Rep. Nancy Mace has called for Lindsay Clancy to face a public execution after a Massachusetts jury failed to reach a verdict on whether the mother is criminally responsible for killing her three children.
‘She should be dead too’
“Her children are dead, she should be dead too,” the South Carolina Republican told TMZ on Monday, September 14. “She should get the death penalty. … It should be public. It should be a public execution.”
Mace suggested the execution “could be by firearm, it could be electric chair, I don’t really care.” The outgoing congresswoman, who said last month she will not seek elected office again, argued the execution would serve as a “warning to women everywhere [that] you don’t kill your kids.”
Despite Mace’s suggestion, the death penalty is not legal in Massachusetts. The state has not carried out an execution since 1947, and its highest court struck down the death penalty in 1984. If convicted of first-degree murder, Clancy could instead face life in prison without parole.
Mace’s comments come after a judge declared a mistrial earlier this month when jurors said they could not unanimously agree on a verdict.
The Clancy decision
Clancy, 36, does not dispute killing her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — in January 2023. She pleaded not guilty, with her attorneys arguing she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis when she strangled the children and then attempted to end her own life.
The jury, which consisted of nine women and three men, said they had reached an 11-1 majority in favor of finding Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity due to postpartum psychosis before Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial.
Following the September 4 decision, Clancy returned to the psychiatric facility where she is being held. District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not announced whether prosecutors will pursue a retrial. A hearing is scheduled for September 29 in Plymouth Superior Court.
Georgia Republican Rep. Clay Fuller has also demanded capital punishment, saying that when someone “brutally murder[s]” three children, “you deserve the death penalty.”
Donald Trump reacts to the mistrial
President Donald Trump called the case a “tragedy” following the mistrial.
“Look, [Clancy] did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse, but you’ll find out what the price to pay is. There’ll be a price. It’s going to be mental institution or jail or something, but I guess they’re going to go through another trial. It’s too bad,” he said.
Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked Trump to pardon her, but presidential pardon powers do not extend to Massachusetts state criminal cases.
