389. The Lindsay Clancy Trial Part 17 -- The Closing Arguments

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Today on The Prosecutors, we discuss the closings in the Lindsay Clancy case. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪. ♪♪♪ Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of The Prosecutors. I'm Brett, and I'm joined, as always, by my pool shark of a co-host, Alice. Play a lot of pool, Alice? You know, I'd be slapping some quarters down if we were playing pool. And when somebody does that, you get a collar bluff. You got to go straight at them. And, boy. Which shouldn't have anything to do with the. Which should have nothing to do with what happened today, but that was cinematic. Yes, it sure was. In a way, by the way, that you can't plan for. We'll obviously get into this, but this is actually. Trial lawyers out there, you know what I'm talking about. This is the beauty of trial law and trials. It's not scripted. And it's better than scripted TV. That's just. I just. I don't know. I'm a trial lawyer at heart. I just love it. I love the drama, the thinking on your feet in the moment. I love it so much of just. Having to be ready for anything and the wit and the summation of years of hard work coming together in an hour is daunting for a lot of people. A lot of people just crumble, but that is what kind of closing arguments are to me. A summation of really years of work. And that's what's going to happen. That's what we're going to discuss today. So, they did it interestingly, I thought. The judge split his charge in half. So, one of the things that happens, which, you know, you often don't see when you're thinking about cases because it's kind of a boring part. But I hope you guys got to watch it because it's a critical part. We often say, Juries decide facts. Judges decide law. So, what the judge does is, after the charging conference, which we had yesterday, he draws up his jury instructions. And he essentially gives these people off the street their legal charge. This is what the law is. You got to go back there and figure out what the facts are. And then apply the facts to this law I'm going to tell you. They get to take it back with them. They can refer to it. Obviously, they have questions as they go along. They can ask them. And that often will be the source of jury questions. Is, you know, what is the law? Can you read us the charge on involuntary manslaughter again, for instance? So, he begins with a charge. And he goes through the counts of murder. In this case, three counts of murder. I thought there were some lesser charges. But I guess he got rid of those at some point. At one point, there were some strangulation charges. I guess we just dropped all that. So, the Commonwealth must prove. Now, the Commonwealth has the burden of proof in this. They're the ones who have to prove it. They have to prove that she committed the crime. And that she was criminally responsible when she did. A little different in Massachusetts. Ordinarily, the burden is actually on the defendant to show they're not criminally responsible. But Massachusetts does it a different way. Though, honestly, in practice, I don't know that it really matters. I think the jury is either going to believe she had a mental disease of defect. Or they're not going to. I think that's what's going to happen. But we'll see. So, we've discussed this. I'm not going to go back through it. We, in fact, read you this jury. Very early on in our coverage. The disease or defect that causes you to lack the substantial capacity to know right from wrong. And to conform your behavior to that standard. And he goes through how commitment works. Now, I think some of you are probably surprised by this. Ordinarily, the jury does not really consider the punishment. But in Massachusetts and in some other jurisdictions, because commitment can be a squishy thing. We've decided we're going to let the jury know exactly how this works. And essentially, she's going to be committed until she no longer has a mental disease that makes her dangerous. Once those two things, either she doesn't have a mental disease, or maybe she does, but she's not dangerous, she'll be released. She could stay in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. She could be released in 40 days after the initial examination. I don't know exactly how it'll go. If she's found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. We'll just have to see if that happens. But he's letting the jury know. Hey, this is how this works. I think that's important. Because, number one, if you have a juror who thinks, wow, this person's so dangerous, I can't say she's not guilty by reason of insanity, then she'll be back on the street hurting people. Well, they let them know, hey, you don't have to worry about that. If she's truly dangerous, she'll stay in prison. But also, lets the jurors know who think, no big deal, if we find her not guilty by reason of insanity, she's there for the rest of her life. Not necessarily. Not if she's not dangerous anymore. Which, given the unique nature. Of this case. I don't think she necessarily would be dangerous. Now, the case has shifted. Back when this was a pure postpartum issue case, I think very clearly she would not be dangerous. Now, I think you maybe could argue that her ongoing bipolar is a problem. Though, honestly, if she is given that sentence in a year, I don't think she'll still be in commitment. If they end up finding her not guilty, I think she's out within a year, personally. And I know this is. Vastly misunderstood. Because we've talked about this a few times. Basically, every. Brett and I have both done, like, you know, interviews with news stations who are covering this case. And generally, of course, they're going to have a lighter understanding of what's going on. I've asked this question in almost every interview for the last month. And when I tell the news anchor this, their mouth drops each time. Because I think a lot of people thought the default was no big deal. She's either. If she's found guilty, she'll go to prison. If she's found not guilty by reason of insanity, she'll just go to a mental hospital. And it was like, no, no, no. It's not that she's going to be committed for the same amount of time. Just depends where she goes. And there's lots of things going into this for the dangerousness. Dangerousness is not the same as whether she will do exactly what she did previously. Because dangerousness, things that factor into it, the fact she's in a wheelchair now, for example. That does factor into her dangerousness. Because how much can she get around without help from someone else? Which I think would work in her favor of not being dangerous. So, I had a case once where a guy. Was standing on top of a car, shooting a gun into the sky. And this was like the 15th time he'd been arrested. He's a felon. So he's on federal custody for felon in possession. But this time he's found not competent to stand trial. Now, we obviously, the government, we're like, well, this guy's dangerous. He needs to be committed. He goes out for a commitment test and the hospital reaches the conclusion that yes, he's dangerous, but it's not due to his mental disease or defect. He's just a dangerous guy. So, since he had a mental disease or defect, he could not be tried. But because his dangerousness did not flow from that mental disease or defect, he couldn't be held. And it was the weirdest thing. And I mean, I wrote this in a brief. I was like, if you find this judge, he has essentially a license to commit crimes. He can't be tried. He can't be held. He can't be confined anywhere. Like, this just can't be the case. It was a huge fight. We had this huge fight with this guy. And frankly, it was never really resolved. But that's the kind of problems that you run into with this area of the law. It's just not clean. It's not as simple as you think it would be. You got to have both aspects and they got to go together. And I feel like in her case, I just don't think you're going to see that. And look, her being suicidal is not a reason to keep. Her in a facility like this. Now, she might get Section 12 the day after she walks out for her own protection. But that's going to be a little different. I mean, her future after this, if she's found not guilty, it's hard to say exactly how it's going to go. OK, as we talked about yesterday, there are three counts of murder and there are multiple ways she can be found guilty of murder. As I said, I think people just forgot second degree murder. But in Massachusetts, they charge you with murder and then the jury finds, The Degree of Merit. murder, either first or second. So for first degree murder, it has to be deliberate premeditation. So not only does she have to cause the death, intended it, and decided to do it with a period of reflection. So it's not heat of the moment, but there's premeditation that comes with it. And it's murder with extreme atrocity or cruelty. If you listen to the Commonwealth's closing, they use those exact terms, right? At the very end, when they say why this was extreme atrocity and cruelty, not seeing the humanity in each of these three children who dreamed of things when they were going to be older, but now they're ripped of these dreams. That was to get to the first degree murder charge. She has to have caused the death, either intended it, intended to cause grievous bodily harm, intended to do an act that would lead to death, and that that act was extreme atrocity or cruelty. Indifferent to or took pleasure in suffering and meant to make suffering worse means were excessive. So first degree murder. First degree is not just you kill them. There's this extremeness to it. There's a cruelty behind it. And honestly, second degree is just something a little bit less than that. It's you cause the death and you intended it, and it's less than all that atrocity. So if you don't find the cruelty and the atrocity, then it's murder too, because murder too is essentially just murder, but you didn't find all the cruelty on top of it. And as I said yesterday, I think if you think she's guilty, there is a really strong case for murder too, because as the judge instructs the jury, one of the things that can, make the murder less than murder one is some sort of mental disease or defect that doesn't rob you of your full culpability. So to me, unless you think, and I know Alice disagrees with me on this, and that's fine. Unless you think she is just this premeditated murderer, really did fake all this, just wanted to kill her kids and walk them into the sunset, as Reddington said in his, I don't, I don't think it's first degree murder. I know she killed three children. I know it was horrible. I don't think it's first degree murder. I don't think it's awful. I know it was awful. But just as the law goes in Massachusetts, I really feel like it's second degree murder. Now we'll see if the jury ends up being that nuanced in the way they handle it. It may just be, we've been saying it'll probably be manslaughter, but who knows? I mean, the jury, it may be all or nothing for them. She's either all the way guilty or she's not guilty for reason of insanity. Then we talk about the manslaughter and this was a little weird. And because the defense has agreed to it, this is the kind of thing where if the judge did this over an objection, I think it would be a real appeal issue. But typically the law is if you agree to a jury instruction, you cannot then challenge a conviction on the basis of it because he kind of just combined involuntary involuntary manslaughter into one instruction and basically said it's manslaughter. If the killing is caused by wanting to reckless conduct, it caused the death. You didn't have to intend the conduct to cause the death, but you have to intend the conduct. So you intend the conduct, but it doesn't necessarily mean you intended the death. So for instance, you meant to fire the gun into the crowded room. You were not intending to kill anyone, but you knew number three, that conduct was so one or reckless and any reasonable person would know it creates a substantial risk that someone is going to die. So that's when you get manslaughter. Negligence isn't enough. It has to be wanting to reckless. And at this point, the judge says that you can consider any credible evidence that she suffered from a mental impairment or problem prescription drugs when deciding whether or not manslaughter applies. So if the jury goes back there and they're like, look, we all agree she's guilty. They're still going to have to spend some time really digging through these three different ways you could find her guilty before they reach a final conclusion, which, by the way, is why I thought unlike almost every case, a quick verdict would have been bad for the Commonwealth. Ordinarily, if you get a quick verdict, you assume, well, that means they're convicting. I mean, I've had trials where they go back and 45 minutes later, we get a note and the defense attorney walks over and says, congratulations, because they know we didn't win in 45 minutes, right? They didn't all decide to acquit in 45 minutes. And ordinarily, that's the case here. If they had come back today, I would have had no doubt that they would have been convicted. I would have had no doubt that they went back there and they said she clearly had a mental illness. She clearly is not responsible for this. It's not guilty. That didn't happen. I don't think that means she's going to be convicted. But I do think if we had gotten a verdict today, it would have been bad for the Commonwealth. Yeah, I agree with that. I think because of the degree of murder or manslaughter, they're going to have to deliberate longer. They could still come back with, you know, not guilty. But I think it's less likely the more time goes on here. So those are the jury charges. And then we go into Remember, each side has an hour. And this is very, at least in my experience, unusual. Massachusetts, the defense goes first. In most jurisdictions, certainly in the federal system, the prosecution, since they have the burden, goes first, and then the defense. And then there's usually a rebuttal, which is you have the same amount of time, but you as the prosecution get to decide how you want to split it. If you want to split it 45 minutes, 15 minutes, you know, between your rebuttal. So same amount of time, but different placement. So Reddington goes first. And the theme, of his closing, is manipulation. The Commonwealth manipulated the evidence to build this case against Lindsay. And he starts off, very typical way of starting off for closing arguments. He thanks the jury. He recognizes the immense work that they've been asked to do, because this is some of the toughest and most gut-wrenching thing that they'll ever have to do. And he thanks them for their service. Then he makes this about Lindsay, of course. He wants to humanize Lindsay. And he says, she knows loss. Cora, Dawson, and Callen. And he names them all three. They are the victims. And she understands this, because it has ripped the soul out of this girl. He starts off by calling her this girl. If you remember yesterday, throughout cross-examination, he started out with this young lady, and then this young woman, and then it was, and this is a tactic. You want to basically make, this is about the murders of three women, three children. So if you make her seem like this vulnerable, helpless little girl, there may draw some more sympathy from the jurors. What are your thoughts on that, Brett? You know, look, I think if you watch this, and I'm sure most of you did, Reddington, he made a conscious decision about how he was going to do this. And maybe it was the right way to do it. The manipulation thing is an interesting way to go with this. And it's basically, all of the evidence is manipulated, manipulated to make it seem like she was sane when she did this. And he's going to go through that. And in doing that, he decides to present this as the Commonwealth of the bad guys. They're evil. And she's this innocent girl. He calls her a girl many times, who they are torturing. They're ripping her soul out. And that might have been effective for some of you out there. And it may be effective for some of the jurors. I will tell you, I'm pretty, pretty good being a lawyer and sort of separating my knee-jerk reactions and my emotions from the evidence. Like, I don't think it really bothers me. I don't think it really affects me. I think I can weigh the evidence no matter what. But I will tell you, when he started this way, kind of made me mad. Because it's like, I get her defense. But she killed these kids. Okay? She needs to own that at some point. She killed these kids. Her three lovely, wonderful children died at her hands in a horrific way. And, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I know she's arguing that her mind was broken. I get that. Intellectually, I understand that if that's true, she's not actually criminally responsible for this. I understand that at an intellectual level. But at an emotional gut level, when you start off calling the woman who strangled her three children some sort of victim who had her soul ripped out because of these evil prosecutors who were trying to convict her, that does not hit me. In the right place. That does not put me in a position where I'm like, okay, I want to hear what you have to say on this. It makes me emotionally react. I can put that aside. I don't know that every juror can. I don't know that every person can. And subconsciously, it may be an effect the way I look at it. I didn't like that. And he continued that theme throughout. And I just don't think it's the right theme. I think the right theme is this is a horrible, terrible, horrific case. And it is really hard to understand. And you guys have sat here and listened to all this expert testimony. And I need you to put emotion aside. And I need you to really hear what these experts, the finest in their field said. And think about this like that. When you start getting into the emotion stuff, maybe it works. But given that there are three dead kids on the other side of the fence, you're going to have to think about what you're going to do. And I think that's going to be a based on pure emotion and anger versus a sort of much more thoughtful, methodical look at the evidence that included some emotion, particularly at the end, but wasn't emotion based. And in some ways, it was kind of the opposite of what you might expect. You might expect that it would have been the Commonwealth that really leaned into emotion and really tied to hit some sort of deep seated, not logical, not intellectual anger at this woman for what she did. And I think that's did, but instead it's Reddington who wants to to make you emotional. And Reddington, who wants to have you not really think about this in a straightforward way, but be angry at the Commonwealth and sympathetic to Lindsay. And I think you're exactly right about this. This was the most juxtaposed point that they've been throughout the trial. There were times where both of them were going for emotion or going for attacking certain parts of the experts or the witnesses, but today was incredibly stark because I think you're right. Reddington could have told a compelling story that honestly would bring in a lot of people who see themselves in Lindsay's struggles. That's why this case has captured the world, right? Because it strikes upon the very heart of what we are trying to struggle with as humanity. Like, what do we care about? Who are we? How do we prevent this from ever happening again? He had the power to tell this immense story, but instead it was scattershot. I'm not saying it was scattershot. He wasn't prepared, but I think he was not focused. And it was honestly difficult to follow it because it was more emotion-based. When you are doing cross-examination, you can do spaghetti at the wall method because you don't know what's going to come out. You don't know what you can get the witness to concede or agree with you on. But when it comes time for closing, it is no longer Jackson Pollock time. You have to be incredibly focused to lead the jury along. This is the first time in my life that I've ever been so focused to lead the jury along. I've never been so focused to speak in narrative form to the jurors about what they think happened. And we saw that in the Commonwealth's closing. We'll get to the Commonwealth, but what was so compelling about it was they walked through exactly their theory of the day and explained each and everything that happened from the phone call to the watch to every single thing and said, we didn't show you this picture of the post of her saying Dawson was difficult to show you she was a bad mother. No, not at all. We're showing that that goes to the element of control because she recognized that he was a child who was not going to go quietly into the night, so to speak. He would fight her as really almost anyone would if they were being strangled to death. And so it was a very conscious, rational, controlled, criminal decision in order to take him down first. That was really powerful because they couldn't say those things to us when they were showing us those posts. And we were like, well, yeah, like, don't attack her as a mother. Like, let's do these things. And they did a good job of walking through each fact and how it fit into the elements. Reddington didn't help lead the jurors, in my view, through what the elements were. And there is a purpose of reading the jury instructions because you want to actually mirror the jury instructions in your closing arguments so that you're matching the facts of the law for the jurors. You want the jurors in their mind to say, okay, these are the six checkboxes I need, and as they're listening to a closing argument, say, checkmark, cruel and atrocity, intended death, wanton recklessness. You want them to be able to check it off mentally so when they go back with the five weeks worth of evidence, which can be overwhelming to go through alone, they think, no, no, no, so-and-so's closing argument already laid it out for me, and here's where it is. We can find the evidence within here, but they already gave me the roadmap. So that's where I think Reddington's emotion wasn't honed enough to be able to lead the jury to the conclusion he wanted. Then he goes to showing pictures of the Clancy family in happier times. And he does strike upon something that I think everyone wants to know. Everyone wants to know. I don't think we will ever really know this. How did we get from this beautiful, smiling family to this? How did we get here? This was not something you could foresee. And he says, I'll tell you, it was medication and lousy medical care that she received. And it doesn't matter how many paid experts say otherwise. And he hammers it to the jury. And he says, I'll tell you, it was medication and lousy I thought, of course, he has to say this, but it may have worked an opening by closing. It fell flat about the lousy medical care. And the Commonwealth was ready for this argument in a phenomenal way. I don't even think I fully appreciated how, and I will use the word, even though it comes with so much baggage, I had not fully appreciated just how privileged in her access to health care and support and postpartum care. And when Reddington set this up a little bit carelessly because he didn't back it up, it was a set in order for the Commonwealth to be able to come back and spike in their closing. And I'll say this, one of the worst things he does is he just can't help himself from taking shots at the Commonwealth. And it blows up in his face every time. This would just have been a much better place to start. Don't start with the like, this is a good point. How did we get from this to that? Now, the problem is the Commonwealth has an argument for that. Interestingly, what does he say? Medication and lousy medical care. As we noted last night, his theory is not really that she was in postpartum psychosis or postpartum depression. Maybe that got her to Dr. Tufts. But his actual theory is that the medication she received set her off down this path and that no doctor helped her after that. They just made it worse. That's his actual theory. And I find that to be very interesting, particularly given sort of the public discussion, as we said yesterday, about how this is really a postpartum case. And maybe she did have postpartum depression or psychosis, but that doesn't seem to be what the experts, even on his side, argued. And it doesn't seem to be what he's arguing. He's arguing a much more sort of nuanced point. And then he continues to sort of throw out these inflammatory things. After this, he says, they want you to think, she's just another woman who's going to make an excuse. Look, maybe that plays well for his cheerleaders outside wearing pink and free Lindsay shirts. I don't know that that necessarily is swaying jurors. Now, maybe he's looking at them and they're all nodding yes. I mean, we can't see the jury, right? Maybe that's happening. But those sorts of lines, I think, undermine him. Like if he had cut out most of the silly, insulting stuff, I actually think this would have been a much better closing. Because right after he says that, he starts talking about how throughout her life, she's not a criminal. She's not somebody who's in trouble with the law. She's not somebody who's violent. She's done nothing wrong in her life. She's a nurse. She's a wife. She's a good mother. And then he starts getting into this manipulation point. This is a case built on manipulation. And he starts with the horror of what Patrick found and the injuries that she suffered and the extent of her injuries. And this is what's really interesting about this. And in some ways, this is a case built on manipulation. And this is a case built on manipulation. And in some ways, this was a smart play. His closing is directed at the Commonwealth's opening. But the Commonwealth, whether just because of how the evidence came in, or maybe they always intended this, I don't know. They have changed since the opening. So he's still attacking the things the Commonwealth said before, that this was a fake suicide attempt, that she didn't really want to kill herself. And he's hammering on those points that now no one disagrees with. And it really, in a lot of ways, the tone and the way the Commonwealth deals with Lindsay's mental illness and her suicide attempt are kind of a 180 from their opening. But I have to say, it's not just that they had it in the opening. If you listen to them in the last two or three witnesses, their entire rebuttal, especially in the redirects, they've changed their tone. So it was foreseeable that they have changed the way they view Lindsay's mental illness, the seriousness of it, and even the seriousness of her suicide attempt. Because a couple of people were like, oh, maybe they set a trap for Reddington. He thought they were going to argue this and then they did an about face. If you listen to the last week of trial, you would know that that is no longer the Commonwealth's view and what they're going to argue based on the phrasing of their questions and what they said in redirect of the experts. So this is on Reddington to have either not picked it up or to be set in his ways of what he was going to argue. You know that feeling when you finally clean out a junk drawer that's been bothering you for months? 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He has these huge blown up posters with all the drugs on them. He refers to her as a kid, and he keeps infantilizing her, which I think is a strategy, and it only works for him because he's old. If a younger attorney did this, I think it would seem really strange to call a grown woman a kid. And he says they're trying to assassinate her in every way they can. They even claim she was drinking, but she wasn't drinking at the time. This was a legitimate suicide attempt, and they're trying to assassinate the character of this beautiful young girl. And it's like, dude, this is once again, it's like going too far with this. They are representing three dead children. They're not trying to assassinate her character. They're trying to prove that she murdered those kids. And this is a strategy. Alice and I have experienced this, and I'll guarantee you anything that Reddington has a great relationship with these attorneys. We were in a trial. It was a long trial. We had a great relationship with the attorneys. We agreed on everything. It was really easy. We were able to get all the evidence in. There was like two objections the whole trial. And then the closing was all that we were Satan. We were these evil agents of the government trying to hurt this poor person. The whole thing was about that. And it was like, wow, where in the world did that come from? But that's a strategy to just try and paint the state, especially today, given how people often feel about government. It's just this evil. These evil beings. And in our case, that was a fraud case. You know, whatever. But this is a triple homicide. I don't think that most people are going to agree that, yeah, the only reason they would have brought this case is because they're just evil, heartless people. But that's the point he's trying to make. Honestly, I don't know if this came off with the jury, but the entire time I'm thinking, OK, we have an hour. You've been talking now for about 15 minutes and all I've heard. I know you started out with the victims are Cora Callen and Dawson. But all I've heard you say. Are excuses, excuses, excuses for Lindsay, what I think would have been more effective instead of focusing on how she's made no mistakes. Because you know what? Three murders is a pretty big one. If that's going to be your one mistake in life, like that's a big one. I needed him to address it straight on and to say, and notice there's been nothing about how it's torn her apart. What's torn her apart and ripped her soul out? The prosecution trying to get justice for her children, not the fact that her children are dead. I think it would have been much more effective with you are looking at a broken woman over here. She's like, I don't know. Everything. Look at her. She's a shell of the person she was in the pictures that you see up there. All she wanted in life. Her life was devoted to caring of others, especially babies. That's why she was a labor and delivery nurse. And when she finally had ones of her own, she named her first one after the first baby she delivered. This woman lived for her children. They were her light and her soul. The most unimaginable thing has happened here. They are ripped from her life. She has no will to live. You heard from doctors. She is suicidal to this day. Wouldn't you be? Her purpose in life is gone. She sits before you, a literal broken woman. She will never walk again, literally, as well as metaphorically, because her purpose in this life is gone now. We are sitting here today to seek justice. But what does justice look like? Breaking this woman who is already broken to the depths of hell. She is living a hell. She doesn't even want to be here. And we are using resource after resource that you all are paying for to see the present to you. A devastating tragedy of a family. This is not a crime. This is a tragedy. Do that. My goodness. Instead of like, she's like clean as the driven snow. Look at that young girl. Man, do you see her pigtails? Adorable, don't you think? Next time we answer that question about who I would hire if I was driven. I'm not hiring the publicist. I'm hiring Alice. But I mean that. I wanted to give you kind of a different way of opening that still draws upon emotion, but doesn't mean that I would hire a defense attorney. There is a way to be a defense attorney. That is not the way he approached it. And I don't think it rang effective here as well. Easy to, of course, say what he did wrong. But I don't think this was ineffective. Maybe some of you sitting in the chat think what he did was effective. But I really wanted to hear acknowledgement and then turn the victims into your greatest asset. Everyone is devastated for these children. So is my client. We're all in this together. So why are we sitting here? Because it's certainly not a crime. We're all mourning the same thing. And let me just, I want to set up what's going to happen next because Alice doesn't really know anything about this. So Reddington, you guys out there, if you've ever played pool, you gals out there, you ever played pool? Sometimes you'll bet on shots. Sometimes you bet on games. You put the money down on the table and then you play and whoever wins takes the money. Well, Reddington is going. And honestly, this is the kind of stick that fine in most cases, I thought was just so respectful to this entire case and what it's about. All the times Reddington yelled at some witness and said, this is a murder case. This is a triple homicide case. You didn't take this seriously. Every time he said that, just for me, came back when he did this little lawyer's trick where he essentially, he turns to the Commonwealth and asked the lawyers, do you play pool? Which draws an objection. And the judge says, don't address the lawyers, address the jury. But at this point, he's not going to play pool. He's going to play pool. He's now going to start betting essentially that the Commonwealth cannot answer his points. And he's going to do it with quarters. Okay. Thank you for explaining it to me. I was like furiously being like, Brett, what, what is happening? I know this seems really baller, but I don't exactly understand this because I'm a terrible pool player. So, and let me just say this, this is also not uncommon in a closing to have like a shtick, like an egg, you know, that you're precariously on the table and it might tilt over and smash everywhere, but is it hard boiled or raw? We don't know. You know, it's storytelling and shticks. I'm fine with them. Honestly, I don't use them, but it is not uncommon to use them to try and be memorable for the jury when they go back. So Reddington then turns to the Commonwealth and says, you know, have you ever played pool? It's a rhetorical question. You're not supposed to answer it. And then he puts what appears to be a quarter on the desk and challenges the Commonwealth on the suicide. And then he puts another quarter on the table about the exercise bands. And he says, you're a joke. The prosecution is a mess. And this is meant to obviously be a throw down on the Commonwealth. And the expectation, of course, is it's a shot and that's it. You know, there's nothing that the Commonwealth can do or whatnot. And he continues. By the way, he really should have taken the quarters with him after it was over. He should have gathered his props, but he didn't. He left them. Yeah. And then remember yesterday, he argued for the Bowdoin instruction which is the instruction about like basically arguing that the investigation may have been deficient. And if it weren't deficient, you might have more evidence that, you know, could help either side. He did not get that instruction, but he still kind of works in the idea of a shoddy investigation into his closing. So he hits the cops for not analyzing the powder in the cup. Remember he's saying, you know, that's not crushed up pills for not testing the blood, every spot of blood, you know, found everywhere. And that she was chained to the bed after the murders and the outside. And that as she's coming out of a coma, she's intubated. There's these massive blood transfusions. She has anesthesia. And still they are treating her like a criminal. And he talks about the medical proxy and says that she's so delirious when she asked for a lawyer. She doesn't know what's going on. She doesn't know up from down. They're striking when this woman, this girl, I'm sorry, is at her weakest and doesn't even know what is happening around her. That's where they are sending evidence against her. And that's how they're manipulating it in order to bring this prosecution. And very unorganized. I'm going to say disorganized. You know, in the middle of this attack on the police, he throws out Zizel. It's like, big deal. I'm friends with the guy. Who cares? Big deal. And then he immediately goes back to hitting the police for not getting the drawer with the drugs in it. He's got the drawer. He picks it up. He's like, how could you not look into this? Which is fine. Absolutely. I have no idea. And you know, they all were like, how did we miss that? I can only imagine. This happens in trial. trials where like, You're like, man, they're going to kill us on that because I don't know how we didn't look in that drawer. Right. I mean, that's what they're thinking. There's no reason. It's not like they intentionally didn't look in the drawer. It's just for some reason it was one of those things where there were five cops in the room and each one of them thought the other one did it. And so nobody ever opened the drawer. And so it ends up becoming this big deal. And these are legitimate points, by the way, the things he's hitting are legitimate. These were mistakes the prosecution made early on. These are mistakes that we pointed out. He hits the good moms have scary thoughts. He's like, they tried to tell you this was a big deal. They tried to make you think this is evidence. Get my client. Turns out nurse practitioner Gelati gave it to her. Great point. There were good points built into this. It was just so rambling and incoherent and angry that you missed a lot of it. And then he does something which I don't understand how he did. He pulls out that stupid wish jar that at least two different times he's tried to get into evidence. Both times it was objected to. It never came into evidence. And yet he pulls it out anyway and just starts talking about it. It's like, well, I guess we're doing this. And he just goes into it how she has this wish jar and she would write her wishes on it. And her wishes were to have a big family and to have a healthy family. And she had all these dreams. Prosecution. Look, we have been critical of these Commonwealth attorneys. And at times I've wondered if maybe we're being a little too hard on them because it's hard to try a case. It is difficult to make these decisions. It is easy to make little mistakes. Usually nobody's watching you when you do it. Alice and I have never tried a case on television in front of 100 million people. And they did. And they made some mistakes. But they brought it in this cross. And I don't know if they just always intended to talk about this. But he's talking about her dreams and her wishes. Prosecution is going to bring that back at the end. And it's brilliant. And I really think that part, maybe it was already written into their clothes. But that's where I think the thinking on your feet, certainly the quarter thing is thinking on your feet, was really well done for the prosecution. So at this point, he says, and once again, disjointed, right? Like earlier on, he says, what caused this medication and bad treatment? Then he gets off on attacking the prosecution, attacking the cops. Now he's jerking back into his sort of main storyline. You know, she lived for her kids. She loved her kids until she ran. And to Dr. Tufts, Dr. Tufts just pushed pills on her. That's all she did. This wasn't drug shopping. He calls that a repulsive allegation the Commonwealth made against her. She wasn't drug shopping. She was trying to find medication that worked. And it was Dr. Tufts and other providers who just continue to press this medication on them. He has the big sign with all the medications. Then he swerves back to Zizel, says the prosecution alleged Zizel told her what to say. And how in the world could they ruin this? And this is wild. I mean, this is a truly wild moment. I'm glad the prosecution called him on this, by the way. I am too. And they're going to. But the prosecution didn't do that. Reddington invented this out of thin air because he heard a rumor that one of the detectives at one point said something like, maybe he told her to say it. And he took that and turned it into this like thing the prosecution brought in when he brought it in the whole time. And now he's blaming the prosecution for it. It's just. It's just wildly and obviously misleading. Can I say something that actually clarified for me in Reddington's closing that I didn't say yesterday when we were talking about our theories of the case, even though I thought it yesterday, because I'd like a little bit of justice for Dr. Tufts. I don't buy into this. Zoloft triggered everything. I think she was getting worse. And this is all variations of worse, maybe. But she took Zoloft previously. So I'm not bought into because his theory is like she's doing great. She's just like jolling along. You know, having fun with her kids. And then she meets Dr. Tufts and like she's the Grim Reaper. I don't buy into that. I think that things were already really bad by the time she got to Tufts and being faced with real options of how to get better, but not getting better scared her even more. Right. Like a lot of people say, like, I don't I don't even want to try to take the LSAT because like then I'll know I'm not good and I'm not going to be able to go to law school. So it's better not to know. It's almost like Dr. Tufts starts giving her real options like these drugs. OK, this doesn't work. Then do this. She goes to women and infants. They give her three options. Inpatient, partial, inpatient, outpatient. And the moment she's faced with like real options to help her get better and she doesn't get better. It's this realization that like mental health issues are her life rather than something that can be fixed right away. That's not very nuanced. All I'm trying to say, basically, I am not bought into Reddington's theory that but for being on Zoloft or even meeting Dr. Tufts, she wouldn't be in the same position. I think she was on this path and everywhere. I think she was going to ignore everyone who was around her because she was going to ignore them and try her own things and only shade her versions of truth and decide how she was going to and not going to take medications. She was already on this steam train starting from about October and we were going to end up at January and Dr. Tufts, Nurse Gelada, women and infants, all of these practitioners were basically flying off the steam train because she was plowing through everybody. So anyways, I didn't say that yesterday. And the more I thought about it, I was like, oh, my God. I was like, I would like to defend Dr. Tufts a little bit here. And it was Reddington's closing that really solidified it for me. So way to go, Reddington. You changed my mind about something, but not in the way you wanted to. So then he called. OK, then this is, I thought, ineffective because the way he's about to attack all of the experts shows you he doesn't actually attack the substance of their conclusions because he can't. He's not going to win on that on the merits. So instead, we always say, you know, if you don't have the facts, then you just pound the table. Right. He's pounding the table. So then he calls all of the Commonwealth experts. Yeah, they're impressive, but they don't know a single thing about women's health. He brings up the fact that he asked them, oh, I don't know why he did this. Like, instead of talking about the substance of what they said, he said he brings up the fact that he asked Dr. Kirk and Dr. Mack where they stayed before they went to go interview Lindsay. And he acts like they were afraid of the question. He's like, their eyes got so big when I asked. Yeah, because it's a crazy question. Completely irrelevant. And there was nothing. They, like, couldn't remember what hotel they stayed at. And they'd never met each other before. Somebody said that the TikTok conspiracy is they stayed at the Clancy house. Like, by themselves? So the Clancy. OK, so the I don't know how much of this is true. Where the kids were murdered or like, like, like a member of the D.A.'s office ended up buying that house from Patrick. That may be true. I don't know. And the theory is they stayed. They stayed at the Clancy house the day before and conspired about what they were going to do and then went to see her. That's what somebody said. The TikTok conspiracy is about this. OK, then I have to tell the story. That didn't happen. First of all, they had never met. They met in the parking lot. This is their testimony. Right. And it's sworn testimony. They have no reason to lie about it. Where would the D.A. get the money to buy this house? It's public record. I mean, he may have bought the house. I don't know. But actually. So when I was looking to buy a house, we were in the middle. Did you and I try this case or maybe you and I didn't try this case together? I was trying a doctor who was a pill mail doctor. Is that the one that arrested all your witnesses for? You arrested. Yes. So you were part of the case in a different way. You arrested all my witnesses because they were victims who were addicted to opioids because of my defendant. And so they were difficult to find and difficult to get into court because they themselves were in a rough space of life. So Brett went out and arrested all of them for me in order to testify. We were very nice to them. But they. Needed to testify. And I was happened to be looking at houses at the same time as this. And we live in like a small town and there were not that many houses for sale. And this house came up. I didn't know who owned it, but the house came up on the market. I was looking through the pictures. I was like, this house kind of looks familiar. I don't know why it looks familiar to me. Have I been in this house? Maybe I went to a Bible study at the house. And as I'm clicking through it, I see one of the pictures and it's like a foreclosure house or something like that or being sold. But the government and I saw a post in the like Zillow picture of the front door and I zoomed in and it was like, do not trespass FBI. And I was like, that's my defendant's house that I executed a search warrant on. That's why it looks so familiar. And I did not buy that house. I did not even go look at the house because I thought it would violate codes of conduct if I did so, which was a real bummer because it was one of like the only houses on the market. And it was priced really well because, you know, it was foreclosed. For what I needed with like, you know, my kids. People in the chat are saying it's a former member of the DA's office bought the house at some point. Sounds like this person left in the like 2018. So probably went and became a defense attorney and made a lot more money. Now, the theory that the doctors stayed at the house. That's I don't know. Yeah. OK, sorry. That was that was a tangent. But that is a tangent in your closing argument. Like, that's what you're going to spend your time on after five weeks again. I don't think this was an effective. Use of his hour. Now, he suggests that Dr. Satov should have gone to interview Lindsay before his contract was signed. Remember this? How he like didn't go see him. And that's just not appropriate. He cannot just go like walk into Lindsay's hospital room and interview her if there's no contract in place. And then he says he finally gets to what I think he should have started with. She owned what she did. Did she? Did she? I'm not totally sure about this, but he claims that Lindsay owns what she did and she never ran away from anything. because she told the doctors what she did. he says, okay, so it's no big deal. I asked Dr. Zizel to talk to her. So what? I asked him to go. He's there to help her because he's been by her side for three and a half years. And same with that chaplain, Kavanaugh. She loves Lindsay because she's a good kid. She's a beautiful soul. Again, not weighing in on their evidence. So he could have been really effective here saying, okay, you heard from these experts. They claim all these things, but you know what? They got a few things right. They got right that she's an awesome mother. They got right that she has a mental defect. You know what they got wrong? They see all these things and they are blind to it. And they come out and say that she knew what she was doing. Anyone looking at these facts can tell you no. And you know what? Who cares? They spent hours with her. You know who has spent three and a half years with her? Kavanaugh and Dr. Zizel. The people who know her best, not people who are paid by the commonwealth in order to reach a predestined opinion who spent few hours with her on a television. No. These doctors who actually cared about her, a chaplain who's seen her 200 times, who care about her, who know her inside and out. They know exactly what she was thinking. And you should listen to them when they saw the same things, but tell you that she has no criminal liability. Do that. I mean, the way he did it just confirmed the commonwealth's theory. The chaplain loves her. Zizel's been by her side for three and a half years, just wants to help her. That was what the commonwealth was saying. She can't trust these people because, because they're biased. They're her friends. They love her. They care about her. It's her patient. This is not an independent evaluation. These are people who are invested. And he just confirms it. He just goes out and confirms it. So I don't know this. I thought this was a sort of a strange place for him to go with this, but it's where he goes. Okay. And then I don't think this was effective either, but maybe people in the jury do. Instead of like, again, countering or giving an explanation for, I think, some pretty disturbing facts. The fact of how she's like playing dominoes on her kids' birthdays, that the actual facility is on high alert for anniversaries and birthdays of the kids because people tend to have intense reactions or sadness on those days. And instead she's having takeout with her family and, and playing with, you know, other patients and seemingly great on those days. Instead of giving a reason for it, she's compartmentalizing. She's lost everything. She's, everything has lost meaning. She can't feel anything anymore because everything is gone. Instead of doing that, she just mocks the experts for going through the records to see what she was doing on those days. As if the prosecution is like mining for gold to try to make her look bad. They don't have to make her look bad. Those are bad facts. And instead of making fun of them for knowing the record, I would have thought it would be more effective to counter it with, this is why she acted that way. And it actually shows she's not guilty. Not, it's got like making fun of the kid who studies for the spelling test, right? Like, dude, we're supposed to be doing that. You know, if we didn't go through the records, that's bad. I know this is incredibly weak. There were ways to go at it, but acting like it's irrelevant, no one thinks it's irrelevant. You got to address it. And we even talked about this, that this was something you needed to address and he never really got back to addressing it. And so I don't know. Look, I know Dr. Mack was a little weird. If you thought Dr. Mack was weird and you didn't buy what he said, fine. I'm not going to criticize you for that. I tend to think what they say, not how they look. He was a weird dude. Satov talked too slow. Mr. Sloth, he was a slow talker. They all seemed like they were smart. None of them felt like hired guns, especially Satov. He's like, he just works for the University of Virginia. They might be wrong. They might've gotten their final conclusion wrong. Seems like a lot of stuff they said could have potentially been helpful for Reddington. But Reddington, he mocked Satov for trying to establish a rapport with her. Did anyone who watched Satov think that he's like some mean guy who wouldn't try and establish a rapport with her? I mean, that's what he's going to do. He talks about how she passed the MMPI, which is a good point that he should make. Then he finally gets around to his own experts and starts talking about Resnick, who was the leading expert on filicide and is on his side. Personally, if I've got the leading expert on filicide, I would have hammered that a lot more than he did. And I said, their experts are smart and they're great. They're not the best in their field. He finally gets around to noting that the Commonwealth experts actually relied on some statements when they were deciding about how to present their case. And he says she was psychotic. And then he says, and I thought this was good. And honestly, something he should have leaned into more that even the Commonwealth experts, it didn't seem like they were certain, you know, they were coming out on the other side, but it wasn't like they were sure. It wasn't like their opinion was rock solid. You know, he talked a lot about the reasonable standard and he walks through it a little bit, but he never really got into it the way he should have. And I think at some point he should have said something like, if you're going to find this girl guilty, it needs to be because you can lay your head down at night and go to sleep without a trouble in your mind that you were right. And if you don't think you can do that, then she's not guilty. But he never does that. He never really gets into what the burden means. He mentions it over and over again. He mentions reasonable doubt over and over again, but he never really turns it to, his advantage in a way that I think he could have. And he goes through the experts and goes through what they said, goes through how, you know, they're experts in terrorism. They're experts in drugs. They're expert in adolescence, but they're not experts in women. And they're experts in people like Lindsay Clancy. He notes, this was a good point, right? It was brought up that she didn't tell Patrick that she was on Prozac. They'd only been dating for about a month at the time. Not necessarily something you would tell a new boyfriend. I thought that was a fine point to make. Hammers on the journal with a nanny. That was an own goal, as we called it, when the prosecution kept bringing it up. And, you know, he scored a few more goals on it. Good for him. Absolutely a good point to make. That was a stupid move by the Commonwealth, and they deserve to get hammered for it. Then he notes something which I had never noticed before, and the Commonwealth is going to talk about, that her very detailed journal stops in the middle of January. Now, he said that it was because at that point, her mind was gone. But we don't see that her mind is gone in any of her other interactions, in any of the other things she's doing. Remember, she's editing notes about her struggles on her iPhone the day before. I don't know that I necessarily buy this whole her mind is gone thing. The prosecution, I think, is going to make much better use of this fact when they start to talk in their closing. And then he hits the DSM-5. He hits the four-week cutoff for postpartum depression and other issues. He makes a big deal about that. And, I mean, that's been one of his themes throughout, so it doesn't surprise me that he brought it up again. Yeah. That journal point, honestly, along with the Zoloft and Tufts thing, were two points out of his closing that clarified for me the guilty verdict rather than the not guilty. And then he reverts back to saying how helpless Lindsay was. He says she's a young kid. She's in her 30s. But I appreciate it. I appreciate someone calling someone in their 30s a young kid. Thank you. And that she didn't want to go back to work because she didn't want to leave her kids. That's understandable. I'm proud of the Commonwealth for embracing this and not running away from it. They're like, yeah, totally reasonable. We all get this. Those of us who don't want to go back because we want to be with our kids, don't then murder them, right? So this was very, it was precarious. But he again focuses all on her and none of the kids, which I think is going to backfire a little bit, at least in the way that I view the closing. He says that she was reaching out for help. She was reaching out for help. She was desperate for help, and she wasn't getting it. He says that on the day of the murders at 538, that last stair climb happened, and the phone was left on the bed. She had this compressed period of time because she didn't want Pat to be out of the house because she was having a breakdown. She wanted him there. So she had Googled how far these places were not so that she could have time to commit these crimes. It was so that she would know how long she'd be alone. Now, she Googled, relax. And why would she do that if she was going to kill the kids? She cared about her kids. So clearly, this could only be explained by delusion and this voice that commanded her to kill the children. And he says that the Commonwealth's theory was that she was going to fake the suicide and then run off into the sunset. And again, that's in response to, I think, more what the Commonwealth was saying in the opening, certainly not the narrative that they're pushing in the closing. And then he ends with, she's not guilty because she was suffering from a mental disease. So here's the thing. I think that Reddington gave, in some ways, kind of a standard closing, kind of a closing that maybe you would use in any case, demonize the prosecution, demonize the police for what they missed. And I get that. And theoretically, in Massachusetts, the burden is all on the Commonwealth. And I understand that. But I also know that people are human. And given that he argued that she's not mentally competent, I really think a much better approach for him would have been just to basically ignore the Commonwealth almost altogether. There are things you can hit. The book's a good thing to hit. The notes, the nanny, good thing to hit. But he made a huge mistake in attacking the theory that the Commonwealth laid out in the opening when he knows the Commonwealth is going after him. Things are backwards in Massachusetts. And I just think it was a mistake. Much better just to give your positive argument about why she's not. not guilty. Virtually ignore them except on the things that are easy and really indefensible to hit. He spent way too much time attacking their theory when they're about to stand up and give their final theory, which is not going to look anything like what he claims it is. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. 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I don't disagree with you, but I think a really, really standard defense closing, which could, if you wrote it completely blase with no facts and it could work for just about any case, which is the reasonable doubt standard, would have worked so well in this case. And we've said this before, but a really effective closing when you have no facts on your side that you could use for like a gun case, a murder case, a fraud case, is essentially just saying the burden of the proof is on the government. They failed to show this here. And the whole, like Brett was saying, can you lay your head down at night and know for certainty that this mother who loved her children, who built snowmen with her children hours earlier, who was staying up late the night before editing photos of her kids, because even when they're asleep, all she can think about is her children. You sitting there, if you're parents, you understand that. Your kids are always on your mind. This woman who has never even so much as spanked a child, who devoted her life to her children. She was no longer going back to the profession. She loved so that she could stay full-time with her children. You can go to sleep at night knowing without reasonable doubt, no doubt in your mind, that she murdered them in cold blood. If you can do that, then you and I, perhaps we are not made the same. Perhaps we don't live in the same world. And bless you for having that view of this world. Because what I see is something so incredibly murky, way too murky for anyone to be able to put their finger, without a reasonable doubt, this woman is guilty of murdering her three children. Do that, man. Because I think a lot of people would be like, yeah, you know, I don't know, man. That's a tall order you're asking me to say that I can go to sleep at night without a single doubt. But he actually doesn't even bring that in the high standard here. And isn't that what we're all thinking? That's what we're all thinking. I mean, even if you're out there and you think she's guilty, isn't there part of you, just part of you, in the back of your head, a nagging thought, maybe she really was crazy. Maybe she really was out of her mind. Maybe she really couldn't control it. I mean, there has to be, right? Now, is that a reasonable doubt? I don't know. But when you describe it to the jury, I think you could have done a really good job of doing exactly what Alice said. Really laying out how you have to be sure. You know, in the Karen Reid case, on the closing, Alan Jackson actually does exactly this. He's like, if you think she's guilty, she's not guilty. If you're pretty sure she's guilty, she's not guilty. If you really feel like she's guilty, she's not guilty. Like, he laid it out. And it's a little dangerous to do it. But he laid it out for that jury. He was already in the bag anyway, so he didn't have to worry about it. But he laid it out for them. Reddington never did that. And I think that was a mistake. Maybe completely going all in would have been a mistake. But spending 15 minutes on it, 10 minutes on it, hammering that standard, hammering the, like, he didn't even mention that Dr. Kirk seemed like he was maybe 51-49, you know? Like, I would quote him there. Their own expert says, oh, this is a tough one, you know? And here's the other thing I would have done if I were him. You don't need to be with me 100%. That's not what reasonable doubt is. If you even in your heart of hearts thinking, it's possible. She was on a lot of drugs. She really sucked. She was asking all the right questions. She got turned away. She called the suicide hotline twice. You don't have to be with me 100%. I get that. But you know what? That's not the standard. To vote guilty, you got to be 100%. You have to be 100%. But if you even have a 1% in you thinking, you know, maybe, maybe the last five weeks of testimony, they're onto something. These experts and doctors who spent hundreds of hours with her are onto something. She didn't fully know what was happening. That is reasonable doubt. Do that. And hammer more the fact that the Commonwealth attorney is about to stand up in front of you and say that she had a mental disease or defect. They're not even denying it. Nope. And that's all he leaves with. We're not even saying what she's saying. We're all saying she has a mental disease or defect. Their own experts said it. Yeah. Anyway, we can play act what we would do all day. But I mean, and look, understand, trying, it's very easy, as we often say, when you're sitting on the sidelines to criticize what the person in the arena has to do 100%. But Reddington was so far away from what we're describing. We're not nitpicking him. We're not saying, oh, I don't know about the choice of language he used when he was doing that. There were just entire chunks of the argument that he chose not to do. And I think it was a mistake. Commonwealth stands up and this is their moment. And they start off. Well, I think they should have started off their opening, but we're going to let bygones be bygones. They say. This is not what they said in the opening. It is not. It is 100% not. And look, I don't care. Way to go, guys. I don't know what happened in the last five weeks. And if this was always the play, I don't think it was always the play. Way to go, though. Way to change. To be big enough to change. Because I think if you get a guilty verdict on any of the charges, it will be because you were willing to change the way you framed the case. You never know exactly how the defense is going to present their case. You never know exactly how the evidence is going to come in. And by the time the evidence had all come in, their opening was just trash. They had to throw that away. They could not continue to fight on that ground because the evidence had not come in that way. So I'm just going to assume that they were good at pivoting to what the evidence had shown, which is what you should do. At the end of the day, it's all about evidence, right? You know, what they say is not evidence. The judge tells you that all the time. So in the closing, they start off by saying, look, there's no dispute that Lindsay Clancy was suffering from mental illness. And there's no dispute that she tried to kill herself. She absolutely had a mental disease or defect. And she absolutely tried to end her life. That is not an issue. And I thought that was a great way to start because it eliminates that debate. We're all on the same page here. We agree with the defense on that. But the issue and the critical issue is whether or not she was guilty. And I think that's a great way to start. And I think she knew the difference between right and wrong and whether or not she can conform her behavior to the law. And then they talked about what's not at stake here. This is not about the DSM-5. It is not about health treatment in this country. It is not about how we address postpartum depression as a society. These are important issues. They are important issues to talk about. This is what they said. But it's not the issue here. The issue here is about Lindsay Clancy and what her state of mind is. Before and after she killed the kids, you want to know how she got here? You can look at those records to see. And then they make a point that Alice noted earlier on that Lindsay Clancy, she wasn't failed by the system. She had more access than most people do. They echoed what so many of you have told us. So many of you who struggle with mental illness. So many of you who are doctors and psychologists, you have told us that you have been working with mental illness psychiatrists and psychologists who treat people. The level of care she got, the number of providers she was able to see, the access to good medication, the access to incredibly qualified facilities, places she could go. She was able to see an incredible amount of doctors, an incredible amount of treatment providers, far more than the average person who was struggling with mental illness. Now, normally, I would say this is all irrelevant because that's irrelevant, too. It doesn't actually matter how good her treatment was. All that matters is what happened that day. But I think it is absolutely legitimate for the prosecution to push back on this idea that has been advanced both in this trial and outside of this trial that she was failed. The system failed her, and that's why this happened. So I thought we saw two very different ways of responding or addressing what we call the TikTok world, right? The outside noise that's around this case. The jury is not sequestered. They're not sequestered. They're not supposed to be reading anything. But it is easy to see, even if they're not reading TikTok or watching TikTok or reading the news, that someone can look at this case and automatically think this is a broader question about mental health or postpartum care for women. And Commonwealth dealt with it very, I think, appropriately, naming what this case is or is not, whereas Reddington kind of adopted all the theories and played into it and played into kind of the clicks rather than shutting down. What this case is not about and focusing on the facts of this case. So they both addressed kind of the outside of the courtroom aura around this case in very different ways. So they go on to say she had really good health insurance. She was able to see multiple doctors. She was able to take part in multiple treatment programs. She was able to go to McLean. She had a supportive home. She had 18 weeks of maternity leave that she could extend as much as she wanted, which ladies out there, most of you probably didn't have that. In your job for two of my kids, when I worked for the government, literally zero, right? When my second child was born, they had just decided they were going to sign the law for you can't get fired or whatever, but I never benefited from it. I took time off, but unpaid. And then I went to the private sector, very generous, incredibly generous. And I got 12 weeks of maternity leave that could not be extended. So I feel so lucky that I got that. But having done trials and been a prosecutor and gotten zero days, zero days, not even weeks for two of my children, this is just for those of you who may not be in the United States and may not know how our maternity leave system is. That's just a comparator. 18 weeks is certainly on the generous side. There are no, in the United States, at least as a nationwide thing, there is no legally mandated maternity leave. Most companies, most governments will give you some, but not necessarily 18 weeks and not something that you can do. You can extend as much as you wanted. And it wasn't just that she had a supportive family. She had her parents who could help. She had his parents who could help, though she didn't want them to help. She had a husband who worked from school, a husband who was supportive, a husband who would help take care of the kids. She had her older kids in preschool and she had a nanny. Now, arguably, maybe this is unfair. If your brain's broken, your brain's broken. It doesn't necessarily have to make sense. But I am sure this is not the case. This resonated with a lot of people out there who do not have, as Alice said, the privileges that Lindsay Clancy had. Lindsay Clancy is an upper middle class woman who had tons of resources, so many more resources than the average person out there. I'm sorry. She is not a poster child for the struggles that so many women in this country have. She's just not. And frankly, it's insulting to those women who. Work hourly wage jobs or are single mothers or who don't have a husband whose family is wealthy, doesn't have incredible insurance, doesn't have an incredibly generous maternity leave, doesn't have two sets of family who can help and a nanny in the house. It's insulting to all those women to treat her like she's some sort of paragon of what women go through in this country. And I'm a little tired of it. To be honest with you, I'm a little sick of her being held up and put on a pedestal. She may have a broken brain and that may mean she's not guilty. And as I said yesterday, I am sympathetic to the medical issues she has had, but she is not a martyr. She should not be treated as a martyr and she should not be held up as some sort of hero because she is not. This is not a woman suffering from a lack of care. This is not a woman suffering from a lack of resources. And this is a delicate needle to thread because the Commonwealth doesn't want to come off as callous. And I think they did a very good job, which they honestly did not do well in the opening, but they did it well here. So they noted all the privileges that Lindsay had, but they're very careful to say, but it doesn't mean Lindsay wasn't struggling. Just as Brett said, for whatever reason, she was depressed. They acknowledge she really is suffering from depression and she was trying to find help. These providers. That she went to seek help from, they were doing the best with the information that she provided them and with her level of compliance with the plan, what she was supposed to take and what she did, did not align. And she, as a nurse knew better than the average person that you had to abide by the plan. And it didn't align with what she told providers or Patrick. Then they talk about the Zoloft increase, which she claimed. They talked about the pills and basically they would say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if she increased it or didn't increase it or increased it too soon. Either way, what we know based on what she told her providers is she didn't follow the plan. I thought that was a really effective way of kind of, it doesn't matter. We don't have to talk about semantics here based on what she said alone and the number of pills gone. We know she didn't follow the plan, whether she increased it earlier or later. And that information would be very relevant for any sort of practitioner to know in order to help you. Because if you're ramping it up sooner, they need to know. They need to know so that they can properly help you increase in the right way. And if you're not increasing it, they need to know that as well. And they acknowledge that Lindsay absolutely wanted help. She's searching drugs on her phone. She's searching the side effects. But the problem is that she didn't want to wait. She didn't want to be patient. She knew she needed to be because she was a nurse. She knows it takes time to heal, but she couldn't wait. And I thought this was really effective. They said she wanted a magic pill. We know she wanted this. We're not just speculating. We're speculating because she was searching what antidepressants work the fastest. Who doesn't want to get better fast? And the Commonwealth, I think, did a really good job of this. They're saying things like, we agree. We're not saying this is bad. I want to get better. You want to get better. But the problem is there isn't a magic button you can press to get better. And she wasn't willing to be part of the plan to get herself better. And no matter what the practitioners did, if she wasn't going to be compliant, there was nothing that they could do. Because Lindsay held the keys. She looked at women and infants. She said, this was not a situation where women and infants looked at her and turned her away and said she didn't need help. Quite the opposite. They took incredible care to thoughtfully offer three different programs to her. These separate options, they took into account needs of hers, including maybe she didn't want to be separated from her young baby. And instead of taking them up on one of these three, Lindsay, you're not going to be able to take them up on one of these three. She does what she has been doing, as we've seen in the records. She says one thing, but does another. She tells women and infants she'll talk to her providers about these options so that they can weigh in. But instead, we know from the records that she never does this. Instead, she tells her practitioners that women and infants just turned her away. There were no other options. I thought this was a really effective way to really put the onus on Lindsay, because the defense's theory here is not that she's going to be able to take them up on one of them, but that she's lost all agency for the last four months. It's January 24th, maybe January 18th on. But what we're seeing is there's this repeated pattern of, I know better, or I don't care what you're telling me. This is why I really thought of this as a steam train. She was going to plow through everything and anything and get her way, even if that way was taking these kids along with her off the cliff, except she didn't go off the cliff just then. And once again, I just thought their closing was much more organized. It was funny because when the defense case started, one of our criticisms of the prosecution case was the defense knows what they're trying to do and they're going to do it. Things went a little sideways for them towards the end, but it was more their experts didn't say exactly what they wanted to. But the defense case, they knew exactly the point they wanted to make. And they were. They were going to make it. And it didn't seem like the prosecution did in their case in chief. The closings were exact opposite. The defense was all over the place. It was emotional. It was wild. It was lashing out at various points. It wasn't really making the point you would expect. The Commonwealth knew exactly the story they wanted to tell. And they told it in a just deliberate step after step fashion. They talk about to the extent her mental health was getting worse, to the extent she thought about hurting her kids. She didn't tell. all of the people And why not? Because they were all mandatory reporters and she thought they were going to take her kids away to protect them. And that is not a rational. It is not psychotic. It is a rational thought. And it shows that she knew what she was doing, what she was thinking was wrong. And she knew the law. And guess what? That is a one of the standards that the jury needs to apply. And it's not just that she didn't tell them. She actively lied to them to prevent them from having the information they needed. I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. There may be a juror on that jury who thinks that Lindsay was not ultimately responsible for killing the kids, but might think, you know what? She put those kids in a situation where her own mental illness could kill them. And that might be enough if that's what they're thinking. That might be enough to get a guilty verdict on a lesser included. Even if they're not willing to go on first degree or even murder. Presenting it this way as Lindsay intentionally preventing people who could have protected those kids from getting them out of this situation may be enough to sway some juror to be on their side. So I thought this was a powerful point, a subtle point, but one that may have swayed a juror. Another difference between Reddington. If those jurors are on Reddington's side, then they were ready to stand up and cheer when he finished. But I don't think he changed anyone's mind. He did not give anyone who was on the fence a reason to be with him. And I think that's part of what makes a good closing. This point is a reason for someone who's on the fence to say, you know what? Good point. She could have saved those kids if she just told the truth, but she didn't. She didn't do that. And so no matter what happened on the 24th, she put them in that situation. By lying about how she felt, she did have bad reactions to drugs. Commonwealth admits that, but they also note that all of the drugs that really affected her, that really caused her problems were out of her system. By the time she left McLean on January 5th. And why did she leave? Because she wanted to go to Cora's birthday party. She wanted to be with her kids. She wanted to be a mom again. And this is perfectly understandable. It's perfectly understandable. Why she'd want. To leave. But she knew in that moment that she still needed help. She knew she wasn't ready. And she said all the right things to make sure she could leave McLean, which fits into that last point I made. Even if on the 24th, she's not responsible. She put those kids in that situation where her own broken brain could cause their death. So I have these running list of pieces that I've always wanted to talk about. I've always been hunting forever because they're just at such high prices. I can't quite bring myself to buy them. Whether it's just the perfect dress from Tucker Nook or honestly, these football jerseys that my kids want, but they're so expensive. I think and I think and then all of a sudden they're gone from online. I can't find them anywhere until I found them on Poshmark for way less than what I could get them for anywhere else. 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He went out of town. She was able to care for the kids. She could interact with her friends. We heard from her friends. She went to dinner with them. She texted with them. You know, she could keep the kids when Patrick went out to brunch. And between January 7th and January 24th, the prosecution makes a really good note. Her family is. now saying, you know, she was circling down. They could tell she was not doing well. But they're not so worried about her that they're coming to the house. Her mother never comes to the house to keep the kids. Her sister, who's a therapist, never comes because none of them see any signs that they should intervene. In fact, when they ask her how she's doing, she says, I'm getting better. I'm sleeping better. I'm moving in the right direction. They say that there are no signs of psychosis up through January 24th. And we know this because she journals meticulously. But all of a sudden, she stops journaling on January 18th. This, I thought, was incredibly powerful. This is key of why arguments are so powerful. You can't make this argument really through any of your witnesses. You can note that a journal stops on January 18th, but that's it. This is where argument brings it together and shows the jury why it's important. The Commonwealth says she stopped journaling on January 18th as if she had decided that this was. and she doesn't want to do it anymore. Everything she did on January 24th shows that she was able to conform her behavior to the law. She went and saw the pediatrician that they've been seeing since Cora was a baby. A pediatrician who sees thousands of kids, has experience in interacting not just with parents and children, but specifically with Lindsay Clancy, because Lindsay was the one who brought the kids to the doctor. And she saw no evidence of postpartum depression or anything in Lindsay's behavior. That day, which would make her worried or that she was acting out of the ordinary. On that day, Lindsay knows what she's doing and is in control as she sends photos to multiple family members of the kids. She plays with the kids. She builds a snowman with them. There's proof that she's sending out there that she was having a good day. Then you start to see the planning around 4 p.m. on January 24th. She searches for kids Miralaxa 402, and then she searches for takeout from 3V a few minutes later. And then the map to 3V. And the prosecution points out, if she's in massive distress, as Reddington wants you to believe, she's so worried about him being gone. That's why she's searching, because she's so afraid he's going to be gone for a long time. Who knows what she might do in this perilous mental state? If that was true, don't send him anywhere. Get DoorDash. Make him cook. Tell him you're not feeling great. They didn't mention this, but they didn't go to their anniversary. They didn't say anything that they had planned for weeks because she wasn't feeling well. She could have told him that. Instead, she sends him to this place they had gone to before but never had takeout from that was so much farther away than other closer restaurants where they did get takeout. If she's worried about the time, she could have sent him there. But she doesn't do that. She knows where it is. She knows it's far away. They've been there three times before. She generally knew how long it would take, but she wanted to know how long it would take. That day. Because on that day, she needed specifics. She needed to know how much time she had. to carry out the plan she had already put in place. She not only searches the CVS, she calls them. Why does she do that? Some of you have asked that. She needs to know if the drug she's going to send is in stock. She's adding this errand to add time. Reddington says it's on the way. That's not the point. The point is he has to make the stop. He has to go inside. He has to find the drug. He has to buy the drug. Precious minutes that will allow her to kill those children. She doesn't want him to walk in and ask, hey, where's the Miralax? And they say, oh, we don't sell that here. She doesn't want that because she doesn't want the phone call. He ends up calling her anyway because he's a man. I mean, frankly, I would do the same thing. I'd be like, I know you told me to get this, but is this what you want? That's what he does. But she doesn't want that. And she certainly doesn't want him in a situation where he can't find the drug he needs for his daughter that he loves because he's going to find it by God no matter what. And if it's not there, he's going to call her and he's going to want to know where he should go next. That's why she did that. That's why she Googled it. That's why she looked it up, to prevent him from running into a problem that would interrupt her. And she's able to do all the things she needs to do. She calls 3V. She orders the food. She tells him exactly what she wants. She gives them Patrick's name and phone number because he's going to be the one who's going to go get it. And Patrick leaves the kids in the living room. They're eating their chicken nuggets sitting on the couch. Whatever Reddington wants to say about residue, in the bowls. They're eating their food on the couch. She is not going to be at the kitchen 15 minutes later when the phone call comes in getting chicken nuggets. They're eating it then. And then right as he's leaving, she says, oh, by the way, can you stop at CVS? Even though she had searched this hours before, even though she knew from the moment she left the pediatrician's office that morning that they needed this, she could have stopped and picked it up, but she didn't do that. But she wanted him to get it. It's a last minute thing. Rather than something, something that she could have told him about before. He says, text it to me. She does at 515. I do this all the time. My wife's like, get me this. And I'm like, send me a text message. Because in one ear, out the other. And that's exactly what's happening. He's like, send me a text message. He goes to CVS, but he still makes the call. He still interrupts her, in my mind, as she is killing Callen. And then Pat gets home, but it's quiet and active. It's a house that should not be quiet when three kids live there and they're supposed to be awake. So then he calls out for her and he calls out for the kids, but still nothing. And when he finally finds her, after unlocking their bedroom door and realizing she's out the window, he runs down to her and he says to her, what did you do? And she said, I tried to kill myself. And when he said, where are the kids? She said, in the basement. This is chilling. Because there's nothing about hearing a voice. There's nothing about, go save the kids. I heard this voice that made me do it. I don't know what's going on. Please go help the kids. They're not okay. And the Commonwealth addresses Reddington's conspiracy theory that Lindsay couldn't have said anything. So she didn't say that. You say, no, we've heard from experts that you can degrade over time, that she could have spoken when he found her and then her voice box degrade over time. Her trachea wasn't crushed. She was physically able to speak. There wasn't anything that had changed about her voice box. Later on, she was intubated and unable to speak. But this was not a situation where we're making up what she said and what Patrick heard. Because, and this was a really effective way of bringing in the 911 call because it was so incredibly visceral. And this was now five weeks ago. So the Commonwealth is bringing back in the 911 call and saying, I'm sorry you had to listen to it. But the reason you listened to that 911 call is you know that if you listen to that call, Patrick is asking her questions and telling the operator what she said. Even if you can't hear on the phone call, you hear this conversation happening in real time. He's asking her questions and he's relaying back to the 911 operator what's going on. And in order for Lindsay to accomplish this, she'd have to start doing all of this almost immediately as soon as Pat left. And the flight climbs show you the course of the crime. She's up in the room. By 538. In other words, she didn't commit these three murders between 533 and 538. The stair climbs don't match it. It's much too short amount of time based on what we know that the experts have told us how long it takes to not just strangle, but to make sure the children are dead from strangulation. The call interrupted her after she had killed the kids. There's just simply not enough time to have done it after the call. And she says, this was the call that is a problem for the police. The defense, it doesn't work out that this voice would have come on after as they claim. So then, the Commonwealth attorney starts taking the quarters. So, Reddington has left the quarters on the table. Should have taken them with him. And remember, he put each one of those down as a bet. One of the bets was, what's the Commonwealth going to say about the exercise bands? They were tied. Patrick said they were tied. Commonwealth attorney, he picks up one of the quarters, says, Patrick never said they were not. And I guess I'll take this one. Takes the quarter. He said he was unwrapping the cords that they were wrapped around them, which they were. I'm sorry. It's an exercise band. If you've ever seen them, she took that exercise band, she wrapped it around the kid's throat, she pulled it tight, and she murdered those kids. That's how it went. You might want to believe that she wrapped them around their throats and then tied them tight and left them. That's not what happened. She held those bands in place until they died. The first child she killed, Dawson, fought back. He was able to shift the bands, and that's why the furrows on his throat where she pulled them tight, that's why they show in different places. That's how she killed these kids. You need to face it. Reddington needs to face it. Everyone needs to face it. If you're going to say she's not guilty, you have to accept that she did that while she was under psychosis. But that's what she did. And she points this out. She takes the quarter. She notes that when she got that call from Patrick, she didn't say, God, what have I done? She didn't say, send help. She didn't say, Patrick, I need you to come back. She didn't snap out of this command hallucination she was supposedly in, which never told her, by the way, to tell Patrick everything's fine. She didn't go down to give them CPR. She didn't use her training as a nurse to save her children. Instead, she had a normal conversation. Tried to make Patrick feel like everything's just fine. Because she did not want him coming home. And then after that conversation, she went upstairs and locked the door for the last time. And that's when she attempted her suicide. And look, the common law says she was depressed. She was exhausted. She was done. But you know what? What is it that she told the doctors? Why is it that she would not end her suffering and take her own life? Her kids. Her kids were what kept her here. They were a protective factor. They were the obstacle standing in between her and ending her own suffering. And so she decided to end that obstacle. To remove that factor. I do have to applaud the Commonwealth on this. I don't know if I said this to Brett after we stopped recording yesterday or not. Or if I said it on the live. I've had trouble with the whole altruistic filicide theory that the experts basically say. Basically, come on, that she killed them because they would suffer here without her or just that it would be harder for the kids without their mother here. I just did not see that aspect. The prosecution doesn't say that they disagree with the altruistic filicide. They kind of take a different glaze on altruistic filicide, except the altruism is to herself, not to the kids, which actually fits completely with the way even the defense portrays her. She's done nothing. It's all about her. Poor little girl, Lindsay. And this clicked in my mind. I hadn't quite thought about it in that way. All I knew was I don't quite buy into the altruistic filicide. I don't think she did this for the good of the kids, but I can't quite grasp what it is. And so when the Commonwealth said they were her obstacle to suicide, and we've heard from multiple experts, Dr. Sadoff and Dr. Kirk both said it was serious suicide attempt followed by murder. But what drove her to do that? What drove all of it with the suicide? I thought this was a very nuanced and enlightening view of what those doctors said. They kept her from being able to commit suicide as she wanted to do suicide. She was that steam train. And in order to be able to commit suicide, she had to remove the obstacle and the children were the obstacle. I don't know if you had seen the case like that before, but it finally clicked for me because that resonates with me with who Lindsay is, not the altruistic filicide. Look, I described yesterday, my views on this case. My views on this case are based on what the experts said. That is my majority view. I'm going to act like I'm the Supreme Court. I'm going to sweat myself a 5-4. My 5 say, I'm going to go with what the experts said. I'm going to say that she had this deep psychological issue, that it led to this altruistic filicide, but it did not prevent her from appreciating her crime and murder too is appropriate. That's what my 5 say. My 4 say that Dr. Kirk is, Absolutely. wrong that this is a selfish self-centered narcissistic person who only cares about herself and funnels all of her love through her own needs and then she did that with her children that when her children became an obstacle to her she removed that obstacle and that's what my four say that's my id talking that's my dark side talking if that's what your five say out there i don't have i don't have an argument with you because the fact you know look there's a lot of things about this case that i don't think are necessarily fair to hold against lindsey that i can imagine holding against lindsey she shouldn't be challenging this she should have pled guilty he killed your three children why are you fighting this why are you putting the world through this why are you putting patrick through this why are you trying to get out if you loved your children and you killed them what do you have to live for what do you have to fight for why are you doing this i mean part of me feels that i feel the power of that argument if i killed my three kids that'd be the end of me that wouldn't be challenging it i would be asking for the death penalty but she's out there fighting it because she wants to go in a wheelchair marathon she wants to be an advocate for women's mental health and yes the dark side in brett the part that brett like keeps down with the light is very troubled by that and and can understand why some people despise lindsey clancy totally get it and i think that's a totally legitimate way to look at her that's sort of what the prosecution is sort of subtly bringing out in this closing is that at the end of the day the only thing those kids were for her on the 24th was an obstacle and she got rid of it she got rid of that obstacle and they say look not saying she was happy about it not saying she necessarily wanted to do it but she knew that's what she had to do to do the things she wanted to do which was kill herself and she knew it was wrong she didn't take advantage of the situation she didn't take advantage of the fact that patrick was gone she created that situation and when she woke up in the hospital and she realized that she was alive and her kids were dead she was horrified and the first thing she does not when she came out of the coma like reddington wants you to think not when she's still under the influence of the anesthesia not when she's in post-coma psychosis not when she's not able to think clearly but days later when doctors are asking her about changing her medical proxy that's when she's asking for a lawyer that's when she's concerned about her legs being broken that's when she's afraid about her back being broken that's when she's asking those questions and that is when we get the justification and the first time we hear about a voice and we even know that dr resnick said it was a huge red flag if the person who was in the coma was not able to think clearly who reports hearing the voice immediately follows the voice with no resistance for example andrea yates and at this point the judge tells her to move on from this reason even though it's in evidence they do actually talk about this in evidence but way to go on commonwealth they did not skip a beat i was a little surprised the judge weighed in for what it's worth the judge did kind of interrupt both on closings you're allowed to do that as the judge because you're god in a courtroom it is kind of frowned upon for the judge or even the judge to be able to do that because you're a god in a either side to object or do anything during closing because it's kind of a we're all going to follow decorum so i was a little surprised the judge weighed in here but that's why he wanted her to move on but like what they were trying to say and what was already in evidence is that andrea yates heard voices multiple times and she resisted with all her might and it was basically when she was beat down that she finally gave into those voices and drowned her kids but it was not the first time that she heard the voice that she complied with it but what we have here is lindsey the first time she ever heard the voice she immediately turned into a robot and did it now dr resnick's red flags were that lindsey only heard this voice once has not heard it since another dr resnick red flag what she told her the voice said just isn't consistent there are three different versions depending on who she's talking to the voice doesn't tell her how to do it where to do it what order to do it and i think this is incredibly poignant to point out multiple experts have said this but just voice is not enough how who what when where why why these bands why dawson first why in different rooms what methods of killing yourself this point the commonwealth reaches over and takes another quarter because another challenge by reddington was that she didn't really try to commit suicide it wasn't a serious suicide attempt commonwealth takes a quarter and proceeds to talk about the suicide theory commonwealth says we're not saying she doesn't want to kill herself they did say that in the opening but way to go way to go way to go for changing it they're talking about the capability she wanted to kill herself but her natural desire to survive overcame it we heard this directly from one of the experts in rebuttal and a level of drugs in her body they were fine she had horizontal cuts that she knew wouldn't kill her she went off of a 12 foot window she wanted to die she really was trying she tried all these different methods which actually showed that she was in control she was actually trying all these different methods but she couldn't get over that third problem she couldn't fight that natural desire to survive which is exactly what we heard from the rebuttal experts even if you want to die it can be very hard to overcome your body's natural will to survive and if this voice that made her kill her children was making her do it then she would have done it she wouldn't have three different methods that all failed she wouldn't still be here today if it was the voice that was telling her to do it she wouldn't have three different methods that all failed she wouldn't to do it at this point the prosecutor takes the last quarter she says never said that zizel told her to make up the voice the only person who ever said that in court was the defense attorney which is absolutely true and i hope that the jurors picked up on that just what an absolute farce that was and they say look lindsey clancy knew what she was doing was wrong and the order shows her rationality the fact that she did it one at a time she didn't want those kids to run and hide because then she'd have to find them and she didn't have time for that she needed them to feel comfortable she needed them to feel safe so she told cora to stay upstairs with the baby which is exactly what i would do with my oldest he was the one i trust and she knows i trust her and she knows i would leave her with a baby and then you take the little boy three-year-old the one that you posted about how it's the most difficult human being you've ever known and the prosecution points out we didn't do that because we're trying to score points on lindsey we did that to note that lindsey clancy knew what she was doing and she didn't want those kids to run and hide because lindsey clancy knew the child that would fight her the most she knew the child she had to kill first and there's a reason that she took dawson first and that's ordered thinking she takes him down into a separate room she murders him she goes back up she takes cora down she murders cora and then she gets the baby at this point they go through the various degrees of murder how each one would fit and leave him alone and then they go through the various degrees of murder how each one would to the jury to determine which one of those charges they want to convict on and remember with first degree murder it's more than just intending and then causing the murder you have to have that extreme atrocity and so they give the jury something this is good closing arguments the jury may not agree with the prosecution on first degree murder but they're giving them what first degree would look like they say that she didn't view these three children as individuals with dignity and dreams and futures cora she wanted to be a doctor and a mom dawson dreamed about being a firefighter and they said callan callan didn't even get the chance to dream who knows what dreams callan might have had but he was robbed of that all three were robbed of that she didn't leave them in their beds after she'd killed them tucked in lovingly with their blankets and their stuffed animals she didn't care about them she strangled them and she left them dead on the floor with exercise bands still wrapped around their necks and then this was the end of the closing and i thought it was very effective i did not think the hand was overplayed because all of these points are so poignant we've told you before that when a child is murdered especially by a loved one like a parent oftentimes even in death they're not going to be able to live with it they're not going to be able to live with it they take protective measures like wrapping the child in a blanket like the first thing that when john bonnet ramsey is found they grab her even though she's clearly dead scoop her up and wrap a blanket around her because there's a protective feeling even if a child is dead to want to make them comfortable i thought this was so effective storytelling to show why there could be a first degree murder charge here she didn't see them for their humanity they were just being killed obstacles they were objects to her they were nothing more than that and that is first degree atrocity and then the prosecution ends with she left them with those exercise bands wrapped around their neck like broken toys and she walked away with these broken toys that she had because she was done playing the game and she is guilty to a moral certainty and they go back through the instructions to walk the jury through exactly what they have to find in order to convict her and look i I mean, I thought this was just, I don't know. know i thought it was a really powerful really powerful closing i mean i thought we did our theories yesterday because it's closing whatever what are they gonna say it's not like it's gonna like change my view on anything but i thought the commonwealth closing was incredibly powerful and we've been critical of the commonwealth and how they pursued this case and the evidence they put on but they can be absolutely proud of that they represented those children today and they stood up for them and they argued for them and they represented them and they sought justice for them and they can be proud of that and how they handled it and we'll see what happens but no matter what happens that was a powerful closing and why they should be proud of it as well is it wasn't just good storytelling it was good storytelling they did not overplay their hands they did not misrepresent the facts they marshaled all of their facts in an ordered way that told an ordered story because we've said that a five-week trial can be very meandering you have lots of different 85 witnesses it can be hard to follow as the jurors honestly this is why reddington's closing was very frustrating to me he had good facts on his side and he didn't use them rather he kind of blew out of proportion facts and he he misrepresented other facts i did not think that the prosecution misrepresented it any of the facts they used the best facts that they had and there were a lot of them and they ordered them in a way that made sense and then they paired it with good storytelling and i do have to say again i do think their theory changed since opening but instead of ragging on them for doing that i think that shows immense humility in the way that they truly listened to and took in all the testimony that came in for the last five weeks these closings you don't write them ahead of time it's you don't write them ahead of time you don't write them ahead of time you don't write them ahead of time you just can't you don't know what's going to come in you don't know how to do them these closings are written kind of the night before you have a general idea what you're going to say but this is not some again scripted project that they've been working on for weeks they did this after five grueling weeks of just utter exhaustion and i think it came from a deep place of justice for cora callan and dawson i hope that everybody's sleeping tonight because they've done it they've done their job i don't know what the jury will say but if there were a closing that could change minds i think the commonwealth did it yeah it was it was great it really was and i mean i'm sorry lindsay clancy's guilty she's just guilty that's not where i came into this case but she's a hundred percent guilty there's no question in my mind i just i have no reasonable doubt on her mental state i think she was suffering i think she was dealing with mental illness but she killed those kids because she chose to kill them and that deserves to result in a lengthy prison sentence if not the rest of her life and i hope that's what the jury decides now i respect this jury this jury sat through this they saw these photos they listened to everything if they come out not guilty by reason of insanity i respect that but that's not what they should say because she is guilty it is unfortunate the people have put aside the facts and the evidence presented in this case to present her as a representative of things they care about which are legitimate concerns don't get me wrong legitimate concerns legitimate shortcomings but they're not for lindsay clancy lindsay clancy wasn't failed by anybody lindsay clancy had every opportunity in the world this case is not about the medical system it's not about postpartum depression it's not about postpartum psychosis it's about a choice that lindsay clancy made and it's not about postpartum depression it's not about postpartum to kill her children so she could kill herself that's my position and the commonwealth's closing only solidified that for me i think you all know what i think about this case i thought i truly think the commonwealth's closing was one of the most powerful closings i've heard and i know the amount of work that goes into marshalling all your facts in that way and it is no small feat and now it goes to the jury like what bread said i know there are high emotions on this case if the jury comes back with not guilty by reason of mental defect despite you guys knowing that i think this is a murder one case i will accept that because this is our jury system and the jury if they reach that decision it should be respected there should not be a mob out there i don't think there will be i think it might be the other way around to be totally honest i think the people who will respect that decision would be on the side of those who think that she's guilty of murder but this is the system we've chosen it's not a perfect system but i think it is the system that comes closest to trying to seek the truth and not all juries get it right you guys certainly know what i would vote for in this case but what we felt was going to be a short 30 minute episode quickly turned into a two-hour episode we were totally going to do another episode today yeah glad we did this short episode on the closings this just tells you what i know it's like i've been disappointed in it many times one thing he said that was true is that you can't predict these kind of things how long things are going to take so look we're in the first day of deliberations i really think they will not reach a verdict tomorrow you know watch me be wrong i think this is going to be a monday verdict here's what i think is going to happen i think at around the end of the day tomorrow they are going to reach a verdict and i think they're going to say to each other let's sleep on it over the weekend they're going to say to each other let's sleep on it over the weekend they're going to come back on monday and the verdict will come in probably either monday morning or after lunch on monday if we go past monday then we start to get into dangerous territory then you start to wonder are we in hung jury land and as even reddington was like don't let there be a hung jury i mean even the defense attorney doesn't want to hung jury in this case so hopefully we get past that we get a verdict one way or the other and we can all move on with our lives i'll give the jury a little more time i truly would be surprised if they reached a verdict tomorrow afternoon i agree with you i don't think we'll get a verdict back from the jury before the weekend at all but i do think there are a lot of different nuances to go through the longer it goes yes hung jury becomes possible but because there are three different murder instructions to go through i can imagine even if most of them are decided on one of the three murder charges to have to go through the three murder charges to have to go through the elements of murder one two and manslaughter which juries are in my experience have been incredibly thorough i actually will give them all the way to wednesday watch me be wrong but i wouldn't be worried about a hung jury if we were still waiting till wednesday it's possible that we get a verdict on monday but i think this is a very very dense case for the jury and even if people have made up their minds i can imagine people want to be able to go through her medical records so i can imagine that there will be people there who want to make sure they've gotten it right and want to go through certain pages of the records go through what happened on january 24th and discuss in detail even if they in principle agree with each other so i'm just going to put out there that if this goes to the middle of next week i would not yet be afraid of a hung jury so all right well look i'm going to put out there that if this goes to the middle of next week i know what you think shoot us an email prosecutors pod at gmail.com add prosecutors pod for all your social media twitter x i guess we call it now instagram tiktok anything else for us on threads if anybody's on threads i don't know we do threads too if you want to discuss this case or anything else we cover go to facebook the gallery is hopping on this case and look i hope you guys will check out our back catalog we know there's a lot of you who are only listening to us for this case i totally get that it's an interesting case thank you for joining us thank you for trusting us with coverage on this case but we're actually pretty good and talking about other cases too so maybe this is actually not what we do all the time yeah i mean we do the same kind of analysis of old cases and new cases the case we covered before this was an 800 year old murder so you know you can get all sorts of stuff from us so check that out as well we hope you guys will stick around after this case is over if you want to just record this live you can join patreon for if you want to get episodes early and add free patreon will do that for you as well as will apple subscriptions or you can join our sub stack and get the edited video versions of these cases alice you've been so brilliant tonight this short episode is now two hours long is there anything else you want to share before we sign off for tonight i won't do deep thoughts but i'll do a practical one obviously we know that the jury has now been picked and there were alternates a lot of you were like oh my gosh what if i'm the alternate and i just found out that i'm not part of the jury thing is it's not over till it's over the alternates are still on call they're not in the deliberation room but they are sent home told to keep their phones on because and this has happened especially if these deliberations go several days it is possible that one of the jurors has to bow out for whatever reason medical reason whatever and an alternate has to step in they have to start deliberations again But just know it's actually not over until they come back with a verdict and alternates are still on call to step in if they need to be an alternate. So that's a practical thing about what's happening behind the scenes. Jury's nine women and three men. I guess we'll see what that means. I don't know. I don't know either. You go either way. All right. Well, we will see you again when we have a verdict. That is when we will see you again. And I don't know. It could be tomorrow. Maybe we're recording tomorrow. But I don't think so. I think probably. We'll see you on Monday or Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday. If it happens Wednesday, that's going to be difficult for me. Because I have to go on a trip. But I will definitely have to just call in to the live if that's what happens. I have a last deep thought. Last deep thought. Go for it, Alice. Happy birthday tomorrow, Brett. Oh, thank you, Alice. I appreciate that. Happy birthday. Maybe the birthday gift can be a conviction verdict tomorrow. Birthdays used to mean so much. Now they just mean you're getting closer to death. I'll tell you what I will not do in your honor tomorrow. I will not play dumb. I will not play dumb in those tomorrow. Oh, there you go. Don't do that. Yes. Please. No. Last thing. All right, guys. Y'all are awesome. Love all of you. Thank you so much for sticking through this with us. I know this is, look, this raises a lot of emotions. Some of you disagree with us as passionately as you could possibly disagree. Appreciate you listening and sharing your thoughts and sharing your opinions, sharing your disagreement. It's what this is all about. As we've always said to you, the promise we will always make to you is we will not lie to you. We're not going to tell you what we think you want to hear. We're not going to say what we think will get the most views or the most followers or the most popularity. We're going to tell you how we see it always straightforward without any kind of manipulation. And this is how we see this case. And I hope you can respect that. And I hope you'll stick with us. All right, guys, we'll see you soon. But until then, I'm Brett. And I'm Alice. We'll see you soon. Mm-hmm. Again, it's not a – I can tell it's like the emotional wear because I sleep the same number of hours. But I wake up just like that terrible feeling when you're like your eyelids are still so heavy. I was thinking about how tomorrow we'll have to wait. We'll see you soon. I was thinking about how tomorrow we'll have to wait.