Lindsay Clancy defense argues prosecution’s expert is ‘way off base’

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (Court TV) — Lindsay Clancy‘s defense attorney challenged the prosecution’s first expert witness on Monday morning, questioning his knowledge of medical terms and his history of testifying in court.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder in the deaths of her children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. Clancy has admitted that she killed her children by strangling them with exercise bands in the family’s home while her husband was out running an errand, but she has argued she is not criminally responsible for her actions because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.

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The trial is now a battle of the experts: Clancy’s defense rested its case on Friday after calling doctors who testified that the defendant was psychotic in the moments that she took her children’s lives and then tried to take her own life. Prosecutors countered with their first expert, Dr. Avram Mack, who said that while he found Clancy suffered from depression, he did not see evidence that she was in psychosis.

Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, challenged Mack from every angle — beginning with his experience. Mack said this was his third time testifying regarding lack of criminal responsibility; Reddington then fired back with examples of cases in which courts deemed Mack’s testimony unreliable.

A Pennsylvania court “held that you, that would be Avram Mack … lacked forensic certification to testify in the field that you were ostensibly going to testify in,” Reddington said. In New Jersey, a “court held on appeal that you used an approach that fell below the standard of forensic practice”; and in a Florida federal court, “the court held that, in fact, you were unqualified to give an opinion that you attempted to give.”

“I don’t agree with your conceptualization,” Mack responded.

Reddington then questioned Mack about some of the responses he had given in court the previous Friday, including a statement in which Mack incorrectly defined the postpartum period as four weeks long and misused medical terminology. On Friday, Mack said, “I think [Clancy] had a tear, which is called an episiotomy, and that was something she was unhappy about.” On Monday, Reddington revisited the question.

Reddington: “Did somebody tell you that you were way off base on that testimony Friday, sir?”
Mack: “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
Reddington: “I’m referring to you saying that an episiotomy is a tear, and it’s not.”
Prosecutor: “Your Honor, is there a question for this witness?”
Reddington: “I already asked the question. I’m looking at him, and he’s staring back at me.”

An episiotomy is not a tear; it is a deliberate surgical incision to widen the birth canal and prevent severe tearing.

Reddington also told the jury that Mack was hired by the prosecution to testify through the firm Park Dietz and Associates. The firm is a group connecting attorneys with experts to testify in various fields — but Dietz himself provided key testimony in Andrea Yates’ murder trial.

Yates, who killed her five children by drowning them in a bathtub, was initially convicted of murder in their deaths after prosecutors introduced testimony from Dietz, who said that the murders mimicked a “Law & Order” episode. On appeal, the court found no such episode; the court overturned Yates’ conviction, and at her retrial she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Yates’ attorney, George Parnham, laughed when he found out that Dietz’s firm had provided expert witnesses for the prosecution in Clancy’s case. “Knowing the background of Dietz and how he perjured himself in Andrea’s case, I’m sure that’s going to come back at least in summation,” Parnham said. “That’s got to be a whole issue that can only help the defense.”

Another expert witness listed by the prosecution as a rebuttal witness, Kirk Heilbrun, is also listed as an expert by Park Dietz and Associates.