LIVE: Lindsay Clancy Trial Day 5:"A Voice In Her Head" | CW case in chief

Lindsay Clancy has never denied that she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan. The only question this jury has to answer is whether she was ever capable of choosing not to.

Defense Diaries is streaming gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, live from Plymouth Superior Court, with real-time legal analysis before court opens, through every break, and after the gavel comes down.

▶ TODAY — DAY 5- HOSTED BY Attorneys Bob and Ali Motta

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington

The Commonwealth is currently moving through its case in chief.

▶ THE CASE On January 24, 2023, first responders were called to a home on Summer Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Inside were three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan. Their mother, a labor and delivery nurse, had gone out a second-story window. She survived, paralyzed from the waist down.

Lindsay Clancy is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The defense says what happened in that house was the end point of severe postpartum mental illness and a rapidly escalating cocktail of psychiatric medications — what Kevin Reddington has called "a toxic soup" — and that Clancy was acting on a voice in her head telling her to kill her children and herself.

The Commonwealth says it was a deliberate, premeditated plan: that she engineered the window of time she needed alone with her children, and knew exactly what she was doing.

▶ WHO'S WHO

Judge — Hon. William Sullivan

Commonwealth — ADA Jennifer Sprague

Defense — Kevin Reddington

Defendant — Lindsay Clancy

▶ WHAT ACTUALLY DECIDES THIS Massachusetts follows the McHoul standard: the question is whether, because of mental disease or defect, Clancy lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the law. And once insanity is properly raised, the burden does not shift to her — the Commonwealth has to prove she was criminally responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the fight. Everything else is scaffolding.

Trial is expected to run four to six weeks. We will be here for all of it.

▶ FOLLOW THE COVERAGE Subscribe and hit the bell — we go live every trial day.

▶ A NOTE Lindsay Clancy is presumed innocent of the charges against her unless and until the Commonwealth proves otherwise. Nothing in this stream is legal advice. Our analysis is commentary on public court proceedings, and we correct ourselves on air when we get something wrong.

This case involves postpartum mental illness and the deaths of children, and it is hard to sit with. If you or someone you love is struggling after having a baby, Postpartum Support International's helpline is 1-800-944-4773 (call or text). In the US, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available by calling or texting 988.