Matt Murphy: Lindsay Clancy Will Prevail!

And welcome to Hot Mics with Billy Bush. Please subscribe on YouTube. We are day 15 of the Lindsay Clancy trial in Massachusetts. She is facing first degree murder charges for taking the lives of her three children. The prosecution is trying to prove she could control her actions and she knew exactly what she was doing was wrong. They've rested. Lindsay's defense says it was a psychotic break due to postpartum depression and the overwhelming tackle box of medications. She was one who led to psychosis. They are in control now, but it's another South Boston trial that has created traffic at the water cooler. It is a national obsession. Our guest today, 17 years in the Orange County DA's homicide office, oversaw 200 cases to verdict, prosecuted 24 felony jury trials in one year. He is experienced in all types of crime from sexual assault, crimes against children, and murder. If you are a true crime fan, you know his face. He is more than qualified to be a guest here on Hot Mics with Billy Bush. Matt Murphy, thank you, my friend, for joining us here today. Welcome. Excited to be on the show. My rapidly aging face as I'm looking at myself in my hotel room. I was about to ask you who your dermatologist is and then you said that you got natural light coming in that you spent a lot of time in hotel rooms. I must imagine you speak all over the country. And I know you're a busy guy, so we really appreciate this. You're following the Okay, so today, by the way, Sue Clancy, Patrick Clancy's mother, Lindsay's mother-in-law, was on the stand this morning. But the prosecution is rested. Matt, what is your assessment of their case and their performance? Boy, so this is a very difficult case for the prosecution. It's almost as if they wrote this law with this case in mind for the benefit of Lindsay Clancy. So almost every state uses what's called the McNaughton rule for legal insanity. So in California, California uses the McNaughton rule, and essentially it means that if somebody, there's a bifurcated process. Okay, so the first phase is known as the guilt phase. And so you panel a jury, you come in, you present evidence of the case, just the facts of the case. Then you have what's known as the sanity phase and what the jury has to figure out in the sanity phase, assuming they convict and the person is actually the physical actor who committed the actual killings. They have to determine whether or not the defendant appreciated the nature and quality of their actions. Okay, so the example we always use for that is a devil and an angel pop up on your shoulder, that old trope, right? If the devil says, go over there and stab that person, or I'm going to blow up the world, they understand that that's a person. If the devil says, go over there and stab that banana or stab that alien, it means they don't understand the nature and quality of their actions. That's a really kind of fundamentally broken down way of looking at it. So virtually everybody who commits murder is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Like in the DSM, you can look at about a million different things, you can say that person's suffering from this, you know, because people in their right mind typically don't kill each other, right? Massachusetts uses what's called the McCool rule, which is very, very different. Okay, so in Massachusetts, also in California, just to backtrack for a second, it's the burden shifts over to the defense. Once the prosecution has proven the case in the penalty phase, I'm sorry, in the guilt phase, in the sanity phase, then the defense has to convince the jury that the person could not understand the nature and quality of their acts. In other words, they have to prove that in that delusion they were suffering from, they thought it was a banana or an alien, and they didn't understand it was a human being. Okay, and the idea there is if you understand it's a human being, even if you're mentally ill, you have the moral and legal responsibility to control your own behavior. That's the McNaught rule. Under the McCool rule, it is, and I'm going to read from my notes here for a second, they're suffering from a mental disease or defect. Okay, and that I think has been very clearly established here. Postpartum's real, she's suffering from that. And there are two different prongs. There's what's known as the cognitive prong or the control prong. And the language is different. It is whether or not the person, and this is a mouthful, whether they lack the substantial capacity to appreciate or understand that their behavior was wrong. Lacks the capacity to, the substantial capacity to appreciate. She understands that now, but you're saying this is in the moment because she understands now that it was wrong. She's sitting there wailing. Right. Well, not only that, but even if they do, there's a third prong in Massachusetts. It's like, okay, if they understand that it's wrong, which in California or almost every other state, the case is over at that point. If they understand it's wrong, they do it anyway. They are legally sane for the purposes of criminal liability. In Massachusetts, the final prong is called the control prong. And that is, they're suffering from a mental disease or defect. And from that, even if they know it's wrong, if they're unable to control their actions, then they are legally insane. And that's the problem with this case. That I think is the crux of it. She understood that it was wrong. The prosecution is screwed here because she knew it was wrong. She knows it's wrong, but in the moment she couldn't control herself. That's the defense argument. By the way, this defense lawyer, he is doing an excellent job. He's doing an excellent job. So his performance, his presence, his voice, his- He's controlling the courtroom. I'm so enamored with this guy. I hate to be a fanboy, but the South Boston accent, even with the way he says postpadum, I mean, and he's cozy and he's well presented. I have to say on visuals, if you're a jury and you're just getting a vibe from someone, if there's vibe points, the two assistant DAs, they look like they got their law degrees in some online play. I mean, they seem very unpolished to me. Compared to him, yes. And the opening statement, look, this is, Mark Aragos and I had a long conversation about this. And we have our own pod that we do together. Mark and I have known each other for 25 years and I've always gotten along great, even though we opposed each other for years. So Mark's mad at the prosecutor for even bringing the case. I'm not. Okay. I think that when you're talking about the death of three children, you have to put it through the process. But when you look at the way the defense did their opening, he's going, if you look closely, his eyes are moving and they won't show the jury. He's looking every single juror in the eyes as he's giving this very low toned, very heartfelt opening. The prosecutor, and this is not a criticism, this is more just an observation of tactics. She relied way too much on her notes, in my opinion. And every time you break that eye contact to look at your notes, you lose the jury. And I think they've done a very good job with their witnesses, as far as getting out the information. But the facts here are so tough for the prosecution. And look, the best thing that they've got going for them, Billy, is when she's found on the ground after jumping out the window, there's like four and a half minutes go by where the husband has summoned the EMTs. She knows those kids are in the basement. She's conscious, she's answering questions, and she doesn't tell them that the kids are downstairs. She says they're in the basement, doesn't say anything about how they're injured. And that infant, remember, that infant is still alive and has a rubber cord around like an elastic band around their neck. And the infant lived for like three or four days after this, and she still doesn't say anything. So the best thing in my view from the prosecution- But apparently she can't say anything. Her husband says that she told him they're in the basement, I killed the kids. And the EMTs and the first responders say she couldn't speak at all. All she could do was moan. Right. The problem is that he's, according to him, he's having a conversation. I mean, problem for the defense, which honestly, Billy, in this one is not gonna be much of a problem. This thing is, there's cases that I have really strong opinions about. This is one where I really don't, it's a horrible case. But I can tell you right now, I can call this shot, the jury's gonna come back and find her legally insane. If I had to guess, that's what's gonna happen. And they call it something else in California. It's like, not insanity, but they call it like not criminally responsible or something. Yeah, and let me see if I can get it. You're right. It's lack of criminal responsibility. That's the legal term, which also softens it for the jury. It makes it a little bit easier. Because when we think about somebody who's criminally insane, we picture somebody that's howling at the moon. With that language, when I went through these jury instructions, Billy, and I've done plenty of insanity was the defense in California. And when I read through this, this language, the jury, with this defense lawyer, when they're instructed with this language in the law, like I said, it's literally like Massachusetts wrote the law for the defense in this case, as bad as that is. One of the things that's fascinating to me, though, Billy, and I know you've seen this too, are the conspiracy theories that have been out there and how the husband did it. That, in a way, I think is one of the most interesting parts about this entire case is we seem to live in this time where everybody has to have an alternate theory, right? Well, look, on my last episode, I said, I would be suspicious because there's many things that don't add up. And then I went into them. However, she filed a malpractice civil suit. And in that, she detailed how she unalived her children. You know what I mean? So, unfortunately, you can connect as many dots as you want, but the woman has admitted it. She's admitted it. And with a lawyer that good, if he's the one that did it, the husband, that guy would have that on full display. And he'd be hammering the prosecution on that. And he's not because he knows she did it. But Kevin Reddington, Big Red, as they call him, Big Red is definitely leaving a lot of questions without directly accusing him because accusing him would be a mess for him. But he is leaving a lot of doubt and sowing the conspiracy theories, I think, somewhat passively aggressive. Yeah, and the thing is, he doesn't need to. But remember the testimony of her own mother. Her own mother came in and said, she sat us down and said that she was thinking about hurting the kids, referring to her, the mother and the husband. So, right or wrong, there's plenty of reason for people not to like the husband. He was aware that she was suffering from this. He got married very quickly. And again, right or wrong, I'm not throwing any shade on him, but he didn't do the killing, guys. She killed the kids. That is a fact that has been proven. It is pretty obvious. And it's not pretty obvious. It is overwhelmingly the truth. She killed her kids. The question is, did she lack the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness or conform her conduct to what is required under the law? And that's the issue I think the jury is going to come back on. And another thing, the burden, as soon as the defense in the state of Massachusetts presents evidence of mental illness, the burden of proof immediately shifts back to the prosecution. So in California, they have to prove, the defense must prove the insanity. In Massachusetts, the prosecution must prove that she was sane. And I'll tell you another thing that I really didn't like in the prosecutor's opening is she's kind of going down this list. And again, not a criticism. I think this was just, this was a mistake. She said her actions were rational. That's not a requirement of the law. It doesn't have to be rational. I think they needed to lean far more into the mental illness and say, she's nutty as a fruitcake. She is batshit crazy. Whatever she wants to say, I can't say ---- in court, but however she wants to put it, you lean into it and say, but she understood it was wrong and she could have conformed to conduct. That's the way you prosecute that case. And I haven't seen much of that yet, but we'll have to wait until we get to closing arguments. I've heard a lot of people talking about the bow. This is a case where I understand- I looked up, that woman does not wear hair bows as like Larry King wore suspenders. And that was his vibe. She's not a hair bow person per se. That's not her regular look. So it's special for the trial. It seems that doesn't help. Right. And look, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt on this. I've seen criticism for her as a gimmick and it's a manipulation. I think that what's going on there, having prosecuted a million murder cases myself, and she's attempting to vindicate the three kids. She's trying to, in her mind, she's connected to those poor little babies basically. And she's coming in and that's who she's fighting for. It's certainly not the husband. And that was Mark Aragos's big problem. It's like, who are you vindicating here? The surviving victim, it would be the grandmother or the aunt who, by the way, I thought came off very, very well in their testimony. They were dressed perfectly. I think the jury is going to relate to them and like them. And that is going to transfer to her. And another thing on this one, Billy, let's not forget, she's in a wheelchair every day. So the jury sees that this woman suffered a massive consequence for what she did. And for your viewers, this is one where, there are cases that drive me crazy where I believe very, very firmly in somebody's guilt or innocence sometimes. And I weigh in heavy on those too. I call them as I see them. But this is one that I could see the jury coming back insane or insane in California. It's a lack of criminal responsibility in the state of Massachusetts. I think they're going to, I'm not going to lose a whole lot of sleep when that happens personally. It's two thirds women on that jury, including the 12 jurors and the six alternates. It's 12 to six in favor of women. So you might assume that that's the way it boils down on the actual jury itself. I think the prosecution is banking on the fact that the jury is going to hate Lindsay Clancy, that the women are going to be like, how could you do that to your children? We all feel pressure with our kids and it's hard and you went and did that damn you. I don't think so. I think this is a reckoning moment for postpartum and women's health in the country. I think it's happening on, in the court of public opinion. And I believe it's reflecting to the jury. I think they're seeing, my God, 13 medications, a competing Seroquel, an antipsychotic and an SSRI. That's 101. You know those two clash together in a terrible way. This woman was fed loads and loads of drugs. There wasn't communication in the medical system. This is not only a dereliction of the psychiatric world in this country. I think COVID gave birth to all of these telemedicine apps and things. This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts on the stand, the psychiatrist, she's 32 years old at the time, one month on the job. She has 14 appointments with Lindsay Clancy. She's just up in Braintree. You can see her in person. You're watching this woman come undone. You don't have one. Kevin Reddington was very, very effective when he painted a picture of, are you kidding me? You call yourself an expert? You've been doing this for one month. You think that's a misrepresentation, he called it? And you didn't see this woman one time? I have a feeling the jury is as appalled with the medical system as we are, I am. Yeah, look, you hit the nail on the head. You call it a tackle box of medications. I haven't heard that term before, but that's exactly what it is. It's a ton of stuff. Oh, here's the lure, here's the minnow, throw it. I don't know, try the little butterfly. I mean- Yeah. And look, postpartum is real. It's a real thing. We had a Prozac murderer with a mom in Orange County. It wasn't one of mine. It was a colleague of mine named Jeff Robinson, who was, the guy was nails. He was one of the most uniquely talented trial lawyers I've ever seen. And he was kind of the generation before me, but he had a woman in Newport Beach who went on Prozac right after it became a new medication, right after the FDA approved it. It wasn't long, and she murdered her two kids. Didn't get a whole lot of media, maybe did at the time. But Jeff came in, and this is as hardcore a prosecutor as I've ever met. And he came in, he sat down with the powers that be and said, listen, I've looked into this, and I believe that this was a combination of postpartum and the Prozac. And they dumped that case, essentially. And Jeff was, I mean, this stuff is real. It's not made up. So many cases, Billy, we get kind of grizzled by it because so many cases, there's BS defenses that we hear, and you almost get numb to it. But every once in a while, it's real stuff. That's why we have juries. That's why we have laws that allow juries to consider things like this. And look, I'm not a fan of this, of the language that I'm reading in Massachusetts for 99% of the murders that I've seen. But on this case, this language seems pretty appropriate for the facts. And it doesn't help the prosecution either, Billy, that she was 32, but she looked like she was 12, that psychiatrist. And Reddington did a masterful job. He's done a masterful job at each step. He's also controlling the courtroom. If you notice, he's sparred with the judge a couple of times in front of the jury. And normally, my gut reaction to that is that's a bad move because juries almost always respect the judge. And that can be a huge mistake. But he gets just far enough. He pushes the line and kind of turns away from the court and kind of shakes his head a little bit. And then he does what the judge says. It has been a masterful performance by him, trial tactic-wise. And the prosecution, I think, is outclassed. I am going to fly to Boston and take that man for a beer if he'll do it with me because he's just, I hate to use the word cozy, but I mean, he's cozy and also commanding at the same time. I think the greatest risk to his likeability was when he got close and was questioning very face-to-face against Jennifer Tufts, the psychiatrist, because she is so young and he is an older and experienced man. But I think he had built up enough capital with the jury at that point. He had built up enough capital to spend a little on a slight humiliation and embarrassment of this particular witness. Look, that's a great assessment, Billy. It really is not blowing smoke. Most people don't think of it that way. You really do. Before you go hard on a witness, you must build capital. Again, as a prosecutor especially, if you got a defense expert and you know you're going to go after them hard, you want to be extra nice to every other witness because you know you're going to come out of the gates and really go after somebody. But you have to build that credibility. A lot of young prosecutors and young travelers will go hard on everybody because that's what they teach you in law school. And it's almost like my cousin Vinny. Remember the different cross-examinations in my cousin Vinny when you've got the nice old lady that her vision was just bad and she had the glasses. He was super gentle with her because she just got it wrong. But the arrogant guy with the grits, you know, the three-minute grits, you know, no self-respect and southerner, you know, you got the identical. I used to use that in training young prosecutors because you've got to modulate for that exact reason. You must build up credibility. And if you're going to go after somebody hard, you've got to show them that you're being nice to other people. You're not just a dick for lack of a better term. And yeah, it can be very effective. To me, it was very effective when he did it. And I didn't I felt like he had earned the right. You know, you're you're absolutely right. And look, he he he went a little hard on that. I got a little cringy, you know, because I he was making such good points. I didn't think he needed to push quite as hard as he did. And it's a risk because she does look sympathetic and she does look young. But at the same time, yeah, she prescribed a tackle box medication using your term. And and I think you're right. I think he'll get away with that. And also, look, the way he's commanding the courtroom and he's got he's got the Massachusetts accent, which prosecutors don't. Look, whenever I tried a case against people that were from out of town and I had I had I had some high profile cases where I went up against teams of lawyers from New York City. Day one, I made sure the jury knew that I was I was just a local kid growing up and I threw out all the local stuff. And that same prosecutor, by the way, quick war story, Jeff Robinson, he tried a case against who's John Gotti's lawyer. He was he was the guy that did all the John Gotti cases and kept getting the acquittals on John Gotti, the mobster, Bruce Cutler. And he came in for closing argument. He said, look, I'm just a kid from Newport Beach and it was a Newport Beach case. He's like, Mr. Cutler, he's he's the greatest lawyer in the whole country. And he brought in a T-shirt that said world's greatest lawyer. And he's like, I'm just I'm just one of you. You know, he's from New York. He's like he's the man, you know, and he and he throws the T-shirt at him, wraps around his head and he goes, now let's talk about the facts and the law. It was one of the biggest beatdowns I've ever seen. And and look, that Massachusetts accent makes a bigger difference than than people realize because he's one of them. He's one of he is one he's relating to them as one of them. He's looking him in the eye. You notice in his opening, he did not rely on his notes. I'll bet in his closing, we don't see a single note. That guy will have command of the facts and he's in that courtroom. And he holds like in this. Here's one of the most brilliant moments. Yes, he spent capital on Jennifer Tufts and got away with it. Indeed. And it was effective. You know, when the prosecution, these two days, Shannon Buckingham is up there and she's asking questions of the medical examiner and the medical examiners being very graphic and cold, just, you know, unfeeling, cold graphic about the tint of the blue skin and the asphyxiation and using images and showing the trial. And what you've got are these two women being cold. And then you've got these two older men being sensitive. You've got Kevin Reddington putting his hand on Lindsay Clancy's hand on top of her and holding her hand as she's wailing. And then you have the judge who's Reddington's age going, you know what? We're going to we're going to take a break here because he's hearing her wail like that. Yeah, that's pretty effective. You've got, you know, and I'm sorry, women taking care of other women. This is a bad look. And the gentlemen look like, you know, fatherly figures who are the kinds we want in this country. Well, right. And look, that judge, the jury is going to like him. And remember, that's the person that's going to read them the law. That was a moment, though, I think that could have been a mistake for the defense. Not that it's going to be fatal, but the danger there is that you don't want the jury ever thinking that they're being manipulated by the defendant. Whenever a defendant breaks down and showed emotion as a prosecutor, most good prosecutors or experienced defense or experienced attorneys, trial lawyers will jump on that and they'll accuse them of trying to manipulate the proceedings or whatever. They'll ask that the record reflect that the person's crying now, but they weren't crying then. That can be a very, very dangerous thing. But again, you need the skill and the experience in the prosecutor in this case to make the proper, like to to to use that to their advantage. And Billy, I haven't seen that yet. Maybe we'll see something in closing. But I mean, I got colleagues that I that I work with who would have been all over that, which makes me think I think I disagree because she hasn't done it many other times. I mean, she's she this is only at the most graphic and the most brutal. And if you are a defense lawyer who's trying to show that this was absolutely not her that did this, she she heard about Andrea, you know, what her colleague, Margaret Hampton, I believe it is a nurse talked about, you know, telling her, hey, do you know who Andrea Yates is while they were on a late night shift? And she said, no, who is she? She's a woman who killed her kids. Oh, my God, what mother would do that? This is a woman who was is horrified at what happened. Had she been crying all along? Oh, my God. The jury would be like, OK, you did this. You did this enough. But this was a sparing. This was a really graphic one moment. I think Big Red gets away with it again. No, I think you're right. I think right. I'm not saying it's fatal. I'm saying that that's that's a risky moment, which also makes me think she was well prepped enough by him that I would I think it may have been real, you know, because because she would be well prepared by a lawyer with that experience and that skill. And and look, it was pretty convincing when we saw it. And I'm sure she does. I'm sure she has stabilized. I'm sure she's she's on whatever the right medication is or whatever. She's not suffering from postpartum anymore. And I'm sure she does appreciate the horror of her actions. And that's another thing. Look, when it comes to manual strangulation or ligature strangulation, here we got it. Sounds like we've got a combination of both. It's not like TV. It takes a long time. That's why the infant lived for as long as that poor little little baby did. It takes a long time to strangle somebody to death in movies. You know, they somebody's grabbed by the neck and they're dead 10 seconds later. In real life, any any legitimate pathologist will say it takes between five and seven minutes of constant pressure to create brain death in an adult woman or man. So this is a long, brutal process. And I haven't seen the prosecutor really exploit that too much either. So again, we'll see what happens in closing. I want to be I want to be fair, but I'm with you. I think that like I said, I think the jury comes back with finding her not legally responsible or not criminally responsible. I'll say the the prosecutor today, Shannon Buckingham, was a mess. I mean, this is, you know, cross examining Patrick Clancy's mother, Sue Clancy. It was it was embarrassing. She's fumbling through her notes like she's just like the hang on. Yeah, that's how you long pause. I mean, she was like it was dead air. I was like, did my TV go off? I tried. What the hell was that? And if she just to an exasperated Sue Clancy, the witness was like, no, yeah, no. And leading questions, you know, I thought leading questions were more a defense strategy. Like, isn't it true, Matt Murphy, that you left that hotel room of yours a ---- show, a mess? She does. Isn't it true? All the time. I thought that was more of a defense thing. She should be asking questions that lead to explanations. No, it's look, it's it's a stilted thing. And moms are a special category of witness. You really have to be artful in the way you have a mom testify. And that's a yeah. A different class of witness, huh? No, they truly are. You got to be really careful like the mom that comes in as a prosecutor where you see moms a lot as the mom will come in for a fake alibi, you know, like, oh, he was with me or, you know, you know, it was really self-defense when he when he killed my my husband or whatever, whatever it is. You've got to trust the jury to see what's going on when they're in there testifying for their for their son. And look, Kevin Reddington did something brilliant. His first question. And I have never seen a lawyer do this before in thirty three years. He said, look, you're the mother. So let's get it out of the way. You're biased in favor of your daughter. Now, let me get that was inoculated. Did you not? Absolutely. Absolutely. I and I'm stealing that in my next trial. I mean, it's like, look, you're biased because you're the you're the mom or you're the dad or you're the best friend. You've got you've got some bias here. Let's acknowledge it right now. Now let's talk about what you saw. That was brilliant. And he did it with Massachusetts accent on top of it. Because a juror is going to be thinking the whole time, well, you're the mom. It is the mom, but it is the mom. It is the mom. Get it out of their heads right away. Right. And look, as a prosecutor, you do that. And what you have to do with the moms is you've got to be really nice to them. You don't jump down their throat. You're really nice to them. You don't do the isn't a true question. You do the look. Hey, look, you and I. So she and look where they needed to attack her. Billy, they needed to say she she was afraid. He said she was afraid. But who was she afraid of? She was afraid of herself because she understood that she was a danger. And that's what she you use. That's your advantage. It's like judo. You try to draw that out. And that mom came off so honest that if she tried to backtrack on any of that, she would have looked bad. But you go in super gentle. This is a woman who lost her three grandkids. You go in with kick clubs. You don't treat her like like a hooker at a motel where a dope deal went down. You you have to be gentle and you have to. And you and the most important thing is you've got to you have to make sure, above all else, you do not lose credibility with the jury. You don't have to score any points with the mom. You just have to be nice. But they needed to score points with this mom. But they they took the wrong approach, in my opinion. And I don't know everything. But in my opinion, I think you're right that that approach that, you know, that she she cross examiner like the grits guy and my cousin, Vinnie, not like the nice old lady looking through the dirty screen. And that's that's that's a mistake, man. That is a mistake. There were opportunities here that they I think that they kind of they they they missed, I think. I know this is a let me ask you a non-legal question just because you're a perceptive, analytical, observant, intelligent human. Yeah, Patrick Clancy didn't do this. But, you know, I did a piece yesterday where I said toxic masculinity, which is a phrase I can't stand. But you usually think of a roided out, you know, sexually aggressive dude that scares women. This guy's a different. He gives me the creeps. He gives me like smarmy kind of dead eyes. Didn't I get the sense he just didn't love his wife and he didn't help his wife. I think he missed every signal. He stayed in his little basement, selling his software and doing whatever while this woman is literally coming undone. He goes to an he goes to an appointment with her, with Rebecca Gelada, the nurse practitioner, and she's suggesting that there could be underlying bipolar here. My wife is not bipolar. He shuts it down. And that woman listens to him. He just got in the way of her care. He just interjected himself and impeded, you know, her healing. I do. Yes. Moves to New York five months later, three months after his children die. He's on a hike in Costa Rica or at least posting on all trails about a hike in Costa Rica. There's so much heaviness that stinks. And then you can get into the Apple watch and you can get into the change of clothes at the to locate. There's a lot of things that don't make you feel icky. Do you get the sense that I do that this guy's a liability to her? Well, look, there's a couple of things in that. Number one, let's not forget the cell phone guy, the Massachusetts State Police who came in. And it's interesting because she was carrying her cell phone. So that that's the wonky sort of hyper technical testimony that I found to be some of the most interesting because our phones, right, especially if you get an exercise outbound, it measures when we go up and down stairs. And that's her cell phone measured her going up the stairs right before she jumped out the window as she's communicating with him, basically. So for my in my mind, all ideas that he did it were dead in that moment. OK, so we have we have forensic like we have forensic technology that blows all of that stuff out of the water. That said, one of the worst things I heard, forget shoes, forget forget all that. When when her mother testified that that she called them in together, her her her mom and her husband and said, I'm I'm having homicidal ideation about the children, not the words of the mom. But that's what she's expressing. I'm thinking about hurting the kids where America right or wrong here is going to hate that guy is knowing that information and knowing how much his wife was struggling. He still left her alone with the children. That's what he's not going to get over ever. So when it talks when we talk about, you know, it's almost like the women of America versus that guy. We can forget all the crazy like he did it stuff. There's plenty to hate. Yeah, objectively, without even getting into that. And there's, you know, yeah, you go to Costa Rica right after him. Look, people deal with grief differently. I don't want to I don't want to be overly critical on that. But for lack of a better term, it's friggin weird, right? It's like he just lost his three kids. You know, like, again, I don't know how I would handle that. Oh, and he's married a lookalike, you know, so quickly afterwards, something I just. Yeah, no, look, there's reasons. There's reasons why people don't like that guy. One of the things I don't like, I don't like personally, Billy, I don't like the lawsuit. I don't like that he is blaming pharmaceutical companies. Oh, he's trying to get paid again. He's already gotten paid three different times. I don't like that. I don't like that part at all, especially. And look, I'm defending the pharmaceutical companies on that. It would be, buddy, your your wife told you she was thinking about hurting the kids. And then you went out of my courtroom. You went to go get like pediatric laxative, leaving her in the house alone. Like, what did you think was going to happen? That's how I would defend it. You know, and then the parents say, hey, do you want us to come and stay with the kids? No, don't stay with the kids. Let's leave Lindsay to ******* drown by herself. I'm sorry. That's right. And look, we can. That's where. And look, justice comes in all shapes and sizes, it really does, especially in the modern era with social media, you know, and she's in a wheelchair. She's going to face justice for what she did for the rest of her life because of that. And apparently she's paralyzed. And that's her prognosis moving forward. He's going to face scrutiny from the world, you know, right or wrong here. And again, I don't have a strong opinion one way or another on him. He's going to be he's going to be hearing about this for the rest of his life, too. And I just the people I feel awful for above all else. I feel bad for that mom. She really she kind of struck me. Also, the aunt, you know, her sister, she seemed like a really nice lady. But I really my heart just breaks for those three little kids. It seems like they were failed on so many different levels by so many different people. You look and including including Lindsay Clancy, you know, like she she knew that she was having that. And she I don't know. I this is why I understand what the prosecution. Well, she seemed to share more with her mom and sister than she did with Patrick. Maybe, you know, my sense of it is that she's afraid of Patrick's doesn't want to disappoint Patrick because Patrick's a little on the controlling side. He's a little mercurial. Yeah. And look, that's that's that personality type. And I don't know if he suffers from it or not, but that controlling boyfriend, the controlling husband. I've hated that guy my entire life, you know, like my my friend or that guy or marry that guy. I've never been able to stand the guy that, you know, the guy checks the cell phone because he's not sure. And like I yeah. And I'm not saying he did that. But, yeah, you get the same vibe as me. All right. Listen to this. Here's a quick you know, let's go to these the wonderful sloops of the world. Which one of these sticks out to you? OK, here's a book. Why did the Apple watch stop recording her heart rate at 523? Why did he lie about buying generic Pedialax? How did her body temp get so low so fast? How did her thyroid get crushed? Why wasn't more of her DNA on the bands? Did she actually talk to him outside? Why did it take him so long to check on his kids after finding her? Did someone actually get the massage on that anniversary? Is it weird that he said blood sprayed everywhere if he wasn't there? Why isn't he showing signs of sadness in the courtroom? Why were kids plates out if he already saw them eating nuggets and green beans out of the bowls? Why did he change his clothes and his shoes? Why did he ask? Why did she ask to change her proxy? What's the IP address from the 524? Any of those jump out to you? No, there's the look. There's a bunch. Number one, she the reason she took her she took her Apple watch off. That's the answer to that. Also, the body temp thing is a big one. Body temperature, we've all seen that scene a million times to the point that it's become a trope on TV. What time does the coroner place the time of death? 852 and 30 seconds. That's not real, guys. In fact, in Orange County, our forensic pathologist, the guy with the contract, a guy named Dr. Tony Hoogeland, he's, in my mind, the best in the world. He reached a point, Billy, he refused to do time of death estimations based on core temperature because it is wildly inaccurate. Whenever they do that, you will set up the defense over and over again. I just had a physical, Billy. Turns out I am around two degrees colder than normal, which I've joked about this before. I've got a couple of ex-girlfriends who would say that makes perfect sense. You can't do time of death based on core temperature, especially for a living human being. There's way, way, way too many variables. Everybody jumped on that like it's a scientific thing. It is not. That is not a reliably forensic tool. I've lived that as a homicide prosecutor. Every single time a forensic pathologist attempts to gauge time of death based on core temperature, I'm going to speak to the audience here, it is wrong every single time in my experience when I was in a homicide for 17 years. What about the fact that her DNA is not on the bands, but his is? Another thing, look, there are people that are called shedders. There's people that aren't some people, Billy, for reasons that we still don't know scientifically, shed DNA. They'll have DNA on everything they touch. They will have DNA when they breathe. Look, there's different ways that DNA can be shed. Sometimes it's skin cells. Sometimes it's epithelial cells out of the inside of our mouth. Patrick is a shedder. Okay. Patrick's almost certainly a shedder. She just might not be. I had a murder case where I had two guys, a guy murdered his girlfriend, brutal stabbing, and he was with his cousin. The cousin was there for about 30 seconds. The cousin touched the car and the cousin touched the jeans of my victim as he helped load her into the trunk. Cousin's DNA was on everything. The boyfriend had been driving around in the car. DNA was on nothing. We did not find his DNA, and we expected it to be there because he was with her. It should have been there. He just wasn't a shedder. DNA, again, can be wonderful, but it doesn't apply equally when you're talking about transfer of DNA to objects. Every forensic scientist in America has heard that argument and rolled their eyes. Wow. Oh, my God. That shuts down about a quarter of the internet. Why did he search unaliving methods? Why were pills crushed into the lemonade? How was her recorded heart rate so low if she was unaliving herself and three kids? Yeah. Again, we're talking about human variability, and there's so many different factors that come into it. Now, as far as the email stuff, I don't think anybody truly knows, but when your wife is telling you, I'm thinking about killing our kids because I'm suffering from postpartum, the idea that somebody is going to do research on that might not be that unusual that somebody is looking at Andrea Yates, but again, we're talking about human beings. I don't know. I've never met that guy, and at the end of the day, this isn't my case. I haven't lived it. I just don't know. I don't know what he was thinking. I don't know what he was thinking when he left the house that night. Again, we can Monday morning quarterback his behavior all day long. I don't know how I would react. It's a tough thing to do, but look, she killed her own kids. That happened. She told her own mother that she was afraid she was going to kill her own kids. She has one of the best criminal lawyers probably in the entire state of Massachusetts, and he's not saying that the husband did it. She killed her own kids. The evidence is overwhelming that she killed her own kids. There's no question legally or the people that really know that she killed her own kids. The real question is, is she criminally responsible under the law in the state of Massachusetts given the battery of medications she was taking and her severely degraded mental state at the time that she committed that horrific act? That's reality. That's where all the rational people are. Look, I don't want to criticize online sleuths because for the ones that are in the true crime world, they're great. For your viewers who haven't seen it, watch Don't F with Cats because that is online sleuthing gone right, where you've got a bunch of online sleuths who literally saved lives. I don't want to blow the plot if you haven't seen it. It's an amazing documentary. Online sleuthing can go bad. Brian Koberger, there was a bunch of online sleuths, one in particular, who were convinced that a totally innocent college professor at the University of Idaho was responsible for that murder. The professor was totally innocent and it made that professor's life very difficult and that was wrong. Online sleuthing can't go too far. It's not going to here because the law and the attorneys and the judge, they're in the world of reality. Hopefully it won't hurt anybody unduly on this one. There are times where it helps, times that it hurts. As long as people aren't destroying innocent lives because of it, I'm all for it. On this one, look, the guy didn't do it. Sorry, he didn't do it. Happy to debate people and explain the reasons why. The best that I can say for him is, and I don't think it's going to make a difference, but if you really are... Marriage is difficult. It's stressful. When you have three kids under six, it's stressful on everybody. I was one of those people at one point, my ex-wife now, and I had three kids under the age of six. You're going to work. You're working on your job. You expect each other to pull the weight or else it gets really stressful. Now, in no way am I making an apology for this guy because this was an extreme situation. No matter what, if my ex-wife was having these terrible thoughts, and on 13, I would never allow my wife... 13 medications, I would have institutionalized her myself and said, something's not working, you assholes. Something's going... He did not take command of the situation as he should have, but there's no question he probably had his own stresses. And he was like, come on, Lindsey, figure one of these meds out. People get to those places. It is not excusable. I'm not making an apology for the guy, but you know, it's the best I can say for him. I'm sorry, but anyway, Matt, you made the call. This is probably... They're going to probably rule that she lacked criminal responsibility. She'll go to a state psychiatric facility for a long time. She doesn't get off. She's not like, you know, go back to your life. She's in a wheelchair. She's going to be in a facility for a long time. But before, if you don't mind quickly, there's another high profile case that has to do with insanity, and that is the Nick Reiner case here in Los Angeles. My friend Alan Jackson gave a statement yesterday and he was like, you know, Nick should be entitled to his $1.5 million trust, family trust. The people who set it up, of course, are the people that he unalived in their living room, but he's entitled to it. Of course, that would be used by Nick, who is, I guess, sane enough now to pay Alan to defend him, but much harder to prove here in California, right? I mean, what chances do you give of Nick Reiner being able to, or Alan, convincing a jury that he was insane at the time? So I've known Alan for years. Alan's a friend of mine too. I like Alan. I respect Alan. We go way back. I love Alan. This is one that I got a very different opinion on this one. Nick Reiner also, look, I grew up in LA. I grew up not far from the same neighborhood where these murders were committed. I had friends that lived there. They grew up in that area. We all know that spoiled kid that can't launch and gets into drugs and is basically just like a bitter freaking loser, despite every advantage that they've got under California law. Also, I should say, full disclosure, Nathan Hockman is the DA of Los Angeles County. I think he's rock solid. We got rid of George Gascon, thank God, who, in my opinion, was the worst thing to happen to public safety in the history of Los Angeles, literally. This is one where the McNaughton rule will, I think, come into play. He's certainly the guy suffering from mental illness, but how much of that is from his own abuse of drugs? He'd been in rehab, I think, 17 times. We know that guy. We know that spoiled guy that just can't get his ---- together. In my opinion, that is Nick Reiner against Alan Jackson. Alan's an incredibly talented, very, very experienced, as we saw on- Well, South Boston loves the guy. Look, that's a different ballgame. I think they are going to be able to somehow get that money. I have to imagine that's going to happen. The LA DA's office, the people involved in that case, they know what they're doing. It's a different legal standard. It's a totally different fact pattern. Apparently, he landed weight. It's a first-degree murder. You're talking about a very intimate killing. I did a case, one of my last cases before I left the office, was very similar. It was a very wealthy family. This kid suffered from legitimate organic mental illness. Not so much Nick Reiner because there's a chicken or egg thing. Have you done so many drugs that you're starting to lose it, or were you mentally ill to begin with and you're self medicating? On the moral scale, those are very different things in my view. This was a guy in Newport Beach, super wealthy family, legitimate organic mental illness. Then he started doing drugs, trying to self-medicate. He did the same thing. He landed weight for his parents. He stabbed them both to death. He stuck around and murdered the housekeeper because they were trying to commit him. The housekeeper signed some affidavit, and he was mad at her too. He stabbed all three of them to death. It was an absolutely helter-skelter crime scene. It was a horrible, decades-long history of documented mental illness with psychiatrists and medication, the whole deal. He was mentally ill, and then he started doing drugs, and it made him even worse. The jury found him mentally ill but legally sane, and that guy's in prison now. That guy, in my view, and I knew that case intimately, that guy was 1,000 times, in my view, more sympathetic than Nick Reiner. I think that despite Alan Jackson's talent, he's got his work cut out for him on this. Nathan Hockman knows what he's doing. He's a good DA in LA. I think that the team that is going to be working on the case is going to be top-notch. I can tell you, in my opinion, just my personal opinion, Nick Reiner should be found legally responsible for the slaughter of his parents, and he should go to prison. In my view, that guy is a perfect example of where a mentally ill person does not meet the requirements of legal insanity in the state of California. Just my thoughts. The sympathy for Lindsay Clancy, of course, who by all accounts and multiple testimony is a woman who loved her kids and was in a terrible place. Totally different ballgame. Sympathy for Nick Reiner is a tough one, truthfully, and I love Alan. If anyone can do it, it's Alan. I'll say that. Yeah, I agree. But I interviewed Nick and his parents. I interviewed Nick and his father on Access Hollywood years ago. I had them both there for their movie, and I can tell you, I was just like, there's something so just ungrateful about the kid and just a bad attitude and snapping at his father. I'll tell you what, Billy, I did some commentary for another show, and that interview is the one that put me over the edge because you're watching him. He's not howling at the moon. He's in control of his faculty. I guess that movie didn't do very well, but it also shows that his father wasn't giving up on him. His attitude towards you, towards him, it was exactly what I'm talking about. It's that spoiled kid that can't launch. How much would you or me, I would love to have the advantages that he had growing up with the money and a father that loved him as much as they did. The parents didn't give up on him. He had every opportunity in life, and then he went to that party, and he left. I have zero sympathy for the guy on that one. That's one, honestly, Billy, that makes me miss the game. I couldn't call it a game. Hello, Alan. Hello, Matt. That's one that I could go toe-to-toe with my buddy, Alan. Matt Murphy and Alan Jackson, to me, that's what our American politics ought to be. Two guys that have respect for each other, they're going to go at it, and afterwards, they're going to have a martini, and they're going to discuss the trial when it's over. I wish our congressmen and our senators from each party would do exactly that. That's how Mark Geragos and I always dealt with each other in the case we did, and we got a podcast together now. That was the thing. It's that the way that should work, I think, with politicians and also, but especially with professional adversaries in a courtroom, it should be like those old Bugs Bunny cartoons with the sheepdog and the whistle. Good morning, Ralph. Good morning, Phil. They chase each other around, and then they come in, and it's like, have a good night, Ralph. Have a good night, Phil. Then you try to kill each other professionally and in the hallway. That's the way Geragos always was when I dealt with him, and I always liked Mark as a result of that. He's a good friend, so that's the way it should work. I would love to try that case against Alan, and damn it, in front of an Orange County jury, I like my chances, even against the great Alan Jackson. I'm having a Vesper Martini with him on Thursday, so I'll tell him. Matt Murphy, yeah, Matt Murphy still has his own practice. You know the cred. He and Mark Geragos host In The Well, Megyn Kelly's MK True Crime Network. Couldn't be a better pairing. Awesome. Hit subscribe on that, and Matt, I hope you'll come back. I cannot tell you how much I've enjoyed this and my producer, Harry. How much did you love that, Harry? Hog heaven, and what I loved most, I wrote this down, the My Cousin Vinny references. Didn't expect that, did you? I'm thinking, I've watched everything you've done, dude. I'm as close to Fanboy on True Crime, and you go My Cousin Vinny on us. Next time you watch it, you'll think about it, and you'll go, absolutely. That's one of my favorite movies. Another good one, of course, is A Few Good Men, that cross-examination. That one speaks to me. When he's shaking with a glass of water, that captures the moment of a cross-examination. You can't handle the truth, and then you take them off the rails. Oh, my god. Yeah, yeah. I'm stoked I finally got to be on the show, guys. I'd love to come back anytime. Thank you so much, Matt, and we're going to definitely take you up on that. Matt Murphy, make sure you subscribe to Matt and Mark Geragos, In The Well on MK's True Crime, and we appreciate it. And that's it for Hot Mics today. Hit subscribe on us. Bye-bye. Thanks, guys.