The left often complains that only they are accused of virtue signaling, but the right is currently engaged in an offputting degree of high stakes moral grandstanding about Lindsay Clancy. Punishing her won't bring back her kids. It won't instill remorse - she already feels awful. The surviving victims of her crime don't want vengeance. The trial did nothing but provoke less sympathetic copycats to kill their own children. A guilty verdict (which is never going to happen under MA laws of reasonable doubt) is not going to do anything to prevent future crimes of the same nature.
The thing that's going to prevent the least amount of suffering, the fewest dead kids, and the most justice is the thing they're arguing against - a not guilty by reason of insanity acquittal or a plea deal, and redoubled efforts to fix maternal mental healthcare.
They aren't in this fight for the children. They're in this fight for their own moral grandeur.
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We've seen this kind of thing before, though. Letting her go just for reasons of "eh, she feels bad" is the best possible way to inspire copycats, and someone who's committed murder three times is probably quite likely to keep going.
clarin.com/us-news/in-1954-b…
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I can't take somebody seriously who is using a case from the 1950s to argue that Lindsay Clancy, at 36, is going to go into treatment, out of treatment, remarry (or find a new partner) and have more kids that she will go on to kill.
There's a reason why there's only one example people keep bringing up and that example is super old.
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Also, the trial is causing the copycats. MA is at fault. If they let her plead out there would be zero copycats.
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Blaming the media for calling attention to and dramatizing a trial for onlookers seems much more reasonable than blaming the court system for not just letting a murderer go.
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Plea deals aren't "just letting a murderer go".
They didn't prove their case, so the show trial was for no reason at all.
They didn't have to allow cameras, either.
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"They didn't prove their case, so the show trial was for no reason at all."
That's not how trials work...
The latter point's good, though.
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What on earth do you mean?
If the state doesn't have the necessary evidence to prove their case and they don't go for a plea deal, you think that's "how the law works"?
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That's not even remotely how it works, why are you telling me I'm wrong?
The prosecution decides whether to bring something to trial or let the person plead out on the basis of the quality of the evidence they have for a given charge as a matter of course.
Sep 10, 2026 · 5:49 AM UTC
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