Lindsay Clancy would admit to killing her three children if a judge reverses course and agrees to split her upcoming murder trial into two phases, her lawyer said in court papers.
In a filing submitted in Plymouth Superior Court, defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked Judge William F. Sullivan to reconsider his ruling denying a defense motion to split the trial into a guilt phase followed by a criminal responsibility phase.
Clancy “is willing to stipulate formally in writing to her involvement in the underlying conduct resulting in the death of the three young children,” Reddington wrote last week in court papers.
This is not a dramatic change in strategy, as Reddington has long said his client intends to assert a defense of a lack of criminal responsibility, commonly known as the insanity defense. But the continued push to divide the trial is an unusual step that underscores the tensions in a murder case that raise questions of mental health and postpartum care.
Prosecutors from the Plymouth district attorney’s office continue to oppose splitting the trial. They wrote they will not agree to any offer from Clancy to stipulate to the deaths.
The move by Clancy’s lawyer is likely an effort to avoid testimony about the horrific killings, said Christina Miller, a Suffolk Law professor and former prosecutor. If the prosecution were to agree to a stipulation, the judge would read agreed-upon facts to the jury and then the trial would move on, potentially skipping testimony from first responders or other witnesses to the deaths of Clancy’s three young children.
The reading, Miller said, likely would be “colder and more clinical” than testimony from first responders or other witnesses about the deaths of Clancy’s three young children.
Reddington has asserted Clancy was suffering from postpartum depression at the time of the killings and had been prescribed 13 different medications used to treat mood disorders, psychosis, and anxiety.
Should Clancy be acquitted under the insanity defense, she wouldn’t go free, but rather would be sent to a state psychiatric facility where she’d come up for periodic review to determine whether she could safely live in the community.
“The defendant understands that the government has a right to ‘prove its case,’ but where there is an agreement for a stipulation [that she killed her children] the defendant submits that it is elevating form over substance to require a full-blown trial on the issue of culpability as opposed to criminal responsibility,” Reddington wrote.
The government said in a reply filing it “will not agree to any stipulations of fact regarding the violent and painful murders of Cora Clancy, Dawson Clancy, or Callan Clancy,” choosing to present evidence to a jury of their mother’s guilt rather than rely on an admission from her.
“The Court agreed with the Commonwealth that evidence of the defendant’s extreme atrocity or cruelty [elements to prove first-degree murder] could be properly considered on the issue of criminal responsibility” in a single trial, rather than a split proceeding, prosecutors wrote.
Reddington said in a follow-up filling that the reference to “an agreement” to stipulate to the killings was a nod to the defense agreeing internally to offer up the admission, not an agreement struck with prosecutors.
Clancy, 35, has pleaded not guilty to three counts each of murder and strangulation or suffocation for allegedly killing her children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months, with exercise bands on Jan. 24, 2023, after sending her husband out to get takeout for the family.
Authorities say she cut her wrists and neck after allegedly killing her children and leapt from a second-story window in a failed attempt to end her own life. She‘s now paralyzed from the waist down and remains held at Tewksbury Hospital, where she continues to receive treatment.
Sullivan late last month denied the initial defense motion to split the trial into two phases, finding the question of her guilt needn’t be separated from the question of criminal responsibility. Indeed, he wrote, two trials would have signficant redundant evidence.
“These are overlapping issues that do not require bifurcation,” Sullivan wrote.
Under a single trial, Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, said during a recent hearing, “I have an obligation to present evidence that would be consistent with the lack of criminal responsibility, and evidence of that lack of criminal responsibility will obviously implicate criminal liability,” when it’s solely the government’s obligation to prove she killed her children.
Prosecutor Jennifer L. Sprague countered that by mounting a defense of a lack of criminal responsibility, Clancy has essentially waived her right against self-incrimination.
Sprague said the state Supreme Judicial Court has “already made it clear that when defense counsel and defendant choose to have the defendant interviewed by a psychiatrist and raise these issues and [be] interviewed about the event, that they’re waiving their Fifth Amendment privilege.”
Clancy’s trial is scheduled to begin July 20.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.