Best of the Program | Guest: Ezra Levant | 8/25/26

**Glenn Beck** (0:03)
So I try to break down on today's podcast, the Lindsay Clancy story.
And I think I have an angle that most people don't have, but I understand through my own family history, mental illness and how devastating that is.
But I also understand through my own history, responsibility and what it means, which leads me into Spider-Man in reverse. You're a Spider-Man fan. I'm going to teach you something about Spider-Man. But more importantly, teaching you why with great power comes great responsibility, why the reverse of that is happening to us right now and what it means. And we speak to Ezra Levant. He is from Canada and he has the real scoop on what is going on in Canada. What does all of this mean? Why is this Canadian thing such a big deal? And what's the real goal from Mark Carney? All of that and so much more on today's podcast.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:17)
You're listening to The Best of The Glenn Beck Program.

**Glenn Beck** (1:25)
All right. I want to talk to you about Lindsay Clancy. This is the woman up in Massachusetts. And let me give you the story before I get into the what people are saying right now. First of all, let's start with the important thing. Cora was five. Dawson was three. Callan was eight months old. And they died in a house in Massachusetts January 24th, 2023 Their mother has never disputed that she was the one who did it. The trial ends this week in Plymouth, Mass.
Superior Court is hearing this case. But it's not about what happened. It's about one question. Is she responsible for doing it? Even though she claims she did it, is she responsible? Now, I want to make this really clear. I am not in that jury box. I have not heard testimony for four weeks. I have not been following every word that's happening. I haven't watched the witnesses. I am not going to sit here and tell you what I think the verdict should be. I've watched all of what's happening from the outside of the courtroom. And that's what I want to talk to you about, because I don't hear anybody saying these things.
So, let's start with something almost nobody in America knows, because it changes how you read every headline that you see on this case. Massachusetts does not use the word insanity. The doctrine is called lack of criminal responsibility, and the test has two doors to it. Door one, because of a mental disease, she couldn't appreciate what she was doing wrong. That's the first one. Door two, she could appreciate it perfectly well, but she lacked the substantial capacity to stop herself. Either one of those doors is enough. Okay?
And here's the crazy part. Might surprise you. She doesn't have to prove any of it. Once the defense raises it with credible evidence, the burden flips entirely to the state. Okay? So the Commonwealth now has to prove that those two doors don't work for her. The prosecution does not have to prove that she was criminally responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. What they have to prove is a negative about the inside of a woman's mind to the highest standard our law knows. That's a really high bar.
And not just the one that people assume, not pointed in the direction that people assume. So, how did this happen?
Let me go back, 1843, Scottish woodturner named Daniel MacNaghten, he walks up behind a man in a street in London. He assumes that he is the prime minister and he shoots him in the back. But he didn't shoot the prime minister, he shoots the prime minister's secretary, a man named Edward Drummond, dies five days later. At the trial, the medical witnesses testified that MacNaghten was living inside of a pollution that the government was hunting him. And so the jury acquitted him. Now see if this doesn't sound familiar. England lost its mind and so did the Queen, because Queen Victoria had been shot three times in the last three years at that time. One of those men had been acquitted on insanity as well. And so she writes to Robert Peel to say, every time this law gets tested, it seems to be of no use to anybody. So the House of Lords, they reach back, they dusted off a medieval power, the right to summon the Judges of England and make them answer questions. So on June 19th, 1843, the Judges came, they gave their answers, and those answers, the MacNaughton Rules, became the test for insanity across the entire English-speaking world for the next 150 years. Did he know the nature of the act? And if he did, did he know it was wrong? Two things you should know about how that turned out. First, MacNaughton didn't go home. He went to Bedlam for 20 years. He died in Broadmoor in 1865 Not guilty by reason of insanity has never meant not guilty and out the door, okay? Second, the rules written to punish him would have convicted him. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was just wrong about who deserved it, okay? America, we have run this same game in our own lifetime. John Hinckley shoots the president in 1981, gets acquitted in 1982, the country erupts, Congress narrows the federal test in 1984, strips out that second door, the one whether or not you could control yourself, and leaves the question of, did you know?