Why Lindsay Clancy Never Walks Out Of That Courtroom

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Let's talk about what justice actually looks like in this case. Three kids are dead, Cora was five, Dawson was three, Callan was eight months. Whatever this jury comes back with, none of that changes. So the only question left is what we actually want a courtroom to do about it. So the big question is what exactly does justice look like? And are we going to get to justice, quote unquote? It's another bumper sticker type phrase that people like to throw around when you want things to go in one direction or the next. One of the things that struck me here in this is the judge said, you know what, we're not going to let these women who the defense had found, who've been through post-partum psychosis, testify about it, to give their experience, to help the jury understand what it's like from a first-person perspective to be living through such an experience and remarkably survive it as well.
There are expert witnesses, the judge is allowing to come on doctors to explain it, but the women who've lived it, the judge said no, the jury can't hear from you. Can we get to justice, quote unquote, if the courtroom is actively prohibiting the jury from getting the context of the very problems they're trying to litigate?

**Bob Motta** (1:42)
Ali and I had an amazing conversation about this, like in that ruling. And at the end of the day, like I understand and agree with what Kevin was saying, Kevin, her attorney, because, and I put it this way to Ali, if you're a juror, what is going to be the most instructive, helpful thing for you as a juror to hear about the realities from people that have actually lived it, in comparison to an expert that has probably never experienced it firsthand and is just talking about it.
There's a certain weight that can only come from those that have lived it, that an expert will never be able to fill that gap.
That's where I worry about in the case, because it would have a huge impact if they could parade 30 people into that courtroom and say, I lived this. This is what my experience was. And having the jurors hear it firsthand from people that have no reason to come into that courtroom and lie, they'd be forced to deal with the reality that this does exist in the world and this is what it can look like and this is what it can result in.
That being said, the counterargument ultimately is that if we allowed that to happen, that it would ultimately end up in being 30 mini trials. Like every single person that would come into that courtroom, oh, well, so you went, you were psychotic, but you didn't kill your kids, did you? Oh, you got in a car and drove, you know, it was the argument that was being made in the courtroom, and it's the correct argument. Because it could work against Lindsay. We say, okay, well, look, this person went psychotic and she handcuffs herself to the bed. That's what she did. She didn't kill her. You know what I'm saying? And like, so when you're talking about, again, every story is its own case. Every individual is their own person. No two people are the same. Where I feel that the weight of that would be incredibly powerful, I worry about the other side of it.

**Tony Brueski** (4:14)
There's another side to that coin. And I think that you spelled it out very eloquently there on what that means.
Because, true, I mean, if they were to allow that, I mean, as much as I completely agree, I think they'd be incredibly powerful.
But would it be prejudicial somewhat? I mean, then could the prosecution then parade in 15 other women who've gone through this, who are not remotely sad about it or remorseful. And you could have a parade of people that, oh, my God, look at these monstrous people who've come in here, who are psychotic. And they're like, yeah, I'm glad the kids are gone. You know, in their own store. I mean, probably hard to find that. But you could flip the coin and flip it the other way of, yes, these ones survived it this way. These ones have a very different outlook on it. And these are all individual cases that are not this specific case. So I hear you there. But what good, I guess, the biggest question, what good? And this is like the biggest question I have for the state, the DA. What good comes from putting a disabled woman, a mentally, physically disabled woman, a woman who has suffered from this mental disability now in prison forever, who will forever hold the grief of what this mental illness did to her and her children those years ago? What I don't, I don't know. I failed to see how that is justice in this case for those children.