Similar (adjective): Looking or being almost, but not exactly, the same
—Cambridge Dictionary
***
By now, everyone has heard of the Lindsay Clancy multiple murder case, which took place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and resulted in a mistrial. Clancy is a White woman in her thirties who murdered her three children in 2023 before attempting suicide by jumping from a window and becoming paraplegic.
Clancy’s defense admitted that their client committed the murders but contended that she should not be held criminally accountable since she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and other mental illnesses and was overmedicated. Clancy’s defense was able to show her medical records to the court as proof that she sought treatment for documented mental problems, raising reasonable doubt in many jurors’ minds that Clancy was sane at the time she committed the murders.
While Clancy’s trial was still underway, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (MSJC) ruled that the judge during Latarsha Sanders’ trial wrongfully prevented her defense from presenting her medical records to the jury in 2022. These medical records stated Sanders was “grossly psychotic,” and the MSJC vacated her life sentence for murdering her children and ordered a new trial.
Sanders is a Black woman, and the judge was William F. Sullivan, the same judge who presided over the Clancy trial. The same district attorney, Timothy Cruz, prosecuted both Sanders and Clancy.
Social media memes surfaced highlighting the similarities of the two cases and pointed out that the Black woman was convicted while the White woman received a mistrial. These memes imply the court purposely excluded Sanders’ medical records and that her conviction was a result of systemic racism.
Sanders’ sympathizers assumed it was the race of the defendants that made the difference, but there was a nonracial factor that made a big difference—when the medical records were compiled.
The defense for Clancy was able to show that their client sought various sorts of mental health treatment in the months before she killed her children. In other words, the defense did not utilize the medical records to prove a diagnosis of mental illnesses; rather, they were used to verify she was receiving treatment for them.
Sanders, on the other hand, had no documented history of mental illness before she murdered her children. Her diagnosis came after she was arrested. In other words, her medical records were compiled while she was in jail, awaiting trial. Her post-arrest mental evaluation revealed that she was “grossly psychotic” and suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, which went undetected and untreated for decades.
The prosecutor argued that Sanders’ mental state after the murders was not a relevant factor in determining her mental state at the time of the murders. This is a valid legal argument, but the prosecutor’s goal was to prevent the jury from hearing any evidence that could raise reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt.
The judge ruled that the medical records could not be discussed during the trial until the prosecutor “opened the door” on cross-examination, but the MSCJ stated that the sole issue before the jury was whether Sanders lacked criminal responsibility and excluding the post-arrest records “constituted prejudicial error.” In other words, it was up to the jury to decide whether Sanders’ post-arrest medical records were relevant or irrelevant.
New trials are frequently granted due to procedural errors, but another nonracial factor that differed between the two cases was the behavior of the women after they killed their children.
Clancy immediately attempted suicide right after she killed her children. The defense maintained that Clancy’s suicide attempt was proof of psychosis, while the prosecution argued that it was the culmination of a premeditated plan, indicating that she was aware of the wrongfulness of the acts she committed.
After Sanders killed her children, court records state that she cleaned the apartment. When the police entered, they noticed a strong odor of cleaning fluids. The officers discovered bottles of ammonia and bleach on the kitchen table, as well as a blood-soaked mop, but Sanders told the state police that her eldest son and his father had killed the children. Sanders insisted that she did not participate and that she tried to stop the killings.
The cover-up and the lie indicated to the jury that Sanders was aware of the wrongness of her actions. The cover-up and the lie probably had more to do with her conviction than the exclusion of her post-arrest medical records.