prosecutors argued the 911 recording had significant value as evidence <\/a>beyond Patrick Clancy\u2019s emotional reaction. They said the call captured Lindsay Clancy responding to questions about the children\u2019s whereabouts and also documented that Patrick was able to \u201cquickly\u201d remove the exercise bands his wife used to strangle the children. That, they argued, supports their theory that the killings were deliberate and carried out with \u201cextreme atrocity and cruelty.\u201d <\/p>\nStill, the recording\u2019s emotional power was impossible to ignore. <\/p>\n
Mark Eiglarsh, a defense attorney in Florida and former prosecutor who has closely followed the Clancy trial, said prosecutors understand how evidence like a 911 call can affect jurors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecutor\u2019s secret weapon in cases like this always is sympathy,\u201d Eiglarsh said Thursday. Judges instruct jurors not to decide cases based on emotion, he added, but \u201cthey\u2019re not robots.\u201d <\/p>\n
Eiglarsh said there is always some risk jurors could view especially graphic or emotional evidence as an attempt to appeal to sympathy rather than reason. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is possible,\u201d he said. \u201cThe argument could be made, \u2018Look how they\u2019re attempting to appeal to your sympathies, it\u2019s so transparent.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
He said prosecutors often accept that the benefit of such evidence outweighs the risk. <\/p>\n
Lu sees little danger in that calculation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, it is near-impossible that it will backfire on the prosecution,\u201d he said, adding that he believes \u201csuch evidence will not be deemed unfairly prejudicial on appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conley, meanwhile, said his experience over 25 years as a prosecutor is that jurors generally take judges\u2019 instructions seriously. <\/p>\n
The proceedings on Wednesday, just the second day of the trial that is expected to last six to eight weeks, also highlighted a strategy by Lindsay Clancy\u2019s lawyers that experts praised. <\/p>\n
During cross-examination, defense attorney Kevin Reddington approached Patrick Clancy with gentleness. At one point, he told Clancy to let him know if the questioning became too difficult and offered to pause if necessary. <\/p>\n
Conley said that was a smart move by Reddington because Patrick Clancy is perhaps the most sympathetic witness in the courtroom. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing he wants to do is go after Patrick Clancy,\u201d Conley said. \u201cThat would . . . almost certainly have a backlash with the jury.\u201d <\/p>\n
Eiglarsh agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is precisely how I would handle him,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Patrick Clancy also described his ex-wife\u2019s deteriorating mental health, her psychiatric treatment, and a statement she later made about hearing a male voice telling her to kill the children and herself, testimony that could support key parts of the insanity defense.<\/p>\n
Patrick Clancy has also publicly said he forgives Lindsay and has asked others to do the same. The couple has since divorced, and Patrick has remarried. <\/p>\n
Lu said there was little strategic value in confronting such a witness. <\/p>\n
\u201cLaw students could learn a lot from watching this cross-examination,\u201d he said, describing it as a \u201cfriendly, unpretentious, un-lawyerlike cross-examination.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was little or nothing to be gained by being mean to this witness that has lost his children,\u201d Lu said. <\/p>\n
He noted her attorney has argued that failures in Lindsay Clancy\u2019s mental health treatment, including overmedication, contributed to the tragedy. Given Patrick Clancy\u2019s public statements of forgiveness, Lu said, there was no reason for Reddington to alienate a witness who might be receptive to aspects of that theory. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat good would it do to be confrontational to the father of these children?\u201d Lu said.<\/p>\n
Legal analysts say neither the 911 recording nor Patrick Clancy\u2019s testimony is likely to determine the outcome on their own. <\/p>\n
Conley said the case will probably turn on competing psychiatric experts and whether prosecutors persuade jurors that Lindsay Clancy understood her actions were wrong despite her mental illness. <\/p>\n
For Lu, the challenge jurors face is broader. He said jurors often make decisions through both rational and emotional processes, and emotionally devastating evidence can be difficult to compartmentalize. <\/p>\n
\u201cVery strong emotional decision-making factors are more likely to overwhelm very strong rational decision-making factors,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt is inconceivable that the prosecution would not play the 911 recording for the jury,\u201d Jack Lu, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243],"class_list":["post-794862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}