Lindsay Clancy's murder trial has gripped the American public for the last five weeks. The 36-year-old former nurse killed her three small children in the basement of their family home in Massachusetts. Charged with three counts of first-degree murder, she does not dispute killing her two sons and daughter.
But her lawyer argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis during the incident in January 2023. On Monday morning, a jury of nine women and three men will continue to deliberate whether she is criminally responsible for her actions. The prosecution argues Clancy made a calculated, intentional decision to kill them and knew right from wrong in that moment.
The defence, meanwhile, has said her mental illness prevented her from knowing what she was doing. This hinges on the postpartum psychosis defence - her legal team argued that Clancy hallucinated a voice after giving birth to her youngest child that told her to kill the children. Expert witnesses told the court how severe this illness can be, and family members testified about Clancy's state of mind.
Under Massachusetts law, there is no burden on Clancy to prove her mental illness and that she lacked criminal responsibility. Rather, it is on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she was criminally responsible when she killed her children, criminal defence lawyer Elyse Hershon told the BBC. They can do this by either proving beyond reasonable doubt that she didn't suffer from a mental illness at the time or that, while she had a mental illness, she still controlled her actions and knew they were wrong.
A not guilty verdict would mean Clancy went free but that is considered highly unlikely. Much more likely is a not guilty by reason of insanity, which would result in Clancy being detained at a hospital. "The case really comes down to where she is going to serve the rest of her life; the defence thinks it should be a psychiatric facility, the prosecution thinks it should be in a state prison," Hershon said.
This is the most serious potential outcome for Clancy - being found guilty of first-degree murder, which is the intentional and premeditated killing of another person. In the state of Massachusetts, this conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. As Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor and expert in mental health law, put it to the BBC, Clancy would effectively need to be seen as "a monster in the jury's eyes" if they pick this outcome.
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