Vatzian Piece in Today's \The Baltimore Sun\ --
Lindsay Clancy trial lays bare the problem of the insanity defense
Lindsay Clancy looks at jurors as Judge Sullivan asks them to start deliberations for a sixth day during her murder trial on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, in Plymouth, Mass. The judge declared a mistrial in the case on Friday after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)
By Richard E. Vatz
PUBLISHED: September 7, 2026
The trial of Lindsay Clancy has ended in a mistrial.
Articles, blogs, on-air radio and television analyses and the like have been discussing the case of Clancy, the woman who, in 2023, killed her three beautiful children: Cora, 5 years old; Dawson, 3 years old and Callan, an 8-month-old baby. They were found dead in the family basement, having been gruesomely strangled one by one with exercise bands.
Clancy was tried in a Massachusetts court of law, one of the few venues where defendants such as Clancy enjoy the presumption of proof for pleas of insanity, once they are allowed to make such a plea.
Thus, the prosecution in Clancy’s case had to meet the legal burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she was criminally responsible.
It has been called “the battle of the experts,” since psychiatrists, seen by some as “hired guns” on the prosecution and defense’s side, have come to opposite conclusions as to her legal culpability.
One could find no better expert to adjudicate this disagreement than the late psychiatrist Dr. Thomas S. Szasz, the preeminent critic of the insanity plea, who was a friend and one-time co-author of mine.
It is not hard to imagine what his verdict would have been in the murder trial of Clancy: guilty of first-degree murder.
Szasz, the author of “The Myth of Mental Illness,” didn’t believe in mental illness; he thought that all matters called “mental illness” were problems in living, sometimes terribly lived lives, medicalized to mystify observers into believing that some undefined source forced people to act illegally or just badly.
He rejected insanity pleas outright, arguing directly and indirectly throughout his works, including “Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences” and “Ideology and Insanity: Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man.”
A multitude of his writings attest to his belief that if mental illnesses were real, we would be able to locate consistent chemical-neurological evidence of them. But that is not how they are diagnosed.
They are diagnosed by psychiatrists, psychologists (not medical doctors) or, in some states, social workers (also not medical doctors).
Typical of these “illnesses” — called “mental disorders” in the psychiatric bible of mental disorders, the DSM-5 — are “adjustment disorders,” “stress-related” disturbances that have no referent to physiological or chemical changes.
In short, a “patient” can be diagnosed with mental illness without any way to disconfirm it.
But let’s assume for a minute, for the sake of argument, that there are mental illnesses.
In the Clancy case, even the prosecution falsely concedes that Clancy suffers from a “diseased” mind, repeatedly stated without any evidence.
The prosecution and defense agreed that Clancy suffered from post-partum depression but disagreed that she suffered from post-partum psychosis, which would have meant that she was out of touch with reality.
Almost everyone agrees that this is a complex case because you have psychiatrists applying their alleged “science” to come to an unscientific conclusion. These “scientists” have come to diametrically opposite conclusions.
With physical illness, there is usually no dispute among physicians as to its existence or non-existence. Strep throat, stomach ulcers and the like do not engender debates as to their existence.
What’s a juror to think?
With expert disagreement, it becomes mere conjecture as to why Clancy killed her children.
The jurors, laypersons, know little to nothing about psychiatry, but they can look at the hard evidence that shows the planning and premeditation that Clancy devised to make it impossible for her husband to be home to stop her from killing her children.
They could look at the everyday behaviors she accomplished in the hours leading up to the killings: cleaning the house, preparing for dinner, etc.
Szasz is right — the arrogance of psychiatry to infer why people do what they do is fostered by the inability to prove anyone wrong.
You must use logic.
Why did she do it and then try to kill herself?
She strangled them with elastic bands and left at least one of the children lying face down, according to trial testimony. She didn’t want to see the faces of her deceased children. Who would?
What’s a lay group of 12 jurors to think?
They had to agree unanimously that there was deliberate premeditation, certainly proved by her careful timing of the killings when her husband left the house.
What must jurors think when the judge says they can factor in mental impairment, including effects from prescription medications? That they had a material effect on her judgment.
How could lay people, in light of these instructions, come to a unanimous conclusion as to what Clancy was thinking?
In Clancy’s nearly uniquely terrible judgment, she likely felt her children would be miserable without her.
Should we be surprised that someone should have such terrible judgment?
I’m not — I am an older American who in his long life has seen people with awful and destructive judgment, in families, in government, in schools — everywhere.
But defendant Lindsay Clancy is one of the worst.
Understandably, the jury got it wrong; the vague exculpatory category “mental illness” for insanity and the extensive premeditation left them conflicted, as it might any group of 12 laypersons.
Were I a juror in this case, my verdict would be what Szasz’s would have been: guilty of first-degree murder for this horrifying and ghastly premeditated slaughter of three sympathetically helpless children, including one baby.
If there is a retrial, don’t expect first-degree murder to be on the table, especially as “mental disease” is conceded by the prosecution.
---------------------------------------------
Richard E. Vatz (rvatz@towson.edu) is distinguished professor emeritus at Towson University and author of “The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion: The Agenda-Spin Model.”
Comments