Show Notes
What does it take to be a juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial? As week two begins in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, jurors are facing one of the hardest assignments in the criminal justice system: separating heartbreaking evidence from the law. They have already heard Patrick Clancy's emotional 911 call, watched first responders struggle through testimony, and seen evidence from inside the Duxbury, Massachusetts home where 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan died in January 2023.
Today’s expert explains what it takes to separate emotion from fact in cases that push jurors to their limits.
In this episode of Criminally Obsessed, investigative reporter Anne Emerson sits down with Jury Consultant and Body Language Expert Susan Constantine to discuss the emotional toll trials like this take on juries. She has spent years studying how juries respond in some of America's most emotionally devastating trials. She attended the Casey Anthony trial in 2011, and worked with the jury consulting firm that helped select jurors for Andrea Yates' retrial in 2006, where Yates was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity in the drowning deaths of her five children.
We revisit and react to some of the most brutal evidence the jury has seen so far in the Lindsay Clancy trial, like the prosecutor holding up the exercise bands used in the deaths of the children and the pajamas they had on the night they died. Right before the jury heard the 911 call, the judge instructed them to separate their emotions from the facts in the audio they were about to hear - Susan offers her expert perspective on whether this was a realistic expectation.
The jury will ultimately decide whether Lindsay Clancy should be convicted in the deaths of her children or found not guilty by reason of insanity based on her defense of postpartum psychosis. Before they reach that verdict, they must answer a difficult question: how do you judge a case this heartbreaking based on the evidence alone?
Subscribe to Criminally Obsessed for continuing Lindsay Clancy trial coverage, true crime investigations, courtroom analysis, and exclusive interviews with the experts behind today's biggest cases.
Learn more about Susan Constantine’s work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from Criminally Obsessed
Two days after serving divorce papers to her husband, Mica Miller was found dead at Lumber River State Park on April 27, 2024. Her death was ruled a suicide, but questions about the circumstances surrounding her death remain. According to her best friend, Bruna Pabon, Mica had confided in her that she feared her husband, John-Paul Miller, would kill her and make it look like she had taken her own life. Bruna says Mica made one thing clear: she wanted to live.
Nick Reiner, charged in the murders of his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, is heading to Los Angeles probate court on October 23rd to fight for access to a trust worth more than $1.5 million that he says he needs to pay for his criminal defense.
What happened at the latest Alex Murdaugh retrial hearing—and is Harpootlian in trouble with the new judge? Former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon joins Anne Emerson to break down what’s next in the Alex Murdaugh case after the evidentiary hearing on October 16, 2026 before Judge Debra McCaslin.
You asked for the full JP Miller interviews and now you're getting them — this Mica Miller interview special shares both unaired JP Miller interviews in order. Reporter Mike Owen sat down with South Carolina pastor JP Miller twice in 2024 after the death of his wife Mica Miller on April 27th, 2024, and ABC 15 News in Myrtle Beach only aired a few soundbites out of caution before any public allegations or charges.
Alex Murdaugh returns to court Friday, October 16, for an urgent pretrial evidence hearing, months before the date the judge says she won't move: an April 5, 2027 retrial in Sumter, South Carolina. The defense and prosecution have been trading a "dizzying" flurry of filings over what the jury will and won't see, and the judge is about to start making calls.