What does justice look like for Lindsay Clancy?

What happened: The Lindsay Clancy case ended in a mistrial on Friday. The prosecution has yet to decide whether to retry the case, reduce the charges, or offer Clancy a plea deal, but given that eleven of the twelve jurors voted “not guilty,” a conviction seems unlikely. 

Why it matters: The peculiarities of Massachusetts law played a substantial role in the trial’s outcome, but the national conversation continues to focus more on Clancy’s mental illness and just how much weight it should carry in determining what justice looks like in her case. And the answer is more complicated than either side seems ready to admit.  

The backstory: What are the facts? 

For much of the last six weeks, Lindsay Clancy’s trial has dominated headlines and taken over social media feeds. It came to an end on Friday when Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial after the jury remained deadlocked 11-to-1 in favor of finding Clancy not guilty. 

That the trial came so close to an acquittal has shocked many, considering that Clancy admitted to killing her three children on January 24, 2023, allegedly telling them, “Go to God, baby,” while she used exercise bands to asphyxiate each one in turn. She was alone with the kids because she had asked her husband to pick up dinner and stop by the store for her medication. Clancy then used the remainder of her time alone to slit her wrists and jump from the second story of their home in an attempt to kill herself. 

Upon returning, her then-husband Patrick found the children dead, and Lindsay paralyzed but still alive on the pavement outside of their home.

The details of what happened are hard to write, and I presume they are hard to read as well. And that’s how it should be. What Lindsay Clancy did was evil, and no attempts to justify or explain it away can change that. 

At the same time, understanding why she did it is far more complicated.

Was she insane, as her defense suggests? It is, at the very least, plausible. 

Was she cold and calculating, as argued by the prosecution? The facts of the case would point in that direction as well.

So, what happens if the answer to both questions is yes? 

This case captured the nation’s attention because it doesn’t fit neatly inside any of the boxes we would normally use to understand the tragedies and atrocities of this life, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. And we’re all worse off as a result. 

So, for today, let’s take a different approach.

Why the case was complicated

When trying to make sense of the Lindsay Clancy case, the best approaches I’ve seen tend to focus on one aspect at a time. To that end, some resources I would highly recommend are:

• Erin Kerry’s “A Christian response to the Lindsay Clancy case” on the mental health and medication side of the story    
• Articles by Erin Kerry and Kat Rosenfield on the social media response
• Articles by Jed Rubenfeld and Michelle Oberman on the legal side of the case, and why justice was going to be difficult to find, regardless of what the jury decided. 

Let’s start with the legal side before continuing with a look at why so many have strong opinions on what the jury should have decided.

Lindsay Clancy was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, which carries the charge of life without parole. Massachusetts—where the trial occurred—does not allow judicial discretion in sentencing in these cases, which meant the stakes of a guilty verdict were clear to the jury from the start. Since the judge declared a mistrial last week, Clancy is still being held at a mental hospital under those charges until the district attorney decides if he will attempt to re-try her case or seek lesser charges.  

That the trial occurred in Massachusetts is also important because the state has a relatively unique understanding of what it means for a defendant to plead insanity, as Clancy did. 

As Jed Rubenfeld describes, “In most of the country—and in federal prosecutions as well—when criminal defendants plead insanity, it’s up to them to prove it. But in Massachusetts, the state has to prove that Clancy was not insane, and it must do so beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

Consequently, “If there’s any reasonable doubt about her sanity, Clancy must be acquitted. And how could there not be reasonable doubt about Clancy’s sanity? The psychiatric ‘experts’ who are testifying sharply disagree about it. All across the country, Americans sharply disagree about it.”

Moreover, the definition of “insanity” in Massachusetts is nebulous at best, requiring only that “at the time of the commission of the criminal act the person was afflicted with a mental disease or defect of such severity that the person did not know the criminal act was wrong.”

Given those stakes, that eleven of the twelve jurors ended the trial believing it was at least possible that she met the definition of insanity while strangling her three children seems far less surprising. Still, the intricacies of her state’s laws severely limited the prosecution’s options, despite knowing that proving insanity was a long shot going in. 

Was there a better option?

Voluntary manslaughter, which the state defines as an “unlawful homicide arising not from malice, but ‘from the frailty of human nature’” would seem to fit the situation far better than first-degree murder. However, Massachusetts limits eligibility to what are typically considered crimes of passion, meaning that a mother who kills her children in the kind of cold, calculated way that Clancy did is usually not eligible for that charge. In most states, voluntary manslaughter has a broader definition that can include when a defendant suffers from “extreme emotional disturbance,” but not in Massachusetts. 

As a result, the jury was left with three options:

• Convict Clancy of first-degree murder, disregarding her mental state at the time of the crime.
• Convict Clancy of involuntary manslaughter or second-degree murder, both of which require that the act was involuntary or unpremeditated. That was clearly not the case here.
• Acquit Clancy on grounds of insanity, which would have likely left her confined to a mental health facility for some time, but otherwise include no further punishment. 

None of those options seems like justice. And that is part of why so many—myself included—have been confused by the course of events throughout the case. Still, bewilderment isn’t the only emotion driving responses to Lindsay Clancy’s story. Fear has proven an even greater motivator, and one that’s essential to understanding so much of the outrage online. 

“It could have been us”

One of the most perplexing and frustrating parts of following this story has been the outcry from those who want to depict Clancy as the victim. A surprising number have even gone so far as to blame her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, arguing that her confession was coerced and he was the one to blame. 

More often, Lindsay’s supporters have argued that the medical system failed her and that she is the victim of postpartum psychosis. The latter of those beliefs is likely true, though her symptoms and the timeline on which they emerged would be somewhat abnormal. It’s worth noting, though, that while postpartum depression—her initial diagnosis—occurs in one out of seven deliveries, postpartum psychosis is only found once or twice in every thousand. 

That number is still more frequent than I would have thought, and likely underreported to some extent, but it’s far less common than depression. Understanding that fact is important because the basic fear that “it could have been us” seems to be a driving force behind much of Clancy’s support. After all, if what happened to her was just bad luck, then it could happen to you as well, and that is an understandably terrifying thought. 

However, developing such a psychosis does not appear to be a matter of chance. Researchers point to bipolar disorder—which Clancy is thought to have—alongside genetic components as contributing factors. Moreover, most of those who receive treatment make a complete recovery, though it generally takes six to twelve months. And while diagnosing the disease can be difficult, awareness is growing, due in part to the pervasive nature of Lindsay Clancy’s story. 

Ultimately, it makes sense why so many could allow fear to color their understanding of what happened. But, as Kat Rosenfield put it, “One need not believe that Clancy is a monster to acknowledge that she is a murderer.” 

Lindsay Clancy’s story is tragic, but that does not make her the victim. I don’t know what the correct punishment would be for the crimes she committed, and she is unlikely to reside anywhere but a mental health facility or prison anytime soon, but the proper response cannot be one that oversimplifies an impossibly complicated situation. And that reality is one of the primary truths we need to take from this story.

Spiritual application: When the simple answer is wrong

As fallen, finite beings who have been given the opportunity to enter into a personal relationship with the omnipotent, omniscient Creator of everything that exists, it should not come as a surprise that there are certain truths about God that we have to take on faith. But accepting that reality—even if, on some level, we understand it—can be difficult. And most of the heresies that have torn at the church across the centuries arose from that fact.

Very few people woke up one morning and decided to be a heretic. Most, from the days of the Judaizers (Galatians 2–5), Gnostics, and Arians on up to the misguided attempts at Christianity we see today, came about because people took an aspect of God’s identity or what it means to follow him that was difficult to understand and pushed it beyond the bounds of Scripture. And many of them genuinely believed that they were helping people draw closer to God in the process. 

We’re no more immune to that temptation than they were. 

This side of heaven, our understanding of the Lord will never be complete. There will always be questions that Scripture doesn’t answer and aspects of who God is that we simply cannot fully comprehend. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but it is essential at all times to go back to the Bible for our foundational understanding of what is true and what is not. 

At the end of the day, if we ever care more about getting the answer we want than the answer God has given us, then we’re headed down a very dangerous road. And while that is true of theology and Scripture, it’s just as true when it comes to applying God’s word to our lives as well. 

So, whether it’s the Lindsay Clancy trial, the nature of our triune God, or any other subject where the best answers can feel unsatisfying, remember to go back to the Lord in prayer and check your conclusions against the truth of Scripture. 

It’s far better to leave a question unanswered than to walk away with the wrong answer. Where do you need that reminder today? 

God is good

Of the more than 800 languages spoken in Papua, New Guinea, only seventeen have a complete translation of the Old and New Testaments. One more recently took its first steps toward that end, when the Onobasulu translation of the New Testament was completed and given to the people. Because of the remote nature of their villages, it had to be flown in, and it marked the completion of nearly thirty years of work by Dutch linguist Dr. Anne Stoppels and others. Because many in their culture cannot read—Stoppels had to help create a written language as part of her work—her team also created audio versions powered by tiny solar panels on the back.

Kingdom impact

Looking back on her work, Dr. Stoppels said, “I’m praying that this Word of God will do its work. The Word of God will not come back empty. Now, they have the whole book, and it is a beautiful book. I’m praying that it will bear fruit for the next generation.”

Prayer point

Will you echo that prayer, both for the Onobasulu people and for all those they might reach for Christ? Will you also pray for the other groups who do not yet have a copy of the Bible in their own languages, as well as for the missionaries and linguists working hard to remedy that problem? 

The Christian Broadcasting Network has more on the story