Boston Herald55%
Lindsay Clancy trial judge warns lawyers amid hot mic claim: 'No inappropriate comments' 13%
By Lance Reynolds51%
8/7/2026, 4:09:40 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15.3% saturation with 146 hits. Analysis detected 1,077 faulty-reasoning hits from 954 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.4% and a BS Rank of 13% (26,682 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 87.20% of the article peer group.
The judge overseeing the trial of the Duxbury mother accused of murdering her three children has warned the prosecution and defense that if they make “inappropriate comments,” he will throw them out.
“I just want to make it real clear that there is to be no inappropriate comments or disruptive comments to be made inside of this courtroom,” Judge William Sullivan said before he called court into lunch break during the ninth day of testimony in the Lindsay Clancy trial.
“If anybody is found to make those,” the judge added, “they will be immediately escorted out and barred for the balance of this, all right?
I just want to make that real clear.
And just in case you’re wondering, there are microphones all around.”
Sullivan’s warning came after Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington accused prosecutors of being caught on a hot mic saying, “Shut her up,” as his client sobbed in the courtroom the day before during testimony on the autopsy of her 8-month-old son Callan.
Reddington told Sullivan that he didn’t “really want to go to sidebar” on the matter, but the judge responded, “I need to know what you’re going to talk about…”
The defense attorney’s claim seemed to catch Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, as the prosecutor could be seen mouthing, “What?”
On Thursday, Sprague pressed medical examiner Dr.
Kimberly Springer for details about Callan’s injuries, including marks on his neck and face.
Clancy sobbed at her desk during the testimony.
Jurors were shown photos of Callan’s body, but they weren’t published to the gallery or on the screen in front of Clancy, who was later wheeled out as the court recessed.
Sullivan warned jurors that they had to separate their emotions from facts of the case ahead of the charged testimony, telling them that “sympathy, anger, passion” could not sway their verdict.
The Plymouth County DA’s office is denying Reddington’s accusation, saying it has “pulled the video” from the segment in question.
“The camera pans away,” spokeswoman Beth Stone said in a statement shared with the Herald Friday evening, “and someone in the courtroom says ‘shut it off,’ meaning to take down the autopsy photos from the large screen.”
She added, “It was not our prosecutors.”
Lindsay Clancy is on trial for strangling and killing Callan and his older siblings Cora, 5, and Dawson, 3, at their Duxbury home the night of Jan.
24, 2023.
Reddington plans to present an insanity argument that his client was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.
After killing the children, Clancy tried to kill herself and was left paralyzed from a fall out of a second-story window.
Clancy has admitted to killing Cora, Dawson and Callan.
Friday’s testimony featured two psychiatrists who had treated Clancy for severe postpartum mental health disorders in the days, weeks and months leading up to the tragic night.
Jennifer Tufts said her first appointment with Clancy was Sept. 15, 2022, when she became aware that her patient had previously been on medication while in nursing school without any side effects.
Tufts testified Clancy answered a questionnaire at that initial visit, indicating she felt guilty about drinking five times a week and that she reported anxiety attacks and being unable to feel pleasure and fall asleep.
Despite those symptoms, Clancy reported that she did not have suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and Tufts said her patient didn’t exhibit any signs of psychosis.
The doctor diagnosed Clancy with “generalized anxiety disorder” and “adjustment disorder with depressed mood.”
As the fall wore on, Clancy took prescribed medication and received therapy to help with anxiety.
The mother denied at multiple appointments that she felt suicidal or homicidal, and Tufts said her patient never appeared psychotic.
Just before that Thanksgiving, Tufts said she learned that Clancy enrolled in a new program at a South Shore mental health clinic and that she’d start taking Prozac.
At the time, Clancy was already on Ativan and Benadryl.
Clancy met with Tufts again on Dec. 1, and the patient informed her doctor that she had intrusive thoughts about an impending feeling she would die, as she took Remeron and several other medications that the other provider prescribed.
Tufts testified that she advised Clancy to have “one person who is managing the medications.”
The importance of maintaining one provider, the doctor said, is for it to be “very clear what’s happening.”
Later in her testimony, the doctor highlighted that she treated Clancy the day after she was discharged from a days-long visit at McLean Hospital and on Jan.
23, 2023.
Tufts added that Clancy seemed depressed, but her patient again did not have suicidal or homicidal thoughts.
“No, absolutely not,” Tufts responded on whether she had any indication that Clancy was on the verge of killing her three children.
Alicia Goodheart, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, testified that Clancy had no signs of psychosis in their first conversation on Jan. 3, 2023, two days after the mom was involuntarily admitted into the psychiatric unit.
Goodheart said she initially diagnosed Clancy with insomnia with a mental health condition, and that it seemed realistic for the patient to start tapering her medication.
The psychiatrist added that she did not have access to Clancy’s previous medical history; she had no reason not to trust Clancy’s word, with the patient appearing honest and cooperative.
Goodheart explained she had no concerns about Clancy’s safety or thoughts that the mom would harm anyone upon discharge.
“She was invested in her children … like a caring mother,” the psychiatrist said of Clancy.
“She had family and supports.
… She had no history of psychosis, postpartum psychosis.
She had a stable place to live.”
Speakers
6speakers64%attributed speech343writer words
Selected voice
59%flagged-word coverageKevin Reddington
70 attributed words11% of attributed speech82% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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