Lindsay Clancy defense scores ‘extremely helpful’ psychosis concession as expert flags next hurdle

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Lindsay Clancy’s attorney sought to blunt prosecutors’ portrayal of the Massachusetts mother as organized and calculating, pressing a hospital psychiatrist to acknowledge that a person can communicate, make plans and carry them out while experiencing psychosis.

“People can communicate and plan and act on plans even if they’re in the middle of a psychosis, right?” defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked Dr. Sejal Shah Monday.

“So this is not, in your opinion, someone who was trying to exaggerate her conditions for some legal reason, correct?” Reddington asked.

“No,” Shah replied.

“The burden is on the prosecutors to show that she was criminally responsible at the time of the deaths,” Zuckerman said. “That is unique to Massachusetts, and I think it’s beneficial to the defense here.”

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, has pleaded not guilty to three counts each of murder and strangulation. Judge William Sullivan told jurors that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was criminally responsible when the children were killed.