WATCH: Lindsay Clancy Trial Judge Scolds Jurors In Fiery Lecture Over ‘Reasonable Doubt’

The trial judge in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder case summoned the jury back into the courtroom on Thursday to school them on the concept of “reasonable doubt.”

The jury has been deliberating for some 35 hours on whether Clancy is criminally liable for killing her three children. They sent the judge two separate notes over the past week saying they could not reach a verdict. Both times, the judge sent them back to deliberate.

On Thursday, jurors sent yet another note, prompting the judge to question each individually, and even summon Clancy to the bench for a brief discussion, before calling the entire jury back into the courtroom.

“Good afternoon, everyone. I just want to go over a couple of things this afternoon,” said Judge William Sullivan. “First off, I want to remind you that you are required to follow my instructions on the law as I gave them to you. All right?”

Sullivan continued:

I also want to, at this point,  to go over, uh, the instruction that I gave you about reasonable doubt. All right? And so, reasonable doubt, the burden is on the commonwealth to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charges made against her. What is proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Well, the term is often used and probably pretty well understood, though it’s not easily defined. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt, for everything in the lives of human beings is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. A charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt if, after you’ve compared and considered all of the evidence, you have in your minds an abiding conviction to a moral certainty that the charge is true.

When we refer to moral certainty, we mean the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs based solely on the evidence that has been put before you in this case. I’ve told you that every person is presumed to be innocent until they are proved guilty, and that the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. If you evaluate all the evidence and you still have a reasonable doubt remaining, the defendant is entitled to the benefit of that doubt and must be acquitted. It’s not enough for the commonwealth to establish a probability, even a strong probability, that the defendant is more likely to be guilty than not guilty. That is not enough. Instead, the evidence must convince you of the defendant’s guilt to a reasonable and moral certainty, a certainty that convinces your understanding and satisfies your reason and judgment. As jurors who are sworn to act conscientiously on the evidence.

“This is what we mean by proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Sullivan concluded. “And with that, I’m going to ask you to resume your deliberations.”

Clancy’s defense has argued that she suffered from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her three children, and should not be held criminally liable for murder.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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