Groups of women dressed in pink gathered outside Plymouth Superior Court this week in support of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother on trial for the 2023 deaths of her three young children.
The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, prohibits the US government and states from denying the right to vote based on sex. Because she was suffering from severe mental illness, clancy’s defense does not dispute that she killed her children but argues that she should not be held criminally responsible. Prosecutors say the killings were intentional and premeditated. It is the constitutional provision that secured women’s voting rights nationwide.
Lindsay Clancy’s Trial Begins Amidst Admission of Guilt
Lindsay Clancy, aged 32, is on trial for the deaths of her three children, Cora (5), Dawson (3), and Callan (8 months), whom she strangled with exercise bands in the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts home on January 24, 2023. Her husband, Patrick Clancy, was away running errands at the time of the incident.
Clancy has confessed to the killings but has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. Her defense team argues that she was experiencing a severe postpartum mental health crisis, rendering her not criminally responsible for her actions. In contrast, prosecutors argue that the killings were premeditated and intentional.
The trial commenced in late July 2026 at Plymouth Superior Court.
