(. Photo by The Washington Times)
A woman accused of k!lling her three young children in 2023 shouldn’t face a second trial, her lawyer argued in court on Thursday.
He asked the judge to declare her not guilty by reason of insanity and close the case once and for all.
The case has reached a dead end.
Last week, 11 out of 12 jurors were ready to clear Lindsay Clancy of criminal responsibility, but one juror couldn’t agree, which forced the judge to declare a mistrial.
Now her attorney, Kevin Reddington, is asking the judge to simply acquit her instead of letting prosecutors try again.
The prosecutors haven’t yet said if they plan to retry the case.
There’s no dispute about what happened.
The 36-year-old former nurse strangled her children ages 5, 3, and 8 months old at their home before trying to take her own life by jumping from an upstairs window.
What everyone disagrees on is whether she was mentally responsible for her actions.
Clancy’s defense team says she was suffering from a severe mental condition called postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors claimed she knew exactly what she was doing.
Reddington argued on Thursday that none of the doctors, whether brought by prosecutors or the defense, disputed that Clancy had a mental illness.
The only disagreement was about which specific condition she had.
He told the court that the prosecution failed to prove Clancy was mentally sound when she k!lled her children.
He pointed out that just because she could manage routine tasks driving, planning a birthday party, taking a child to a doctor doesn’t mean she was criminally responsible during a severe mental health crisis that everyone involved agreed was acute.
Prosecutors had countered by highlighting those everyday activities as evidence she was functioning normally.
But Reddington dismissed that argument, saying routine competence isn’t proof of criminal responsibility.
The trial drew national attention and sparked conversations about maternal mental health.
The judge will review the motion on September 29. Clancy remains in a psychiatric hospital and is paralyzed from the waist down after her jump from the house.
