Hot Pink Spotlight: The Clancy Mistrial Puts Women’s Health on Trial (w/ Nellie King)

Over a million Americans face sentencing every year, and no case has put the question of criminal responsibility on trial like the Lindsay Clancy case. The country watched a Massachusetts jury weigh whether a mother in the grip of severe postpartum psychosis could be held criminally responsible for the unthinkable, and after 85 witnesses and 36 hours of deliberation, eleven jurors voted not guilty by reason of insanity.

But one holdout refused to apply the law, forcing a mistrial and exposing everything the public gets wrong about the insanity defense: that it is easy, that it is common, that “not guilty” means walking free.

Therefore, Doug sits down with nationally recognized trial lawyer Nellie King, past president of NACDL and a defender with multiple NGRI verdicts in double homicide cases, to break down what really happens after an insanity verdict, why these defenses are raised in less than 1% of felony cases, and why this trial shines a hot pink spotlight on how America fails women’s mental health.

In This Episode:

• 00:00 Cold open: A word from Kevin Reddington, Lindsay Clancy’s trial lawyer;
• 01:37 Meet Nellie King: past NACDL president, insanity defense specialist
• 04:17 The Clancy case: 85 witnesses, 36 hours, 11 to 1, mistrial
• 06:26 What “not guilty by reason of insanity” actually means (hint: not freedom)
• 16:17 Why insanity defenses are so hard to win
• 20:33 The gold standard expert: Dr. Phil Resnick
• 25:23 M’Naghten, the ALI test, and the states with no defense at all
• 34:36 Wild beasts, lunatics, and 500 years of insanity law
• 38:40 The Hinckley backlash that gutted the defense
• 40:19 Autism and the criminal legal system: Is there an overlap with insanity defense?
• 47:08 When the mitigation story IS the defense
• 49:41 The real numbers: raised in less than 1% of cases
• 53:55 Predictions for the next chapter of the Lindsay Clancy case
• 56:26 The hot pink spotlight: women’s health on trial
• 59:11 NACDL “Beyond the Diagnosis” seminar, Salt Lake City, Oct 7-10

LINKS:

NELLIE KING WEBSITE:  West Palm Beach, FL Criminal Defense Lawyers & Law Firm – Law Offices of Nellie L. King

NACDL – 2026 Fall Meeting & Seminar  (MENTAL HEALTH – BEYOND TEH DIAGNOSIS — OCT 7-10)

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