Fox Contributor Questions Why Lindsay Clancy Jury Isn’t Being Sequestered

The 12-member jury that will decide the fate of Lindsay Clancy was dismissed Friday evening and allowed to go back home.

In an interview on The Will Cain Show, Fox News contributor Josh Ritter questioned why the jury wasn’t sequestered instead. Though he noted that the practice of sequestering juries “has become very rare,” Ritter pointed out that the attention this case has received may have warranted the precaution.

He said, “I think we ask a lot of jurors and judges feel like asking them to completely separate themselves from their loved ones for the period of time that they are deliberating is also asking too much.”

Ritter added:

But in a case like this, you have to imagine that crossed the judge’s mind because we are so inundated with coverage of this case. They know how important this case is. They see the media lined up when they show up in the morning to go inside the courtroom and I have to imagine that going home for two days — it’s not even so much avoiding your phone, avoiding the television, avoiding newspapers, it’s also going to be avoiding loved ones who might just be naturally curious and asking them about it, and they are under strict instructions to never discuss this case, only to discuss it in the deliberation room amongst themselves. So, we hope, we put a lot of trust in them that they will follow those guidelines.

The jury is in its second day of deliberations.

The trial that unfolded over the last five weeks included testimony from more than 80 witnesses. Clancy’s mother, father, brother, and sister were in attendance Friday and seated behind her in the courtroom.

Clancy faces charges in the deaths of her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months old. Her defense team has argued she experienced postpartum psychosis at the time of the children’s deaths. Clancy, who also attempted to kill herself, was never diagnosed with postpartum psychosis by a medical professional.

It can be difficult for women to be properly diagnosed with postpartum psychosis and treated for the condition. Per NPR, the case “highlights gaps in mental health care for new mothers and the urgent need for more research and public education about a rarely discussed but severe illness.”

Prosecutors have agreed Clancy was struggling with her mental health but argued she was in control of her actions, and that she planned the murders of the children. Cora, Dawson, and Callan were strangled to death in their home.

Watch the above via Fox News.

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