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Speaker 2All right, folks. We are live. The Lindsey Clancy trial is effectively done. Right now, we are waiting to find out whether an appeal by the defense lawyer to hold off on the mistrial because he wants to try to cudgel one additional juror into just a full acquittal. We're still waiting on that, but effectively, this is a mistrial. Apparently, 11-1 in favor of acquittal. One person in favor of conviction. We're going to get to all the details. We're going to break down the case. I have a feeling I'm going to disagree with some of the co-hosts here at Daily Wire. One of those people is, of course, Michael Mills. Michael joins us online. Michael, thanks for taking the time. Appreciate it.
Speaker 4Thanks for having me because I think you were working in tandem with the judge in this case. I just wrapped my show. No sooner did I end it, I took my stage makeup off. They say mistrial in Lindsey Clancy. The one fact that is not being reported here, though, is everyone is attacking this lone male juror, notably the defense attorney who, in, I think, an egregious, egregious display, comes out and singles out this juror. One thing that's not being reported is the juror obviously was suffering from postpartum depression. So he can't be held accountable for any of his actions. And now we have a mistrial. So shouldn't everybody be happy?
Speaker 2So, Michael, one of the things that I find very interesting about this case is that I look at this case and it's a pretty complex fact pattern. I actually do not think, looking at sort of how psychiatry is done, there's sort of a fake thing that happens in psychiatry where we assume that people are capable of pure, easy diagnosis and drugs are extremely effective in psychiatry. And neither one of those things are true. I mean, if you spend any time with psychiatrists or with the DSM or people who have dealt with psychiatrists or the DSM or medication, as I've said before, it's probably the least developed area of all medicine. Psychiatry is incredibly vague. Basically, these things are diagnosed on the basis of checklists and they're based on a person's self-reported symptoms. And then when it comes to psychiatric drugs, very often it's basically trying different combinations of berries. It really is almost that basic. Yeah. To see what works and then certain symptoms arise and then you remedicate based on that symptom. And it's really complex. And so in this particular case, where basically the case comes down to, was she psychotic enough not to recognize the difference between right and wrong at the time of the murders? I mean, that is the essence of the case. And given the fact that Massachusetts law is incredibly biased in favor of the defendant when it comes to the insanity defense, I know a lot of people are very agitated on the right. There's a clear-cut case, absolutely guilty. And a lot of people on the left saying, it's a clear-cut case, absolutely innocent. I kind of find myself. I find myself weirdly in the middle and not all that surprised that the jury is hung on this. I'm kind of surprised it was 11-1 in favor of acquittal. I would have thought it would have been more like 6-6 in favor of mistrial. What was your take?
Speaker 4Well, I think you hit it right there at the end, which is the fact that this was not an ambiguous jury deliberation. It appears to have been entirely lopsided in favor of letting this woman off the hook. On top of the public reaction to this, which I think has been rather psychotic as well, I think shows you that something more is going on beyond nuanced deliberations over the nature of the statute in Massachusetts. Your other excellent point is that psychology is this very muddled science or pseudoscience. Psychologists don't even know what psychology is anymore. Psychology is supposed to be the study of the soul. That's what the word means for psyche and ology. And now I think probably most psychologists don't even believe in the soul or an immaterial soul. On top of that, the way the medications work. Even beyond psychology, just your other physical medications. If you look on the back of the bottle, a lot of times it will say, we do not really know how this works. We just know that it appears to work in trials. So, you know, good luck. So, yes, it is a lot of mixing berries and witch doctors just looking at results. In this case, though, there was a lot of misinformation at the beginning. One, this idea that that Lindsay Clancy had postpartum depression. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. She certainly wasn't diagnosed with it. We know that. We know that her youngest victim was eight months old. Again, postpartum depression is not usually the kind of thing you have eight months on. We know she methodically planned these murders. We know that a lot of the drugs in her system appear to have been taken after the killings rather than before them. And then you get to the basic point that you're seeing in a lot of the popular commentary, which is, OK, well, look, if she was on a bunch of drugs, if she was a little loony, then she can't be held liable for that. And you just have to look at that on a social scale and say, OK, one in four women in the United States is on sex. That's some kind of psychiatric medication. And when you get to the really stronger stuff, it's like one in five women. So are we really establishing the precedent here that 20 percent or 25 percent of women cannot be held accountable for even the most egregious crimes? I was a little more open minded at the beginning of this case. But as the evidence came forward about the nature of her diagnoses and the help she was receiving from her family on and on and on and on, I don't know. It seems pretty clear to me. And I'm glad to see at least one of these jurors held. And did not merely take the side that we so often do in our culture, which is defending the perpetrator over the victims.
Speaker 2Now, again, I think one of the things to mention here is that, you know, I will I'll admit that if I were on the jury, I may have voted for acquittal because I think that the beyond a reasonable doubt provision of the law combined with the insanity defense in Massachusetts, putting the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove sanity rather than the burden of proof on that offense to prove insanity makes it a very, very high bar for the prosecution to pass. I'm not sure they passed. In this case, with that said, you know, obviously, I think that anybody who is one of the reasons why I think it's such a sin for people to conflate their own personal issues with that of Lindsay Clancy. I mean, the reality is that in the United States every year, you have probably 15 multiple homicides of children from women in circumstances kind of like Lindsay Clancy. But you have legitimately, as you say, tens of millions of women who are claiming they're suffering the same thing as Lindsay Clancy, which is totally insane and really, really damaging for the society at large. You know, the. The defense was basically I would say they have three basic arguments that offense here in favor of the idea that she was psychotic at the point at which she committed the murders. And, you know, you don't actually have to find these totally convincing in order to sustain reasonable doubt. To me, the most obvious one, the one that the prosecution, I think, had the hardest time with was the fact that she tried to kill herself. If she just killed the kids and then not tried to kill herself, then that would have been I think I would have been like Friar immediately if she doesn't try to kill herself. The fact she tries to kill herself is a pretty good piece of evidence that she wasn't, quote unquote, in her right mind and sort of colloquial. Now, the prosecution started with the she wasn't really trying to kill herself. She only tossed herself from a second story window. She didn't cut herself that deep. I don't know, man. It seems kind of risky to me to jump from a 15 foot window or 14 foot window, whatever it was, and cut yourself on the arms. If you're really just trying to get away with the murder that way, it seems strange. So the you know, that one always seemed to cut that piece of evidence. Just the evidence itself seems cut in favor of the defense. The voice, again, I think is always the most difficult part of this case because. There's literally no way to actually determine whether that happened or not. Yeah, because it's purely subjective. She's going to say she heard a voice. Everybody else is going to say there's no way you heard a voice. She's never reported that piece of evidence. Yeah, right. Exactly. So I always thought that was the weakest part, but also the part that her case rested on in large part. And then there is the the basic idea that she was worried about the medication interactions. And again, I thought that was pretty weak for the defense that she thought that she was being she didn't have evidence that she thought she was being poisoned. She worried that the medications were interacting poorly. They weren't working for her, which is really, really common in psychiatric circles. But when you put all of that together and then the burden of proof is on the prosecution. Again, I can see how people would arrive at reasonable that I think that it'll be interesting to hear from the jurors afterward about how these deliberations actually went down. Is it as people like maybe you or I think our friend Matt Walsh suspect that immediately they went into the room, 11 people, nine women and two of the men went. She's she's acquitted. She's wonderful. She's a model for humans. Or were there actual legal deliberations along these fact patterns? I don't know.
Speaker 4the answer to that. What's your take? Yeah, well, I think you can't really separate the jury's deliberations from the social phenomenon. You like to hope that the jury is sequestered and is taking this in a graver and more sober way. I don't know that that's always the case. And the fact that none of us, I don't think any of us could have predicted the insane outpouring of support by the women who brought their children outside the court and the craziness on TikTok. None of us has a low enough opinion of women or even of liberal culture to have totally predicted that. I think that does tell you something about the moment in which we live and the way that people think about these issues. So I'd love to hear the interviews from the jurors after this case. I hope it is a mistrial. We'll see if the Massachusetts Supreme Court grants that emergency stay or whatever the defense is trying to do as a Hail Mary at the end here. But it does seem to me that this reflects a broader trend in the culture, which is constantly making everything about the self. So everyone is just viewing, putting themselves and Lindsay Clancy. Is constantly erring on the side of perpetrators rather than victims and of misunderstanding even what insanity is. So to your point, Ben, she tried to kill herself. Maybe, maybe she did. Again, you know, there would be more effective ways for her to have killed herself. For instance, had she subjected herself to the same kind of torture that she put her kids under by hanging from a noose or something like that, that more surely would have done it. But the overall, the facts in the case make me wonder, even if she did try to kill herself, okay, does that mean that someone who is suicidal at the end of things can't be held guilty for a crime? If a husband comes home after a night of drinking, shoots his three kids, kills his wife, and then, you know, flings himself out a window, would we say, well, he's innocent by reason of insanity? Or would we say, yeah, the guy's clearly pretty messed up, but he is not so messed up as to meet the legal threshold of being without any liability for the
Speaker 2crime? Yeah, for sure. And I think that that's why I say that it's a piece of evidence, but certainly not dispositive. It's a piece of evidence and has to be taken in consideration with the whole psychiatric history and all the rest of it. Your point about the kind of broader societal ramifications, there's one thing here that to me is the most disturbing, and that is turning everything into a societal problem itself. So is it possible, let's say that you are an advocate for Lindsay Clancy. You truly believe she went through a psychotic episode. Why in the world does that implicate all of human society? Why are you protesting, right? What are you protesting against? This was the thing that sort of bewildered me when I first saw these protesters outside the courtroom. Normally, when you have protesters outside a courtroom, they are arguing a fundamental miscarriage of justice is being done because society is corrupt in some way. So if there's a highly polarized racial trial, people show up outside the courtroom to suggest that America's racial past is impacting the verdict on this case. There was no implication that anything remotely like that was happening. It just seemed like a kind of cry against the world that somehow all society is responsible for Lindsay Clancy's psychotics. I mean, again, if you're in favor of her, you believe she's psychotic. Somehow society is responsible for her psychotic state. That's so bewildering and bizarre to me. I don't see how you can simultaneously argue that Lindsay Clancy was psychotic and also that society caused it. Because if society caused it to be psychotic, then I mean, yeah.
Speaker 4Right. They're arguing on the one hand, this is totally beyond the realm of logic and sense, but also this is to be expected because of the structural issues. Well, those arguments are contrary to each other. My most sizzling hot take on the whole thing is that this is just OJ, 0.0, for the same reasons. I have seen other people make the comparison, but the reasoning, I think, is important here. In the OJ case, she had a black jury let this black criminal off the hook, even though we all know that he killed his wife and her friend. And this came bizarrely at this moment when basically all of the racial problems had been fixed. So all of the structural racism, all the things that activists were talking about had been fixed according to the left wing black activists. They got the Great Society. They got affirmative action. They got lower policing in certain places. They got on and on and on and on and on. All of the issues. They got the racial ideology put into schools. They got all of it, but it didn't seem to fix all the problems. And so the black activists, the Al Sharpton types, came out and said, you know what? You need to let us get away with murder. That was my read on OJ. And I think it's the same thing here. There's that very famous study from Yale, The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, which shows that as feminism advanced, women got less happy, both relative to men and in absolute terms. And so you've got women who have gotten all the things that the feminists said they wanted. They are now the majority of students in universities. They're now the majority of workers in the workforce. They've got all the rights and the abortion and the contraception and on and on and on and on and on. But there still seems to be this problem. And it seems to me that the feminist activists here are coming out and saying, you got to let us get away with murder. They're asking for the, even in principle, the greatest possible license that you could have. That's the ideological dynamic that I see playing out here. And there are a lot of people who are
Speaker 2under this way of liberal ideology. Yeah, no, I mean, I totally agree that to me, the most controversial aspect of this trial was not the trial itself. The most controversial aspect of the trial is everything that was happening outside the trial. That was the stuff where I went around and said something is very unhealthy about this society. Because again, you know, the OJ case, everyone knew he was guilty. In this particular case, I am not sure if I'd been on the jury, how I would have ruled. So it's different just in the fact pattern. But when it comes to the actual people outside who are saying it's absolutely clear, not only was she innocent, her lawyer is a hero on behalf of women everywhere. It's like, what are you doing? And of course, you do have to tie that into the broader left wing belief that somehow abortion is a sacrament. I mean, clearly, this comes from the same sort of philosophy that suggests that the only important thing in life is the quote unquote woman's right to choose. And it kind of in very ugly fashion for some of these protesters underscore something that pro-life people have been saying for quite a while, which is, you know, we say. There's no distinction between the pre-born and the post-born. So if you're making that argument about the pre-born, why aren't you making that argument about the post-born? And it seems to me that some of these women are in fact making this argument about the post-born.
Speaker 4Yes, 27th trimester abortion, as we might call it. And that people mocked us and they said that, you know, that was either dark humor or hysteria. But of course, if you can kill a baby three seconds before he's born, there's no reason that you couldn't kill him three seconds after he's born or three months or three years, which is exactly what you saw play out here. And by the way, that probably doesn't mean that you can kill a baby three seconds before he's born. And that's gotten worse because 20 years ago you had Democrats saying abortion is bad, but we need to have it for some reason and it should be safe, legal and rare, as the Clinton said. But that's changed. And now you have governors all around the country who are signing new laws, including in Massachusetts, that says that you should have abortion up until the moment of birth. Well, it's inevitable. It is a consequence of accepting that logic that you would excuse women for killing
Speaker 2their kids after birth as well. Well, that's Michael Moles. I know that Michael has to run day ahead. Michael, appreciate the time. Rare occasion where you and I appreciate each other. So once every 10 years, I'll take it. That's pretty good. Good to see you, sir. Exactly. All right, Michael, appreciate it. All right. First, we're going to get to everything involved here. We're going to break down the legal case. We're going to get to all the charges. We're going to get to, again, why I think that had I been on the jury, I'm not sure which way I would have ruled, honestly. First, here is a fairly remarkable statistic. In a recent industry survey, Pure Talk was the only wireless company to receive five stars in every single category. Coverage, report, value, and data, every category. That raises an obvious question. What exactly are the rest of us paying all this money for? I mean, there are a lot of things in life where you're just paying too much money. But the reality is when it comes to your wireless service, you should not be. And Pure Talk can fix that for you. We've somehow been trained to believe that wireless has to be both expensive and complicated. But Pure Talk says something different. They say good service, good value, no reason to keep paying more simply because you've always sort of done that thing. Right now, there's an especially good reason to switch. For a few more weeks, Pure Talk is offering unlimited data for just 15 bucks a month for your first three months. After unlimited data for as low as $34.99 a month, no contract, go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro, make the switch to my favorite wireless company. I've been using them for years. There's a better wireless choice out there at just 15 bucks a month for your first three months. Now's an excellent time to choose Pure Talk again. That's puretalk.com slash Shapiro, puretalk.com slash Shapiro. Go check them out right now and get the best deal available on your wireless service, puretalk.com slash Shapiro. Okay. So as we announced right at the top, Judge William Sullivan announced that there was a trial in the case. Again, the defense, we're still waiting. They're trying to appeal it up to a higher level to see if they can avoid the mistrial and get the one outstanding juror to flip or at least be kicked out in favor of another juror who will then fully acquit. Here was the judge announcing.
Speaker 5The jury did not ask to be sent back, which would be a possibility if they had requested it to be sent back to them. But under the statute in the case law, I don't feel I have any choice but to declare a mistrial.
Speaker 6Well, before you do, I'd like to be heard, Your Honor. Well, that's why I asked you before, but go ahead. Well, I just got to the first one. You can get to the other one. All right. Your Honor, I would suggest to the court that as we are pretty much all familiar with under Karen Reed versus the Commonwealth, the Supreme Judicial Court through Justice Georges back in February of 25 held that under Rule 27B of the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure, there is no discretion to require a jury.
Speaker 2Now, again, we're going to go through the charges because I think that they're the hot takes and we can try to speculate that people immediately jumped to the defense of Lindsay Clancy here and that they were doing so for feminist reasons. But I'm just going to go through what we know and what we don't know. And one of the problems here is that Massachusetts law is extraordinarily burdensome for the prosecution. Very, very burdensome for the prosecution. So I'm gonna go through the mandatory jury instructions in Massachusetts. Massachusetts. So here is what judges tell the jurors to consider. Quote, the burden is on the Commonwealth to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charges made against her. What is proof beyond a reasonable doubt? The term is often used and probably pretty well understood, though it is not easily defined. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt for everything in the lives of human beings is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. A charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt if, after you have compared and considered all of the evidence, you have in your minds an abiding conviction to a moral certainty that the charge is true. When we refer to moral certainty, we mean the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs based solely on the evidence that has been put before you in this case. Now, the key sort of terms there, abiding convictions. This means you have to have a lasting, settled belief in the truth of the charges. You have to have moral certainty, not just a moral feeling like certainty. Probability is not enough. Preponderance of the evidence is not enough. It's also not imaginary. It's not like aliens could have come down and killed her kids, right? Or maybe it was her husband. Like, you actually have to have a reasonable doubt, a reasonable doubt. So here was the judge. He was called back yesterday to try and force them into a verdict by reading the reasonable doubt rules
Speaker 5again. Here's what he had to say. What is proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Well, the term is often used and probably pretty well understood, though it's not easily defined. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt. For everything in the lives of human beings is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. A charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt if, after you've compared and considered all of the evidence, you have in your minds an abiding conviction to a moral certainty that the charge is true. When we refer to moral certainty, we mean the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs, based solely on the evidence that has been put before you in this case. I've told you, that every person is presumed to be innocent until they are proved guilty and that the burden
Speaker 2of proof is on the prosecutor. Okay, so again, it's not clear and convincing evidence or preponderance of the evidence. It's not total certainty. And so what actually happened in the lead up to all of this is that the Clancy defense attorney, the judge had said that it was basically 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal. And Clancy's defense attorney asked for the holdout juror to be removed supposedly for not considering the evidence. And he said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just wondering what reasonable doubt actually means. Here's what that sounded like
Speaker 6this morning. And if we come back here in a half an hour with a mistrial because of a because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of this court, it's a shame. It's a real shame. And that's why I object to the court's ruling. I request that we have further inquiry. I request that my motion is to remove this juror. Okay, well, then the judge is like, what do you want me to do
Speaker 2here? The judge, the judge was not particularly. I'm really happy with the defense attorney and in large swaths of this case.
Speaker 6Typically direct their attention to proof beyond a reasonable doubt and re-instruct them on that forcefully. I think I did that yesterday, didn't I? Yes. You did it yesterday. You did it soft. You didn't do it forcefully. And I'm asking.
Speaker 5What do you want me to do? Get a brass band? I read the instruction as written by the SJC. The fact that I perhaps didn't give it my full. I'm sorry about that. I'm not an actor. I've just given the instructions.
Speaker 6Well, my point, judge, simply is that you're kind of glossing over the issue. The issue is this juror will not, according to that note, apply the law of reasonable doubt. And that's why I've requested, you know what I've requested, so I know my objection.
Speaker 5But just in case the record is clear, I am specifically not glossing over this issue. I have thought about this issue.
Speaker 2OK, so anyway, bottom line is likely mistrial, 11 to 1, barring some sort of last minute appeal. So I'm going to go through the elements of the case because, again, I do not think this case is super duper easy. I don't actually. I know that a lot of people who want to jump to it's super easy. I just don't. Were I on the jury, I would be extremely conflicted. Extremely conflicted. Obviously, I'd want to convict her based on the egregious and extreme and vile crimes that she committed against her own children. The insanity defense and the standards for that in Massachusetts are particularly strong in favor of the defense. So the counts of murder, three counts of murder, the prosecution under the law in Massachusetts must establish the core elements for each child. Unlawful killing, that Clancy killed the kids. OK, undisputed. Mal's aforethought that she acted with legal malice, intent to cause death, intent to cause grievous bodily harm. An intent to commit an act that a reasonable person would know creates a plain and strong likelihood that death would result. So it's the it's the malice aforethought, the intent element here that is the one that is under consideration, because when it comes to intent, now you have to determine whether the person is in their right mind. Right. The physical act is not in dispute. The interference with the person's breathing, not in dispute. The intent is in dispute. The intent is in dispute. OK, so. The defense presented the insanity defense and the insanity defense in Massachusetts is different than it is in most other jurisdictions in the United States. Insanity defense in Massachusetts suggests that it is the job of the prosecution to prove sanity, not the job of the defense to prove insanity. So the Commonwealth versus McCool standard from 1967 says that a defendant is not criminally responsible if at the time of the offense. And it's a result of mental disease or defect. They lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct. Have the cognitive ability to meaningfully understand their action was wrong or illegal and the volitional ability to control their behavior, even if they knew it was wrong. So they have to lack capacity to control their behavior and also to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct. Now, this doesn't count for voluntary use of drugs. It doesn't count for DUI. It doesn't count for antisocial conduct. And Massachusetts law, distinguishes to know from to appreciate. It's not that you know that your action is wrong. You have to appreciate that your action is wrong. So what does that mean? You have to have a meaningful understanding of the legal or moral significance of the conduct. So, for example, let's say that somebody is psychotic and they believe that God has commanded you to kill your kids because they are possessed by demon and demons and killing them saves them. So in that case, the person might know that murder is wrong, but they might believe that psychosis, because of the psychosis, that God's command supersedes that morality. So you might not appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct. That would be the example. Okay, in just a second, we'll get into how the prosecution and defense cases fit into all of this and we'll be joined by Lyndon Blake. First, you know, when it comes to our health, obviously, you know, there are a lot of health products out there. Most of them on the back of the bottle, there's a bunch of stuff that you don't understand. That's not true for balance of nature. Balance of nature has been keeping people healthy since 1997. They've served more than 3 million customers and hundreds of thousands of customers. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you don't understand. The whole health system every single day. Well, I mean, with health products, trying something once is easy. 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Get an additional 10% off with promo code Shapiro and use code Shapiro. They'll send you that free guiltless snack with your order. Balanceofnature.com code Shapiro. We appreciate all of our advertisers. It allows us to bring you the content that you want and one of those advertisers that we appreciate is Golden Crest because as we talk about a lot on the show, our government is fiscally irresponsible and that means eventually pretty much everything is going to inflate. Well, it turns out the thing that has never been worth zero is gold. Central banks around the world bought a record 289 tons of gold last year, last quarter rather. That's up 62% from a year ago. Meanwhile, JP Morgan is forecasting gold at six grand an ounce by Q4. Citibank has put a $90 target on silver. I'm not making those predictions. They are. Again, diversification, just a smart strategy. Physical gold is remarkably simple. Washington can run more trillion dollar deficits and the Fed can expand the money supply. You can't just print gold. If you've been thinking about owning physical gold or silver, check out Golden Crest. They've made the buying process really straightforward, transparent pricing, widely recognized liquid coins, zero buyback fees when you want to sell. And when you call, you're talking to a real human, not some enormous call center. For retirement accounts, metals can be stored at Delaware Depository. Golden Crest offers free insured shipping and free IRA storage on qualifying purchases right now at a free 2026 info kit or a free portfolio review, plus up to 25 grand in free silver on qualifying purchases. Call 888-429-3999. Text Ben to metals at 638-257 or go to goldencrestmetals.com slash Ben. All right. We're joined on the line by Lyndon Blake. She's a Daily Wire reporter and host of that. So, Colonel Lyndon, thanks so much for the time. So, Lyndon, obviously, we are awaiting sort of the final mistrial ruling. What do you make of the of the mistrial? Yeah, I think this is where
Speaker 7we've been heading since we broke for last weekend. I don't think there's any way that this jury said off their feet. I don't think there's any way that this jury said off their feet. I don't think there's any way that this jury said off their feet. I don't think there's any way that this jury said off their phones. They were not sequestered. I think they were all in the weeds, even though they have said over and over again under oath that they were impartial. They were unbiased in this. But this case has been a lot of fun. really turned into a disaster. And even Kevin Reddington earlier this morning told Brian Inton, a reporter in the courtroom, that he would not do any emergency order to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts because it would be a waste of time. Well, when the rubber met the road and Judge Sullivan said mistrial, he filed that emergency order. And now I think it is going to be a waste of time. I think nothing is going to stop this from being a mistrial. And then we start getting to the weeds of who does this new trial kind of favor, prosecution or the defense? Will there be a plea deal? I don't think so. I think the prosecution will retry this and try to put Lindsay Clancy behind bars for the rest of her life. I mean, it'll be very interesting to see
Speaker 2how the prosecution attempts to do that, because, again, when it goes 11-1 against you, that's a pretty good indicator that your case is very difficult. I mean, I've been discussing the standards of Massachusetts law here on the program, and the reality is that Massachusetts law is very in favor of the defendant, particularly when it comes to the insanity defense, because the prosecution has the burden of proving that she was sane. The defense does not have the burden of proving that she was insane at the time of the killings. That's a very high standard of proof, particularly when, again, as we've been discussing, she not only killed her three children, she then did superficial cuts to her arms, her neck and tossed herself from a second story window and ended up permanently paralyzed. So I think that when most people see that, even just on a colloquial level, you think that person seems crazy to me. I mean, that seems like not the behavior of a not crazy person. And so when you start trying to fit that into what was she doing, does it fit within psychosis? That's a burden that's very hard for the prosecution to overcome. What do you think the prosecution will take away from the first trial? What lessons do you think they will have learned that they think will allow them to do better in a second trial here?
Speaker 7They may need to get more witnesses. I know a lot of their witnesses were critiqued throughout the trial, and especially how the prosecution handled their questioning of the witnesses. I think it was very hard to follow. I don't think they made a lot of direct points, until the closing arguments, which again, you think the jury, that's one of the last things they heard, but they've been sitting there for a month, going over 300 exhibits, listening to more than 80 people give their testimony. And I just don't think the prosecution held control in the courtroom throughout the testimony portion. I think Kevin Reddington controlled the courtroom. I think he came on very strong. I think he's the one that kind of ended on a low note, didn't end on his best closing argument that I'm sure he would have, hoped for. But I think this mistrial is a huge win for the Clancy defense, for the Clancy camp. I mean, this, you would think until yesterday, which they all but told us it was 11 to 1, the 11 being not guilty by reason of insanity, you would think it would be more split than that. And a lot of experts thought it would be more split than that. But when you're sitting in there and listening, and you talk about the burden of proof being on the prosecution, and this is beyond a reasonable doubt, they, in a lot of experts' eyes, did not meet their burden of proof. Yes, they said she sent her husband out. That was weird that she planned to do that. But there's no blood test. There's no test to see at that moment, were you in your right mind? And so it's just been so wishy-washy this entire time. And like you and I have said from the beginning, it is very, very hard to kind of get into the mindset and make yourself see one way or another because it is state of mind. I thought at the beginning, not guilty by reason of insanity. Closer we got, I was like, okay, the prosecution's maybe making some leeway. And then after they broke for last weekend, this entire week has been one, we've seen it. The jury has been like, we can't make a decision. And Judge Sullivan has sent them back twice. And now they're at a dead end there. So that's why we're here at mistrial. Yeah, Lynn, I'm trying to be ruthlessly
Speaker 2honest with myself on how I would have ruled had I been on the jury. And again, given the legal standards, I do not believe that the prosecution met the burden of proof. I just don't. I think that the prosecution had a very difficult time proving beyond a reasonable, beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not have any sort of psychotic episode sufficient to kill her kids. And especially given the fact that kind of the fact pattern that they were trying to establish, which is that there was planning that went into the murders. Obviously there was, I mean, clearly there was planning that went into the murders, but I mean, knowing people who have psychiatric problems, I can just tell you that these things are not mutually exclusive. I mean, people who are psychotic do actually have very often the capacity to plan to do pretty terrible things that don't lie within the realm of the moral. And so this is, to me, so much of this comes down to, we are not good at psychiatry. Psychiatry is a really rudimentary field of medicine. When you have doctors who are sitting there testifying as to, she had bipolar one. No, she had bipolar two. It was postpartum depression. Maybe it wasn't postpartum depression. Maybe it was just psychosis. Maybe it was a, maybe it was a manic episode as part of an undiagnosed bipolar condition. Like we are now just using a bunch of labels that are variously applied by different psychologists and psychiatrists to describe the events. And I think that in the end, if you're sitting in the jury room and the question that you're being asked is, was it, was this a planned murder of her three children without, with full understanding of the moral culpability of what she was doing beyond a reasonable doubt that she knew that what she was doing was wrong. Again, it's, it's hard for me to get there even as, you know, and this is why, yeah, I think a lot of the hot takes, which are like, oh, she was a hundred percent guilty and anybody who thinks otherwise. I mean, again, I can see why, why people would want to rule that she was guilty. I could see that I could, I could be convinced possibly. Um, but the, the immediate jump to everyone who thinks that this is a hard trial must be on the side of the feminist loonies who are outside protesting in Lindsay Clancy's favor. I just don't think it breaks down quite that simply in the actual
Speaker 7courtroom. I agree 100%. I mean, there is a big difference of these people that I guess have no ink t-shirts, just having a pep rally for Lindsay Clancy. And then people being like, wow, this is a tragic event. Listen to the feminist icon as they call Kevin Reddington. He's like, there is no winners here. There's no winners in this trial. This is a travesty. So the people celebrating Lindsay treating her like someone they want to be like, I would never want to be like Lindsay Clancy. This is, this is horrible. She had the worst possible thing imaginable. And now she's in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She's going to be locked up potentially somewhere. For the foreseeable future, whether that is a mental institution or a jail cell. I think there is a spectrum of this and people that are just so far on each side are not looking at the facts of the courtroom. And I think a good point to pointing out that, you know, right from wrong. Yes, we know that when she was in the hospital, that she asked for a lawyer. Well, at that point, she knew what she did was wrong. But again, we're not talking about then. We are talking about that moment. That hour and a half on January 24th, 2023, when this took place. And I thought the defense's best argument, which they really didn't bring it up during closing arguments, was her heart rate at 57 beats per minute during that entire thing. Who, who in the world, unless you are psychotic, can kill your three children, strangle them with force, and your heart rate is the same beat if you
Speaker 2lazy river. Well, that's Lyndon Blake. You can go check out her show, That's So Criminal, and all of her reporting over at Taylor. Lyndon, appreciate the time. Of course, Ben. So I want to get into what the prosecution was arguing. So the prosecution was basically arguing that Clancy was in fact depressed, but she was not psychotic, that she knew what she was doing, that she understood that it was wrong the whole time, and that she deliberately executed a plan to kill her kids and herself. Now, again, that last part that she had a plan to kill her kids was not psychotic to the extent required by law. That is a hard, that's a hard job because, for example, if you say, if I kill the children, I can kill myself, then, which is what the prosecution was saying. She wanted to commit suicide, but she felt she couldn't do it until after she killed the kids. So she knew it was wrong and she did it, right? That would be, she knew she was wrong and she did it. But if you said a psychotic delusion made me believe that killing my kids was necessary or morally right, then theoretically that is psychotic, right? Again, these are very fine distinctions, in a very rough trial. Here was the prosecution's forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Gregory Sadhoff, saying that she did this in methodical fashion.
Speaker 8No. Did the voice tell her where to try to kill herself? No. Did the voice tell her in what way to kill herself? No. The fact that the voice, according to the defendant, the voice didn't tell her any of those things, but instead just said, kill the kids so you can kill yourself. Is that significant in your evaluation in any way? Yes.
Speaker 9How so? Well, in the small amount of time that Ms. Clancy had in the home without her husband, it was important in order to carry this out, as well as her suicide, to do this quickly, methodically, and the like.
Speaker 2Again, that's the case for the prosecution. Now, if the jury believed that Clancy was experiencing genuine psychosis, whether it was caused by any of the aforementioned conditions, bipolar one, severe depression, postpartum illness, or anything else, drug interactions, and that she did not actually have the capacity to require it under Massachusetts law, she gets acquitted. Again, this is why I say the burden of proof under Massachusetts law is very high. If this had been tried in another state and the defense had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the other way that she was insane, it's quite possible that this verdict goes the other way. I mean, she, again, does not need formally a bipolar one diagnosis or even a postpartum psychotic diagnosis. The question is whether she was psychotic to the extent required by law at the time. And again, as I've said, there are basically three major arguments the defense can make. One is she tried to kill herself. So the fact that she tried to kill herself shows presumably that she was not operating at least presumptively within the rational framework. Two is that she heard a voice. Now they're counting on the voice because if she was having a manic episode, that's very clear evidence, right? Now, the problem with that is that she's making a claim that is utterly unfalsifiable. You have no clue whether she heard the voice. The only person who's ever said she heard the voice is Lindsey Clancy. Pretty much everybody who talked with her before and after said that it, that there was no prior voice. She's never had a voice since. There are inconsistencies in her account. And the third point that was being made by the defense is that she was worried about her medication interactions. And this is all part of a developing psychotic state. But, you know, you can worry about your medication interactions and it not be psychotic. But again, this is where the burden of proof matters. Burden of proof in law is super duper duper important. If the burden of proof is on the defense, they're the ones who have to pick up the weight. Here, the burden of proof was on, prosecution. Now, again, there have been some takes that are kind of the other way from what I'm saying. Miranda Devine over at the New York Post said, mental illness is not a defense for murder. To be found not guilty, Lindsey Clancy had to be in the grips of psychosis at the time she strangled her three children to the extent she did not know what she was doing was wrong. There's been little compelling evidence for her other than her inconsistent claims she heard a voice commanding her for the only 18 minutes it took to kill Cora Dawson and Callen. The evidence is that she meticulously planned and carried out three purposeful killings, taking the children one by one to the basement where she lay them, face down, overpowered their struggles, wrapped an exercise band around each little neck and pulled tight until their bodies were lifeless and the blood vessels had popped in their eyes. She then went upstairs and attempted suicide, leaving the gruesome scene for her husband to find when he returned from the errands she had sent him on. Despite seeing multiple shrinks and going to the hospital three times, she had never been diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, just depression and bipolar disorder, a diagnosis that she and her husband apparently rejected. And again, not uncommon. This is what I've been saying. I'm just going to keep beating this drum. Psychiatry is an inexact science. It is highly inexact. You can have a series of symptoms and depending on how you personally describe those symptoms to the doctor, it'll give you a different diagnosis. And if you go to two doctors with the same symptoms, they may give you two separate diagnoses. And Miranda Devine concludes, she says, the psychiatric experts who gave conflicting evidence about whether she was in postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings, but even if she was, psychosis did not automatically qualify her for legal insanity and absolve her of criminal responsibility. All murderers are mentally ill to some degree. And again, that is the case for the prosecution. I'm not sure they overcame the burden of proof. Matt Walsh has a similar take. So he says that the sole juror is heroic because he believes this is a clear-cut case. And Matt says, Clancy's entire insanity defense rests completely on the claim she heard a voice telling her to kill her kids. The problem is, one, there's no way to prove her disproven imaginary voice. Any murderer can make this claim. If it counts as reasonable doubt, we can never convict anything, anyone of anything ever again. Now again, it isn't really just that she said there was an imaginary voice or whatever. And he's right. Utterly disprovable. However, when you combine that with her entire psychiatric history, it looks more plausible, right? That's sort of the question. Two, says Matt, she never reported this voice before or since the crime, strongly indicating that she made it up. Again, that is the best case for the prosecution. Matt is right about that. And three, most importantly, even if she did hear a voice, why didn't she refuse to follow the command? If a voice told me to murder my children, I would refuse. If the voice threatened and harassed me, I'd still refuse. Okay, now this is the part where I think Matt is not correct. I mean, again, if you are psychotic, then your capacity to refuse things is very, very much down. Like very, very much down. There are a lot of conditions, lots of them, where people do things that are not within rationality and they do not seem to have the capacity to stop themselves from doing it. Right? Anorexia is an example. You might know intellectually that you are not, in fact, fat. But you cannot stop yourself from starving yourself. That's an actual psychological condition. It is not just a matter of willpower. Now, you might be able to curb that but that is a reality. Right? So, again, I find this case extremely shaded. Again, this is maybe the most unpopular opinion. Sometimes reality is complicated. And under the law, the prosecution had a rough case to prosecute here. A very difficult case to prosecute. Now, if it had come down the other way and she'd been found guilty, I would be probably defending the guilty verdict as, you know, reasonable of the jurors to come to. Because I, myself, am divided on the question. The one thing that, as Michael and I discussed up top, that is certainly true, is the people who are going crazy in favor of the Lindsay Clancy is some sort of hero to women everywhere. Or all women are suffering the issues of Lindsay Clancy. That's not only nonsense, it's dangerous nonsense. When you say that all women are suffering the kinds of stuff that Lindsay Clancy is suffering, and then you're making excuses, what you are saying is not Lindsay Clancy had psychosis and killed her kids. You're saying she was reasonable and killed her kids. And she should be acquitted for that. And if she, if she was reasonable, just like every other woman, and killed her kids, and she'd be acquitted for that, now you're making a case that proves that basically any woman should be able to kill her kids at any time. And that's, that's a problem. That is a real problem. Again, some of the social media response here is pretty insane. Here are some of the women outside the courthouse making the hard hands outside the Clancy courthouse.
Speaker 9It's a mental health.
Speaker 8Well, not if you'll ever have this many women in one place at one time who may understand all of us.
Speaker 2Again, as there's one TikToker, apparently a sane TikToker, one of the few, Reed Choi, who points out that basically women are arguing against their own sanity at this point.
Speaker 10You don't understand what it's like to be a woman who is hormonal. There needs to be empathy and she shouldn't be held liable for any criminal behavior. Precisely. I could not have summed it up better myself. Who are you? We are all the men ever before the 20th century. Ew, no, you treated women as second-class citizens. What I'm saying is that because women are hormonal, deemed incapable of self-governance and therefore requires a male chaperone that can protect and guide the weaker sex. Ew, no, that's so sexist. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying because of our hormones? Yes, because your hormones should become incapacitated and incapable of making rational decisions and your emotions become to control you like a child. And women should not be held accountable during such fits. That is precisely what I'm saying. Ew, stop saying what I was going to say like it was your point. I'm just saying that this woman shouldn't be in a prison. She should be put in a mental asylum. Yes, because women are not criminals. Their hormones dictate their very lives. They are slaves to their emotions. And so they cannot choose. They are forced to do whatever they feel because they are children incapable of controlling their emotions. We agree. Did I just F up feminine?
Speaker 2Again, this is like that, that woke, it's like that woke and racist, you know, gripping hands. It is true. The radical feminists and, you know, utter sexists making kind of the same exact point. Okay, so obviously we'll keep tabs on the follow-up as it develops. We are still at this point awaiting the final mistrial announcement from the court, but it is essentially a foregone conclusion that that will happen. And so, you know, we will continue to bring you updates, I'm sure, all through the weekend. We have reached the end of the show. We'll be back here Monday with more. I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro Show. We'll get to more on this in just one second. First, you know, 20 years ago, man, a lot has happened in my life. I was 22 years old. I was not yet married. And now, just think back over the past 20 years, wife, five kids, big business, all of it. Well, 20 years is a long time. Simply Safe is now celebrating 20 years. Again, most companies don't make it. They don't make it that long unless they're actually solving a real problem. When you're picking a security system for your home, what you're looking for is peace of mind. The goal is not to obsess over your security. The goal is to never have to think about it again. And that's what I like about Simply Safe. Most home security systems are designed for after something goes wrong, after the window breaks, after someone gets inside, after your phone buzzes. Simply Safe's approach is different. It's designed to help stop a break-in before it happens. Their AI-powered outdoor cameras detect suspicious activity around your home, alert live US-based agents. Those agents can actually speak through the camera to scare off trespassers and, if necessary, request 911 dispatch. Prevention beats reaction. Simply Safe has been protecting your world for 20 years. Celebrate their anniversary with us and save 60% on your new Simply Safe system at simplysafe.com slash Shapiro. That's 60% off at simplysafe.com slash Shapiro Plus when you order right in our show name in the How Did You Hear About Us survey to let them know we sent you. There is no safe like Simply Safe.
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