Watching the Lindsay Clancy trial, as well as its aftermath, play out has made me fear, seriously, for the future of this country. A functioning 21st-century society requires a sensible and reliable legal system, and ours seems to be going off the rails.
Clancy sent her husband, Patrick, on errands, and while he was gone, she strangled their three children, including an 8-month-old baby, and then tried to kill herself. Clancy claimed she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, but medical experts who testified admitted that there was no evidence of psychosis in Clancy’s extensive medical records, which did show she was being treated for postpartum depression.
The jury in Clancy’s case — nine women and three men — not only did not convict her, but 11 of the 12 jurors voted for acquittal on grounds of insanity. The 12th juror’s refusal to acquit resulted in a mistrial.
The behavior of Clancy’s defense counsel Kevin Reddington was incredibly unprofessional. He attacked the 12th juror publicly after the trial, a stunt that shocked legal experts, including author and commentator Jonathan Turley, who described it as “putting a target” on the man’s back. Reddington also proclaimed that he had “crushed” prosecutor Tim Cruz, and then went on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and asked for a pardon for Clancy from President Donald Trump. As a matter of law, the president cannot pardon someone charged with an offense under state (as opposed to federal) law. Reddington was apparently unaware of that. Worse, when pressed on the limits of the president’s power, Reddington said he wanted Trump to put pressure on Cruz — presumably so Cruz will decide not to retry Clancy.
Perhaps most astonishingly, Reddington called Clancy “a wonderful neighbor, friend, wife and mother … just an incredible person” and a “wonderful, wonderful person.”
There’s defense. And then there’s delusion.
A “wonderful mother” does not kill her children. A “wonderful wife” does not send her husband out of the home so she can kill their children while he’s gone — all the while telling him on the phone that they’re OK — and then direct him down to the basement when he returns home so he can find their murdered bodies.
Lindsay Clancy is not a “wonderful person.”
When Cruz gave a press conference after the trial, he was asked by a reporter, “What do you say to the people who felt the whole prosecution was insensitive?”
The question clearly stunned him.
“Insensitive?” he asked, incredulous. “Insensitive is killing three children. Insensitive is ignoring those facts. We have an obligation to stand up for those people and seek justice.”
It’s shocking that this even needs to be said.
Just days after the trial concluded, three of the nine female jurors gave an interview that spoke volumes. Juror Kellie Farina criticized the one man on the jury who had stood up for justice. Her statement strains credulity. She said, “He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”
Um … yes?
Farina also claimed that the prosecution was biased because it did not provide character witnesses proving that Clancy was “a bad mother.” (Clancy’s children were unavailable to testify.) Jury forewoman Roni Carlson further stated that “everything proved (Clancy) loved her children.” (Everything? Really?) They liked defense counsel Reddington because he was “funny” and “entertaining,” and of course, according to juror Paula Devlin, because Reddington’s “compassion toward Lindsay was amazing.” The prosecution, on the other hand, “didn’t show enough compassion” for the woman on trial for murdering her three children.
I’m beginning to think that the words “sensitivity” and “compassion” should be stricken from the English language. At the very least, it needs to be communicated to a lot of Americans that neither of those is the primary purpose of the criminal justice system.
Last October, I wrote a column titled “Misguided ‘Compassion’ Contributes to Political Polarization.” In it, I explained why “compassion” cannot be the basis for public policy:
“Compassion is a virtue, an admirable individual attribute, a way for people to deal with each other one-on-one or in small groups. But it loses its meaning when it is elevated to being a justification for public policy, which is, of necessity, collective. Policy, by definition, deals with the rule; compassion is a vehicle for dealing with the exceptions.
“Governance by compassion, therefore, results not in a more benevolent society but rather in a chaotic, anarchic and disordered one. Policies promoted because they are said to be ‘compassionate’ to the unfortunate few end up creating a system of misery for the majority, institutionalizing unfairness, oppression, absurdity, violence and even societal collapse.”
The Clancy trial bears that out in spades.
We cannot have any discussion about the legal system without understanding the impact of precedent. The copycat murders have already started: Corie Walsh, a mother of four from Frankfort, Illinois, was arrested last week and has been charged in the hanging death of her 2-year-old son Barrett. Walsh was allegedly fixated on the Clancy trial, had been texting friends about it just hours before Barrett was killed, and told officers who arrived on the scene that her son was “the Antichrist” and “the devil.”
Defense counsel are already planning their insanity arguments. They released a statement on Sept. 6, saying that Walsh was having a “psychotic episode.” One of Walsh’s attorneys, Andrea Lyon, represented Casey Anthony, the Florida woman charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. Anthony was acquitted — despite the duct tape wrapped around Caylee’s face — because the child’s body was so badly decomposed and partially consumed by wild animals that the coroner could not establish a cause of death. A spectator outside Anthony’s trial said after the verdict was announced, “I just think it’s going to make millions of people think they can get away with killing their child or committing major crimes and getting away with it. This isn’t a good depiction of what our justice system is like or should be.”
Isn’t it? That was 15 years ago.
No doubt Walsh’s defense team will want a jury filled with women prepared to believe that she, too, was a wonderful mother.
Walsh’s counsel asked for her to be released on bail. Will County Judge Amy Bertani refused, ruling that Walsh was “a clear and present threat to (her) husband and other children.” In what sounded like an explicit reference to the Clancy case, Bertani also said, “I can’t make this decision out of compassion or empathy.”
Thank God. A voice of sanity.
Agree/Disagree with the author(s)? Let them know in the comments below and be heard by 10’s of thousands of CDN readers each day!
