Lindsay Clancy and her legal team returned to court this week, after her triple murder trial ended earlier this month in a mistrial. This time around, Clancy’s team made a massive pivot in their defense strategy — one that left the hosts of “The View” slackjawed.
For the bulk of the trial, Clancy’s team argued that she was not criminally guilty of killing her three children, by reason of postpartum psychosis. The jury was ready to agree with that, except for one juror, who held out long enough to force the judge to declare a mistrial. This week, Clancy’s team instead argued that there’s no actual proof that she killed her children at all.
“My jaw was on the floor, because the defense’s entire argument hinged on ‘She had postpartum psychosis,’” Alyssa Farah Griffin marveled. “‘She wasn’t responsible by reason of insanity, but she, in a psychotic state, did this crime.’ And now he’s like, ‘Well, we don’t even know if she did it.’”
Host Joy Behar was quick to point out that Clancy never explicitly admitted to the murders, which Farah Griffin conceded on, and said was probably “a really smart tactic” by Clancy’s lawyer.
“But this is my issue with the insanity defense, is because people — I get it’s been around for hundreds of years, but you can argue it to get off,” Farah Griffin said. “But then, what could end up happening is she walk and may not spend any time, even in a mental institution, at the end of this.”
For her part, former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin called it a “terrible” move by Clancy’s legal team.
“I don’t understand how you can spend an entire trial arguing that she did it, but she is not criminally responsible because she was suffering from a psychotic episode of postpartum psychosis, and then turn around in front of the very same judge and say there’s no evidence that she did it,” Hostin said incredulously.
The ABC hosts then joked that it seemed like Clancy’s attorney was taking legal strategy from people on TikTok, who made similar points throughout the trial.
“It feels very conspiracy theory, and not grounded in the law, and I don’t love this new position,” Hostin added.
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
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