THE View hosts are facing backlash after getting into a debate about what punishment Lindsay Clancy should face after strangling her three children to death in January 2023.
Clancy’s grueling six-week-long trial ended with a deadlocked jury on Friday, sending her back to a state psychiatric hospital as it remains unclear if she could be tried again.
The 36-year-old sought an insanity defense, arguing she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when strangling her children, Cora, five, Dawson, three and eight-month-old Callan in their Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023.
With the mistrial, Clancy is neither acquitted nor convicted, and could be retried if the Plymouth district attorney opts to bring the case against her a second time.
On Tuesday morning, the former labor and delivery nurse’s fate was debated by hosts on The View.
Sara Haines, who suffered from postpartum depression, said the “greatest tragedy” in the case is the loss of Cora, Dawson and Callan‘s lives.
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“The medical system absolutely failed Lindsay Clancy. This was a woman who did everything you told her, she raised her hand, she had multiple medications, hospitalizations, doctors.”
Haines said she wasn’t blaming one doctor for the killings, but said “something could have been caught before the unimaginable happened.”
“When it comes to justice, I can’t think of anything that can be done to her that isn’t bad enough waking up being Lindsay Clancy now. She killed her kids, she will be forever somewhere,” she continued, referring to her being committed to a state hospital.
“But I think the justice comes in really taking a look at how we handle the next mother that says, ‘Something’s wrong with me and I need help.'”
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Alyssa Farah Griffin, who is recently postpartum, told her fellow co-hosts, “I’m not putting any blame on her husband here but she did say ‘I have had thoughts of harming the child.’ She never should have been alone in a home with those kids.”
Clancy told her then-husband and mother that she had thoughts of harming the kids in December 2022, a month before the killings.
“I believe she had legitimate psychosis, but I believe there has to be punishment,” Griffin said.
“Those doctors, the medical system failed her, but where I agree with this one juror holding out is while psychosis explains it, while it should be factored into the sentencing, she still did kill her children and that does not exonerate her in my eyes,” she said.
Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, claimed after the foreperson sent a note to the judge, that there was one juror who expressed doubt but was refusingtoe follow instructions on the law of reasonable doubt.
If jurors found there was reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case, where they argued Clancy acted deliberately when killing her children, they would have to acquit the 36-year-old.
After The View went back and forth discussing Clancy, viewers took to social media blasting them for their comments.
One X user called the hosts “simplistic,” and claimed they “don’t know the Clancy case.”
Another slammed the hosts for “jumping on the bandwagon of making excuses for this woman!”
“If she gets out of jail, would you let her watch your kids, @sarahainesr? Is she okay NOW?”
Another X user was left outraged about how The View “sat there accusing Linds[a]y Clancy of murder,” adding it “was disgusting.”
“She is innocent until proven guilty. They have no proof that she murdered those poor children. F**k off ‘The View,'” the person continued.
Another social media user said it was “disappointing” to hear co-host and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin “paint Lindsay Clancy as a victim.”
“When I heard the verdict, honestly I was not surprised. The defense of mental incapacity has been around in Massachusetts for 182 years. And so this is not something that’s new,” Hostin said on Tuesday.
“It just means that the person who is suffering from this mental incapacity cannot distinguish between right and wrong, does not understand the wrongness of what they’re doing or cannot conform their emotions and their actions to the law that is present.
“For me, it fits squarely within it.”
Hostin went on to say she believes the one juror who allegedly caused the deadlock likely wanted somebody to be responsible for the loss of three children.
The host also pointed to how Clancy tried to end her own life following the killings by crushing up pills, slashing her wrists and neck and jumping from her second-story bedroom window.
The hosts’ comments on the case came soon after Reddington appeared on Good Morning America for his first interview post-mistrial.
In the interview, the defense attorney asked President Donald Trump to pardon Clancy after considering “this young lady, the type of person she is, what she has been through.”
However, Trump would not be able to pardon Clancy as she has been charged at the state level, and the Constitution only allows a president to pardon someone for “offenses against the United States.”
Clancy will remain at Tewksbury State Hospital as she awaits a hearing on September 29, where attorneys are expected to discuss what comes next in her case.
If you or someone you know needs help or support for their mental health, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected with a certified crisis counselor.
Watch the Lindsay Clancy trial
Follow The U.S. Sun’s YouTube account for our expert analysis on the trial dividing America including:
- Body language analysis on the first time Lindsay saw Patrick at trial,
- How Lindsay’s tattooed black-belt lawyer once hurled THROWING STARS in court,
- The original ‘Mindhunter’ reveals why she believes Lindsay should never be released,
- Our exclusive interview with the woman behind the silent rally supporting Lindsay Clancy.
