Patrick Clancy Isn't on Trial - So Why Are People Blaming Him?

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Ann Emerson and this is Criminally Obsessed. Somehow, Patrick Clancy has ended up on trial too, not in a Massachusetts courtroom, but online. People are asking what Patrick knew, what he missed, and why he left his children with Lindsay that horrible night. And let's be clear, Lindsay Clancy is not denying that her actions led to the deaths of her three children in January 2023. Her defense is that she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis. So here's my question, is everyone blaming Patrick because prosecutors got this case wrong from the very beginning? Defense attorney and prosecutor Jack Rice thinks so. I mean, if you were the prosecutor on this and they brought the evidence to you, would you take this to trial? Why do you ask me that question? Wait until you hear how Jack would have presented the case against Lindsay Clancy. And then there's Patrick Clancy's testimony. A lot of you think what he's saying doesn't add up. But the jury heard him on the sand describing the moment that he returned and realized something was terribly wrong. Was there anything you noticed? Yeah, the house is really quiet. Is that unusual? Yeah. So why are people so angry with him? And is it the prosecution's fault? I thought to myself, how sadistic is it that you're running this man through this again? Be sure to like, subscribe and turn on your notifications. We will be updating this story. Thank you so much, Jack Rice for jumping into this conversation with me. Criminal defense attorney, you have been doing this for decades on both sides of the aisle, right? Can you just give me a little [00:01:51] Jack Rice: bit about your background, Jack? Sure, sure. I am a former prosecutor. And I am a criminal defense attorney. I've been doing this since the 90s. I am a former CIA case officer. And part of my experience [00:02:07] Speaker 1: with the agency was interrogations. We had so many questions as we've been watching the Lindsay Clancy trial. I'm so glad you could join us today. No, I'm thrilled to do it. This is one of those [00:02:18] Jack Rice: really unusual, close calls for a lot of different reasons. And I think that the Commonwealth is really struggling for a lot of reasons there. At the same time, we have three dead children. And that's a fact. And she did it. So you have all of those things happening at the same time. It's hard. [00:02:39] Speaker 1: When I've been watching this trial, I mean, it is literally the saddest trial I've ever watched. It is literally the saddest trial in America right now. Without question. I mean, I can tell you, [00:02:49] Jack Rice: I've handled a lot of cases in my life. And I've tried a lot of cases, including everything from murder on down. And I've done a lot of commentary, watching and handling. I've been involved in documentaries across the country. And this case sticks out. It sticks out because honestly, this case is a tragedy. It's a tragedy for every single person in the room. It's a tragedy for these children. There's no question about that. It's a tragedy for Patrick to watch the brutality of what he is facing, what he faced, what he will always carry with him for the rest of his life. [00:03:24] Speaker 1: You know, there is a lot of people asking whether or not the husband in this situation, Patrick Clancy, who we saw the first day, give that testimony that pretty much broke all of our hearts. [00:03:36] Speaker 3: Can you describe thoughts of hurting the kids or them having some sort of ailment? [00:03:46] Speaker 1: People are asking, why doesn't he hold some culpability in this case? It's even a hard thing for me to say out loud to some degree. But can you answer for us as far as if he could, could he have been charged or found culpable on any level for not stepping in to stop this awful, awful situation? [00:04:11] Jack Rice: You know, I've seen this as well out there and people have been discussing this. The nature of how this might have worked or could work technically is that every parent has an obligation to protect their child, to protect their children. And if they see something that's endangering those children, their obligation, that parental obligation is to make sure that they're all right. And in fact, if you fail to do that, you could potentially face a whole series of things. But I think realistically, the charge that we see most in most jurisdictions across the country is something called child endangerment. It's basically a foreseeable injury that could come for these children. So the question becomes, could Patrick have faced or could face child endangerment charges? First of all, I think you alluded to it in the first place. When I watched him, he was so obviously a victim in a way that was really hard for, I think, almost anybody to watch. It was tragic beyond words. The notion of saying I'm going to charge that is something I would have a hard time believing as a former prosecutor that I could actually pull that trigger, that I could actually charge him because I would destroy me if I went to trial against me. And I would say, how dare you charge somebody like this now? And the reason I say that is because we have to look at sort of what happened before she killed these three children. And again, the defense has acknowledged she did this. So know that. But if you look at what happened before this, they found some eight weeks after their third child, their youngest, this five month old, that she was facing and she was dealing with not just postpartum depression, but it was actually turning into psychosis. In fact, she was on nine different medications, prescription drugs. And the language that I would use that they're not using, but they should is called a cocktail. And the reason I use that term is because anybody who's dealt with medicine and with prescriptions like this is what they start doing is they start trying one and then they try another. And now they have two that are running, not just how each impacts the person, but how they impact each other. And then they add a third and then they take off the second. But the problem is, is that second still stays in their system. And this went back and forth. The prosecutor during openings held up a big giant gallon size plastic bag of these prescription drugs. And what they were taking were sleeping pills, anti-psychotic medications, anti-depressants, and more. And so that's a big part of this. Then before this actually happened, she was actually put into a lockdown facility and held by doctors until they decided that she wasn't a threat. So if you look at all of those aspects of this, my response would be, if you had to decide who was more culpable, would it have been the husband who said, I know you've got a problem, let's try to fix this? Or the doctors who kept puffing drugs into it? And the doctors who said, you know what, we're going to let you go because we think you're fine now. So that's part of the problem. And in fact, there's a lawsuit that's going on, a civil suit that's going on against all of those docs, which is sort of sitting out there in the weeds. And from my perspective is inconsequential compared to this, but it's still sitting out there. [00:07:48] Speaker 1: But you know, he's watching her basically the degradation of Lindsey Clancy. She's going downhill fast. She's, she's got this cocktail of medications. She's got these bags of meds that she's, she's holding doctor's appointments. You know, I think a lot, I think the, the criticism right now is that a lot of, a lot of people out there are saying, why wasn't he overseeing some of this when he saw that she could not, could not handle this and, and couldn't manage it, you know, as far as like the quantity, the strengths of, of what she was taken and, and the, and scheduling these doctor's appointments, why, you know, as her partner, why wasn't he doing more to, to help her? Is this all just hindsight's 20, 20 at this point? [00:08:38] Jack Rice: You know, it's funny how you can look back on history and how it feels inevitable, how we all can see something and say, well, that's clearly, obviously the truth. And yet at the same time, you know, I, I've been in circumstances with my own children, with, you know, with, with partners, with other people and, and, and frequently what happens is that if there are doctors involved, I want to believe they know what they're doing. I want to believe that they're competent, they're experienced. They understand the drugs that they're taking. You tell them all of the other drugs that are going on. So you don't get any weird cross contamination of any kind. And you want to make sure that they're doing those things, right. But at the same time, I'm no doc. I have no idea exactly what works. I sort of trust the people around me and, and hope that it works out. Of course, you think he hasn't asked himself that? [00:09:28] Speaker 1: Oh my God. [00:09:28] Jack Rice: You think he hasn't every single night as he probably cries himself to sleep about the children that he never gets to hold? You tell me, I mean, the brutality of what this is for us to watch. And then I watched his testimony. And I'll tell you the truth. When I watched it, I thought to myself, the way the prosecutor was, was cross examining him and, or direct exam, but it felt like a cross exam and, and working him through the crime scene about what it was like to walk upstairs and to see the blood everywhere on the walls, across the floor, to go down into the basement and talk about as he's desperately trying to untie these stretch bands. [00:10:13] Speaker 4: When you saw her in that condition, what did you do? [00:10:16] Speaker 3: I immediately ran over and tried to take the band off. [00:10:19] Speaker 4: Were you able to get the band off? [00:10:21] Speaker 3: Yeah. [00:10:22] Speaker 4: And do you recall how you got the band off? [00:10:24] Speaker 3: I think I untied it. [00:10:26] Speaker 4: And when you say untied it, was it in a knot that you had to, you know, put everything down and unknawed it or how, how was it tied? [00:10:33] Speaker 3: I'm not sure I fully remember. [00:10:35] Jack Rice: I thought to myself, how sadistic is it that you're running this man through this again? How many more times does he have to pay this price? And the thing is, is if I was thinking that, and I've been doing this for like 30 years. Right. If I'm thinking that, you think this jury isn't thinking that? Because I think they were. To be in that room and to feel, not just sympathize, but truly empathize with what that feels in your guts as you're watching him, I think this jury is watching this case very intensely right now and watching how this prosecution is going forward. [00:11:11] Speaker 1: Do you think his testimony helped the defense or the prosecution more? [00:11:16] Jack Rice: The defense. I think it did. And I think that the way the prosecution handled Patrick was incorrect. I do. If I were prosecuting this case, what I would have said was, and by the way, let's think of it this way. And I watched both the openings from both the prosecution, the Commonwealth and the defense, is that there's something in the law. And I teach trial lawyers all over the country and frankly, all over the world. And there's something called primacy and something called recency. And what primacy is, is the first things you talk about are the things people remember. And the last things that you talk about are the things people remember. Right. Frequently don't remember the stuff in the middle. And when I watched the Commonwealth argue this case, I would have started it something like this. This whole case is a tragedy. These three dead children. This father who has to find those children. This mother who was struggling and who kills these children. And we all feel the pain. We all feel the tragedy because it's really there. But she knew what she was doing. She was competent. She was capable. She understood it. And she made a purposeful decision to walk first from one. Kill them to the other. Kill them. And to the third. And kill them. And then sit my ass down. Yep. That's how you try this case. You don't need to make her a monster. You can make this case sad. Because it is sad. Undeniably sad. It breaks my heart. It's worse. We said from the beginning, you and me. This was so much worse than almost every other case that I've covered. And I've covered lots of cases for decades. The prosecution came in and said that she really wasn't trying to kill herself. That this was basically just a ruse. The problem is that she went code blue in the hospital. That she was dying or essentially would be dead. But for the doctors stepping in and bringing her back to life. When she was brought into the hospital, they referenced her as being psychotic. When they were looking at her, her core temperature when she came in was 82 degrees. At the first hospital. They sent her by medevac. And that's the only way they could do it. She was at 81 degrees. This woman was dying. There's pictures. You've seen these. The pictures of her with not just multiple sets of cuts across both of her arms. She has a cut that runs from almost ear to ear. And it's in color. And it is brutal. And we also have Patrick talking about walking into that upstairs bedroom. And seeing blood everywhere. She is paralyzed from the waist down from jumping out the window of their house. I'm sorry. The argument that she is supposed to be one thing. It's not holding up. She tried to kill herself. I think the evidence shows it. [00:14:32] Speaker 1: Why in the world are we in a trial, Jack? Why are we in a trial with this woman? I mean, if you were the prosecutor on this and they brought the evidence to you, would you put, would you take this to trial? [00:14:43] Jack Rice: Why do you ask me that question? I've gotten in trouble before as a prosecutor where I decided not to. Okay. I did. Because there are a lot of reasons why people try cases. A lot of reasons why DAs, prosecutors make decisions. Some of it's political, but there is another reason here. We have three dead babies. Yeah. We have three dead children. And the question is, do you just say, all right, all right. And of course, the other part of this is that the defense isn't arguing that she should just simply walk. She's going to, if she's found essentially not guilty because of the mental deficiency, she's going to end up in a facility for the rest of her life. [00:15:33] Speaker 1: I mean, this is the thing, Jack, that I don't understand. And I've got, I'm going to ask some detention folks about this as well. What is the difference? Like she goes to a psychiatric ward that's locked down facility for the rest of her life, or she goes into a psychiatric ward that's a locked down facility for the rest of her life in prison. Like it's not like she's, she's paralyzed. She, she is in, she is a, she's medically disabled for the rest of her life. She's got major psychiatric issues that are the major mental health issues that keeps her out of general population. I'm sorry, what are they doing? It doesn't matter. Like the justice is that as far as justice is, I cannot believe that they see they can differentiate this enough. [00:16:20] Jack Rice: Yeah. You know, it's, it's a frustrating thing to watch for a lot of people. I agree that people can be on both sides of this. And I know some who are sure. And yet at the same time, you're right. And I think about this because I have clients right now who have been deemed incompetent. And who are, who are dealing with murder cases and things like that. So I, this is not my first rodeo. And what I can tell you is that for some people, and I, I've had people who have been in mental health facilities, they've been in lockdown in those, and then they've ended up, ended up in general population. Many of them say that the mental health facilities are worse. The problem is sometimes is that when people, and I'll use the general language for jurisdictions across the United States for people watching, is that what we will hear is not guilty by reason of insanity. That's the language we hear a lot. Mm-hmm. And if we think about that, one of my problems, and I have a very big problem with this, is that I would argue that language is incorrect. Because what you're really saying is they're guilty, but insane. Guilty, but incompetent. Because in this particular case, we are not saying that she didn't do it. We're saying that she did. They're acknowledging that. They're stipulating to that issue. [00:17:38] Speaker 1: Let's talk about the stipulation. The defense has agreed to stipulate that Lindsay did do this to her children. Explain what this means and why prosecutors haven't accepted, from what I understand, that stipulation yet. Why? [00:17:54] Jack Rice: Okay, so what stipulation really means is, let's go back and talk about law in general, is that the state, the federal government, commonwealths, whatever you call the governmental organization, they have the burden of proof. They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody committed the crime. And what they have to prove is each and every element of that crime. In other words, the person, generally speaking, who is the defendant, has no obligation of any kind to do anything. And if there's a failure on the part of the government, then the person will be found not guilty because the state failed in their burden. Now, what a stipulation does is this. The stipulation basically, it gives the government an out. It allows them to not have the burden to prove a certain thing. Now, sometimes it might be an element of a charge in this case, and we'll go big picture here. Did she kill him? Yeah, she did. But sometimes it's actually this. There's something called chain of custody. And this is one of the things they actually stipulated to. What chain of custody is, is basically imagine if there was a crime scene, and I went over and I found a firearm. I picked it up and I said, I found this firearm. And I hand it to the deputy and the deputy then takes it and then they take it back to the police station and they put it into an evidence room and then they bring it out for the trial. There's actually a long list of every single person who touched it and anybody who had access to it and what they did to make sure that it's exactly what you thought it was. They waived that in a bunch of this. And what they did is they said, we're going to waive chain of custody on most of these things, because from our perspective, from the defense perspective, the only question that the jury really has is a question of competency. What it's really about from the defense perspective is if we could keep every horrible thing that the prosecution, that the Commonwealth could show them, we would. So for instance, when they brought out those pajamas, Right. I like, I had to walk away. [00:20:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:02] Jack Rice: And my question is, is why did they bring out the pajamas? I mean, let's be honest. Why? Because you know why? Because what you want to do is you want this jury invested. You want this jury angry. And you want this jury to say someone better pay for this death. [00:20:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, that was, I mean, that was one of those moments. We, we pointed it out in our episodes as well. I mean, when those pajamas came out and the little robe that Cora had on. And I mean, it literally, there was, you couldn't even, it was so visceral, wasn't it? It was like the texture, the feeling, the, all of that. That just enrages the jury, I would think, to see something like that. Purposely. Purposely. Purposely. Intentionally. The exercise bans. [00:20:42] Jack Rice: Oh yeah. Oh, oh, all of that. And remember, the defense, by the way, in all of those, they had no questions whatsoever. And there's a reason there was nothing to ask. And in this case, we know that if you really wanted, if you really wanted to look at this issue in this case, and you wanted to say, okay, what should we do? My response is bring in a bunch of experts. Who've talked to her, who studied this kind of stuff before. And who can say whether or not she did this and knew what she was doing. Or she didn't know what she was doing or couldn't control herself or stop herself. Because in the end, that's actually what this case is about. But you know what? Sometimes that's not how the criminal justice system works. [00:21:26] Speaker 1: I've got to ask you one thing before we go. There are a lot of people following this case who think, who believe Patrick Clancy. Are you ready for this? Killed the children and then framed his wife. And her defense isn't even saying this. They're not getting anywhere near this. Why do you think people lapped on to conspiracy theories or just theories like this? [00:21:48] Jack Rice: Boy, why do human beings do this? I don't know. I don't know why people do these things. What I can tell you is that when I'm preparing for a trial like this, what I'm doing is I'm looking at every quote unquote theory. I am. I'm saying, could I do this? Could I argue that? What would a jury look at if I did that? How would they think about this case? And the problem here is that it makes no sense. Because what we have is we have video of him walking into the pharmacy. We have video of him walking into the restaurant to get food. We have text messages that are coming from him. We have him driving home. And they have a way to actually track where he's driving. They can track that. They have him coming into the house. They have the food that he bought and the medicine that he bought sitting on the center island. They have the phone calls that he made. And if you can imagine, and I'm sort of thankful I didn't have to hear that. If you can imagine the trauma of what that was, I find it extraordinary that anybody could fake that. [00:23:19] Speaker 1: Drop a comment below. I want to hear your thoughts about what you heard from Jack Rice and how it might have affected your feelings towards Patrick Clancy or even the prosecution and the defense in this case. It is a complicated issue. And I think the more we talk about it, the better. Be sure to like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, and we will be updating this case.