconsistency, and any inconsistency or hole in the prosecution’s narrative will constitute reasonable doubt.
The prosecutor also has to argue against the natural bias held by women that no sane mother would kill her own children (which was precisely the case of the defense).
I am not going to offer more quotes from Holly’s article, as it goes deeply into psychology and psychiatry (which Holly knows a lot about from personal experience). My takeaway from her article is that the prosecution better gets thoroughly acquainted with the matter (psychology and psychiatry). This is especially important if the prosecution does not strike nurses or anybody else from the caring professions from the jury pool during voir dire. A prosecution will have an uphill battle in a legal insanity case if the members of the jury have a professional advantage in knowledge regarding psychology and psychiatry than the prosecutors. The prosecution has no options if nurses are using their professional knowledge during the jury deliberations, and does not benefit from a mistrial (e.g. by claiming that evidence not presented in the courtroom is discussed by the jury).
The prosecution should be thankful for the holdout juror. Now they can have a do-over, allowing them to analyze what went wrong, and prepare better for the next trial.
I choose to disregard the statements made by the two jurors mentioned in Jack’s post in order to conclude that the jury as a whole (except the holdout) acted unethically. Do we have statements from all the jurors?
A fascinating counterpoint! Thanks for taking the time to share it. I do hope prosecutors present a more cohesive case next time. Then if a jury still decides against a guilty verdict, the prosecution can walk away from Ms. Clancy with clean hands.
And touching on the Blackstone quote, I believe one reason (a reason, not THE reason) our system of justice was created as it was (to favor protection of the innocent) was because, while the Founders had disparate religious views, enough of them believed in an omniscient God who would ultimately mete out justice. In other words, God would catch the guilty ones that fell through the cracks in the system.
I did hear that a third female juror has spoken out. She was going to vote guilty, but the argument was made that Lindsey Clancy would not get the help she needs in prison and she thought that she voting guilty wasn’t in Lindsey Clancy’s best interests. So…
You can make a good argument about why you could vote not guilty, but if that isn’t actually why they voted not guilty, does it matter?
Correction: she was the fourth juror to speak out, not the third.
Lawyers have known forever that jurors and juries vote the way they do for reasons that have nothing to do with the evidence, the narrative (Holly Mathnerd’s theory)”reasonable doubt,” or the judge’s instruction.
“12 Angry Men” is about that, too. Juror 8, Henry Fonda, initially votes Non Guilty because he thinks a man’s life deserves a fair discussion–“It’s only one night, a boy may die,” as Juror Nine puts it. (That’s in the Torah, too) The rest:
1. (the foreman): he’s a football coach. He sees the jury as his team and when the team starts tilting to a not guilty verdict, he flips.
2. A meek little man, he’s bullied by the leader of the “Guilty” group, Juror 3, and votes “Not Guilty” as a “Fuck You” to his oppressor.
3. When he realizes that he has been identifying the defendant with his estranged son and seeking a guilty verdict out of hurt and anger, he changes his vote.
4. A meticulous, educated professional, he flips after Juror 8 proves that witness testimony is unreliable by proving that Juror 4 himself couldn’t remember details from the recent past.
5. From a “bad neighborhood” like the defendant, he identifies with the defendant and as soon as he is shown inconsistencies in the evidence, he quickly changes his vote.
6. Another cognitive dissonance vote: he finds Jurors 3 and 10, the most aggressive advocates for a Guilty verdict, so repulsive that he literally doesn’t want to be on any side they are.
7. He votes with the majority because he wants deliberations to be over. He doesn’t care about whether the kid is innocent or guilty. As soon as the majority shifts to non-guilty, he joins it.
9. An elderly man feeling powerless and marginalized by age and feeling that same dismissive attitude among the jurors, he saves the kid by siding with Juror 8, not because he initially has reasonable doubt, but because he can. Later, he’s another cognitive dissonance vote like 2, 5 and 6.
10. A bigot, he assumes the defendant is guilty because of an unclarified minority status. He is eventually shunned and shamed for this by the entire jury, is humiliated, and votes not guilty because he’s exposed as an asshole. He probably still is sure the kid killed his father, but his ego is crushed, and he no longer has the fortitude to oppose everyone.
11. An immigrant who is emotionally committed to the ideals of the jury and democracy, he uses the jury deliberations and process to demonstrate his devotion to his new country.
12. A weak “Yes Man,” he doesn’t have the character or principles to make his own decision and hold it. Another vote that migrates to the majority.
If this is true, a lot of violent people need to be freed from prison immediately. The estimates range from 16%-30% of the male prison population are people with severe psychopathy. It is thought that up to 95% of males with severe psychopathy are in prison, parole, or probation. If you think Lindsey Clancy doesn’t deserve to be in jail because of this, then they don’t either. To say she goes free and they don’t is sex discrimination by the government.
If Lindsey Clancy is a violent psychopath who meticulously planned the viscous murder of her children, then she deserves to be in prison because that is what society needs and it is what we do to all male violent psychopaths. We don’t find serial killers not guilty due to insanity, nor would we do so for school shooters.
The only real argument that I see in this case is that Lindsey Clancy is a woman driven by hormones and you can’t hold women responsible for their behavior because they are slaves to their hormones. Well, would we accept this argument from a teen boy who raped a girl because of his raging hormones?
Anyone man who doesn’t think testosterone is a very powerful mood altering hormone is a low testosterone man.
If estrogen is an excuse, testosterone is an excuse. We shouldn’t accept either. If a person is defective and unable to resist their hormonal urges, we put them in a box and don’t let them out for the safety of society.
”the trial presents an excellent argument for why women should be subject to peremptory challenges in voir dire when their biases are likely to result in jurors like this woman”
Don’t even go there. How about the “boys will be boys” to excuse then? People have this perception “if you only knew what they’d been through, you’d understand” I’m sure the next death by DUI will go something like. “I’m sorry I felt so bad about xyz and drank too much.” Never mind that millions daily drink their feelings and don’t end up killing people just like millions of women have depression and don’t kill people and millions of men have testosterone fueled rages and don’t kill their wives, but some people do all those things. So shut up about the “women can’t think properly because of their biases” no. She can’t think properly because of her biases. Just like some men will use “boys will be boys” to excuse rape and beating their wives. Everyone is acting like this is some shocking phenomenon I just don’t get it. A few years ago a guy drugged his entire family and put them in the car and then drove them to crash and drown in a river. Another guy killed then and dropped them in an oil field. Or how about the dead people found in the freezer? This mother killed her kids in a sporting goods parking lot. Nevermind the crazy where the parents simply forget they have a kid in the backseat and they die. Why is this one so much worse or horrible? People are weird. What about the one where the boy died of starvation locked in a closet? The problem is too many want to excuse the inexcusable with the feelings argument or hormones or drugs. No. You did it. You get to be held responsible for the deed, regardless of why. That society wants to give everyone a pass right now for all their misbehavior is the true crime.
How often are these excuses accepted?
Lately? Often. More excuses are being accepted all the time. It starts in school with late homework being accepted because of lame reasons or none at all and continues from there. Here’s an example. A boy was bullying a girl not verbally, physically punching her in elementary school. The other boys in the class stopped him. The mother of the boy never came into the school. The mother of the girl did and that was the excuse “if you only knew what he’d been through, you’d understand.” The other boys that defended the girl got detention for fighting. You think the abuser stopped after that? The family was called in for animal abuse and left in the night. You see it often and it’s so normal no one even questions it anymore. “Well they’re depressed so it’s ok”. “They can’t because they have anxiety”. “They can’t because xyz.” Our society has enabled whiny victimization just like in Atlas Shrugged. I haven’t seen the DUI excuse work yet, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t. How about theft? That crime isn’t enforced. Jack has written several times about it. Even if the crime is on video with clear faces, it doesn’t always get prosecuted. Some addicts vandalized property and broke the security camera on film, clear faces the owner recognized and identified and the police department needed the registration information of the broken camera before they would even try to do anything. They were already arrested for other crimes 8 times. “If you only knew what they’d been through, you’d understand.”
I go there because group biases are real, and as this trial shows (like the OJ trial) race and sex is a valid justification to reject a juror, depending on the tacts of the case. The indications are that a majority of the jury arrived seeking to acquit. They did this because of the nature of the case and current “AWFL” delusions. If that’s what happened, then it’s a problem that needs fixing.
Oh..I’ve been meaning to ask you: How’s Persephone?
Ha mine is single and in Art school.
Higher education institutions run by women do not, by and large, value free speech. There is ample data from higher education showing that the majority of the speech restrictions are coming from women who do not like particular points of view, especially when it comes to the trans and abortion issues.
This doesn’t mean all women, but it does mean women show clear behavioral trends that cannot be ignored, just like young males show clear behavior trends by committing the majority of violent crimes. Saying you should block research because it is offensive (vs not true) as an academic should get you fired, and the majority of female professors do believe this based on multiple studies. What can a person conclude from this? Helen Andrews is onto something.
We have come full circle in the gender war, and when feminism has triumphed, research gets silenced and women are allowed to kill their kids and claim hormones made them do it.
This doesn’t mean men are an automatic solution, as men have their own sets of problems, but men in the west, by and large, are not the ones pushing for children to be transed or drag queen story hour or for silencing research because some liberal ninny is going to get upset or for the right of women to kill their children in the womb. It is women and men going along with it because men have been socialized not to hurt women’s feelings.
These women are exactly the type that would silence research they find offensive.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/as-number-of-women-rises-in-higher-ed-free-speech-declines-on-campuses-survey/