Not just guilty or not – The jury's options in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial

ByAna Faguy reporting from court in Massachusetts. Updated 3 minutes ago.

Key points

• Charged with three counts of first-degree murder, she does not dispute killing her two sons and daughter in 2023.
• The 36-year-old former nurse killed her three small children in the basement of their family home in Massachusetts.
• Lindsay Clancy's murder trial has gripped the American public for the last five weeks.
• Under Massachusetts law, there is no burden on Clancy to prove her mental illness and that she lacked criminal responsibility.
• "This option allows the jury to accept that the murders were not planned or calculated but that instead Clancy made a split-second decision to act, " Cucolo remarked.

Meanwhile, the 36-year-old former nurse killed her three small children in the basement of their family home in Massachusetts.

But her lawyer argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, and therefore could not distinguish right from wrong.

In practice, the prosecution, by contrast, argues Clancy created a calculated, intentional decision to kill them and knew right from wrong in that moment.

After three days of deliberation, a jury of nine women and three men will continue to deliberate, with a number of options before them, on Tuesday morning. Not guilty / not guilty by reason of insanity.

This hinges on the postpartum psychosis defence – her legal team argued that Clancy hallucinated a voice that informed her to kill the children.

Expert witnesses informed the court how severe this illness can be, and family members testified concerning Clancy's state of mind.

Rather, it is on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she was criminally responsible when she killed her children, criminal defence lawyer Elyse Hershon informed the BBC.

While she had a mental illness, she still controlled her actions and knew they were wrong, they can do this by either proving beyond reasonable doubt that she didn't suffer from a mental illness at the time or that.

Notably, a not guilty verdict would mean Clancy went free but that is considered highly unlikely. Much more probable is a not guilty by reason of insanity. It would result in Clancy being detained at a hospital.

"The case really comes down to where she is going to serve the rest of her life; the defence thinks it should be a psychiatric facility, the prosecution thinks it should be in a state prison, " Hershon remarked.

This is the most serious potential outcome for Clancy – being discovered guilty of first-degree murder. It is the intentional and premeditated killing of another person.

In the state of Massachusetts, this conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

As Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor and expert in mental health law, put it to the BBC, Clancy would effectively need to be seen as "a monster in the jury's eyes" if they pick this outcome.

Jurors would have to find there was extreme atrocity or cruelty or premeditation or both to convict Clancy of this, and it would mean the prosecution had proven there were no mitigating factors.

In this case, mental disease or defect – as the law describes it – could be a mitigating factor.

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague remarked during closing arguments there was no dispute Clancy was suffering from mental illness but it was not so severe that she didn't know right from wrong.

Expert witnesses for the prosecution cast doubt on whether Clancy actually heard the voice that she remarked ordered her to kill her children.

This is a catch-all for any murder that is not first-degree, under Massachusetts law.

It applies to unlawful killings committed with malice or extreme recklessness, but without prior planning.

"For this verdict, the jurors may not be convinced that the actions leading up to the murder rose to the level of pre-planned premeditated but that instead, Clancy consciously saw an opportunity to commit the killings at the specified time, " Cucolo remarked.

In the case of second-degree murder, Clancy would additionally face a life sentence – but with the possibility of parole.

For context, the jury received yet another option when the judge allowed them to find Clancy guilty of manslaughter – previously a point of contention between the defence and the prosecution.

In practice, a manslaughter conviction would mean Clancy unintentionally killed "by wanton and reckless conduct". It carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison per count.

Notably, the manslaughter option notes that through an involuntary intoxication, in this case an overprescription of her medication, Clancy experienced a mental defect that was a mitigator in her understanding what she was doing, Hershon stated.

Intent is an significant distinction between a verdict like manslaughter and the two murder verdicts, experts stated.

For context, the prosecution is not obligated to demonstrate that she intended to cause the children's deaths for there to be a manslaughter conviction, she continued.

Taken together, the developments around not just guilty or not – The jury' s options in Lindsay Clancy' s point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.