Lindsay Clancy Trial- Day 19

Rebuttal Witness #1- Avram Mack -Continues

Child and Adolescent and Forensic Psychiatrist Expert Witness

Cross continues

• Estimates testifying 1-2 before on criminal responsibility. This would be the 3rd time in his career.

• Asks about a case in Pennsylvania where it was determined that he was an certified expert in child and adolescent psychologist and lacked the certification for forensic psychology

• Asks about a case in Chicago where the court on appeal determined he used a method that fell below the standard of forensic practice

• Florida case, a Single mother and navy veteran using a program temporary aid for needy families (TANF). he testified that they should be tested because they are of a class of people who are more likely to be criminals, use drugs or commit suicide. There was an appeal in this case where the court found that he was not qualified to offer his opinion because

  1. he never studied the TANF population

  2. that he did not survey any data

  3. he had no research whatsoever on the data he based his opinion on. instead relied on other researchers studies

• Ultimately his testimony was stricken from the record.

• Confirms he's there to testify about Lindsay's mindset on Jan 24th 2023. acknowledges that he only interviewed Lindsay a couple months ago about the incident over 3 years ago

• Confirms he reviewed all records prior to meeting with Lindsay including the defence's expert witness opinions

• Reviewed a report created by DCF after they interviewed Patrick in February 2023. There was no records of Lindsay abusing her children or being reported for anything.

• Denies that there is any test to determine if a person is Lying or Faking symptoms (others have already testified that there is such a test)

• When asked he dances around verbally and describes that test (k scale) as a way to say if you can use the Personality & mental health test (MMPI). If there is a deviation on the K scale then the MMPI isn't "a valid test to use"

• Confirms prosecutions psychologist determined Lindsay's k scale had no deviation. (essentially she wasn't lying about anything)

• Confirms that typically the psychologist doesn't give the MMPI test, that is done via the Psychiatrist which in this case should have been Dr. Avram Mack. However he wasn't the one who preformed it.

• Confirms his entire opinion is that at the time she was suffering from Disease or defect however it's his opinion that she understood the wrongfulness of her actions, says she has a mood disorder with a potential anxiety order

• Confirms that Dr. Heilburn (psychologist) for the prosecution, diagnosed Lindsay with bi-polar. The defence Dr. Spinelli says bi polar. Dr. Jollata suspected Bi-polar.

• Talks about Postpartum length is referred to as 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 1 year or in the dictionary the definition could imply life long because postpartum means after giving birth.

• Out of the 10 symptoms on the postpartum EPDS (edinburg postnatal depression scale) test Lindsay had all 10.

• Says you can be postpartum and can have psychosis but it can't be called postpartum psychosis because it's not a recognized disease by the American Board of Psychiatric and Neurology.

• Insinuates that he only goes by the DSM-5 book for diagnosis, and does not include any proposed changes or additions to be made until they are actually put in.

• It's shown that Lindsay was suffer the first 9/10 symptoms of Postpartum Psychosis

• Highlights that a blood test should be taken at the start of treatment to help rule out other issues and to test enzyme reaction to prescriptions

• On redirect they establish he was not investigating Lindsay but evaluating Lindsay.

• Claims that the reason he was retained in early 2025 but had to review a vast amount of documents and had to have the courts permission to visit and was given the 2 dates in April 2026.

• Seems to understand every question asked by the prosecution and give quicker answers, unlike with defence.

• Testifies that on the day of the interviews, it was video recorded, with the option to take a break when needed. Defence questioned about how many hours each interview was over the 3 days. on the days Avram Mack was there he estimates 4-5 the first day and 3-4 the second one.

Prosecutors seem anxious and wanting to stop but cant seem to find the grounds to object for most of the questioning. It has been mentioned multiple times that the case has 7000 pages and yet there is nothing saying she was faking it, or not severely mental ill, or really proving the prosecutions theory which I personally think says a lot on this case. Attorney Reddington actually gets mad at him at one point for smiling during the questioning and says "why are you smiling, this isn't a funny matter". The public following this trial has been referring to reddington as shredding-ton during certain cross examinations and he definitely shredded this witness right from the start today. The judge has to tell the witness 4 times to stop and answer the question asked and wait for the prosecution to redirect. on one occasions he says " here is how it works, you don't really ask questions, you listen to the question and answer, if unable to answer you let me know and I tell council to reframe it". This seriously makes me question him and his expertise, if you've testified in other cases yet have to be told by the judge multiple times to just answer the question, then you are not a great witness. Questioning seems to highlight how the DSM (hand book to guide mental health medicine and diagnosing) is out of date and lacking much on postpartum. although there is proposed changes and additions focused in this area to be made. I think it's just goes to show how far behind mental health is in general but especially for women in the postpartum period. The witness says multiple times that postpartum psychosis isn't a classified disease, so i decided to google it because I didn't really trust what he was saying and this was the answer "Postpartum psychosis is a recognized clinical condition and psychiatric emergency, but it is not currently listed as a separate, standalone diagnosis in major manuals like the DSM-5. " All in all I think this witness did more harm to the prosecutions case and being so close to the end of the trial, his testimony is really going to stand out in the juries mind.

Rebuttal witness #2- Dr. Kirk Heilburn-

Forensic Psychologist Expert Witness

• runs two areas of practice, working with attorneys or for the court on evaluations and reintegration of society from prison, state mental institution or for individuals who were exonerated after serving some time.

• Confidently explains what he does and where he works

• appears to be reading from notes on his background information

• talks about reviewing the case, her mental health history and talking to Patrick and Patrick's mom.

• went over everything fairly in depth and came off as professional and knowledgeable

• he finds she is bi polar 2 which is a less severe form of bi polar

• notes that her and providers kept trying medications but she needed actual therapy to work through the issues. medication alone wouldn't solve the issues.

• He testifies that she has been on 1:1 care since the incident which is over 3.5 years ago and says that it indicates she is still very suicidal and has been since her admission to hospital

• He finds that it wasn't psychosis because when describing the voice she heard, Lindsay described not hearing it before or after but only for those 18 minutes on jan 24th 2023. this would be extremely unusual in his opinion.

• During his testimony he talks about the different reason a parent may commit such an act and says he thinks it's more likely that she did it in a attempt to protect the children from her absence when she committed suicide.

• As he is speaking on the situation he says that evidence that confirmed this was her saying "go to god baby" to the kids as she committed the murders.

• He mentions that as a catholic she believes they would be together in heaven but then goes to say something about questioning her on it being a "mortal sin".

• There is an immediate objection from defence and a side bar.

The judge sends the jury back to the jury room and puts the court on recess while he retreats to his office to consider something discussed at the side bar

Judge Sullivan returns with the attorneys and hears arguments on the motion defence proposed during sidebar.

Defence : motions to declare a mistrial, admits it's very late in the trial to do so and that everyone has put in a lot of effort and time to do this trial, however; he feels that this being the second time religion is brought up and the religion that Lindsay was raised in considering the act a mortal sin has biased the jury and is completely in appropriate.

Prosecution: claims that they did not intend for the witness to say that and they are aware they were spoken to once about it and they don't believe the question asked turned the witness in that direction. they are willing to talk to the witness and explain that can't be part of his testimony

Judge Sullivan: usually a calm, fair, overall happy and pleasant dude was very angry. He told the prosecutors how un acceptable it was and how their witness is not educated or an expert in any religion and can not act as such. He decides he won't grant the mistrial but he will instruct the jurors to disregard the last statement regarding the religion and mortal sin comments and then send them home for the day. he also firmly stresses that the prosecution take the night to talk to the witness and make sure his testimony has nothing to do with religion.

Oh man today was wild........ from Reddington making Dr. Mack look completely incompetent to almost having the case end in a mistrial with 1-2 days left. I must say I loved watching this cross, I am not a fan of Dr. Mack and in my opinion the prosecution should have NEVER called him because he made them all look like fools. Some people see him as a bully but to me it shows how long Kevin Reddington has been practicing law and how serious he takes the cases that he defends. Sometimes I do feel like both sides take more time questioning then they need and that could make juries nod off or disengage. Now for the real juicy part today, Dr. Heilburn. I'm not going to lie I actually thought he was the prosecutions BEST witness. He really answered and connected dots that other witness's didn't or left you wondering about. He acknowledge that her suicide attempt was very real and her ideations remain severe today which the prosecution spent the trial basically implying that it was fake or just for show so thats a little bit working against them but honestly i don't think anyone was buying that she faked the attempt on her life. Now let's get to what lead to the motion for mistrial, 2 words we heard before 'mortal sin' returned today. Earlier in the trial one of the lovley Assistant District Attorneys made a comment when asking Patrick's mom about them going to church which was " your are aware that murder is a mortal sin". when this came up i was stunned that a ADA could say something like that and it came off as just being bitchy. objection was called and side bar was called and the judge clearly gave her shit for saying it. Today the prosecutions witness was on a roll, coming off as very strong and probably had a big influence on the jury and then he brought up religion. He goes down the rabbit hole and fucks up bad haha. basically he says she believes in god and heaven and was raised catholic which made him question how she didn't consider the fact that murder is a mortal sin because he's pretty sure that's what the religion says. Reddington barley finished the word objection and judge Sullivan was like Yeah..... sidebar now! he was clearly not happy and honestly it made me wonder,

Did he watch that testimony?

Has he been watching the whole thing?

Did the prosecution talk to him about this?

Are they going off a type of script?

The thing about both of these mortal sin comments is that both of the people who said them should know better! Dude has testified over 300 times and the chick is a Assistant District Attorney! I think if this had happened even a week earlier then there may have been a mistrial called. I'm glad it wasn't called being that it's so close to being done but I do feel like the prosecution got off easy on this one even though the judge was clearly mad. Im not sure if it's allowed to strike kirks entire testimony but if it is then I feel like that would have been more fair to both parties.