Why 'Not Guilty' Doesn't Mean Freedom for Lindsay Clancy

Everyone following the Lindsay Clancy trial wants to know what happens if the jury says she is not criminally responsible. The answer is not what most people expect. She does not go home. She enters a commitment system that can hold her for the rest of her life.

Eric Faddis, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, breaks down the path. After a not-guilty-by-reason-of-lack-of-criminal-responsibility verdict, Massachusetts law allows the court to order Clancy hospitalized for observation and evaluation for up to 40 days. The district attorney or hospital superintendent can then petition for involuntary commitment under MGL Chapter 123. The commitment has no time limit. Release requires showing she is no longer mentally ill or dangerous — and that burden falls on the person seeking release.

At periodic review hearings, the state must demonstrate that Clancy still meets the standard for continued commitment. The proceedings are adversarial. Reddington would represent Clancy at each one. The state can fight to keep her committed even after a jury rejected their criminal case.

Clancy has been at Tewksbury Hospital receiving court-ordered psychiatric treatment since May 2023. She is paralyzed from the waist down and on continuous suicide watch. Inside a commitment facility, treatment is the daily structure — medication management, therapy, psychiatric evaluation. In prison, treatment is available but the institution serves a different purpose.

Andrea Yates provides the closest comparison. Found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006, she remains in a Texas psychiatric hospital twenty years later. She has declined every annual release hearing she is entitled to. Faddis examines whether Clancy's path after an acquittal would look the same.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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