A juror who voted to acquit Lindsay Clancy — the Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her three young children — told CBS that the decision was not just about the evidence, but about making a political statement.
In a column published Monday, Breitbart’s John Nolte seized on the juror’s remarks, arguing that the admission proves the hung jury was “beyond corrupt” and that the holdout juror who refused to go along with the majority was the only one honoring the law.
Paula Devlin, one of the jurors, explained her reasoning to CBS Saturday Morning.
“We knew that this was a turning point, and this would be something that could change something to make it better for other women in the future, for other families,” Devlin said, according to the Breitbart account. “Justice for those children,” she added, “is this never happening again.”
Nolte argued that such reasoning is a fundamental violation of a juror’s duty. In his view, jurors are tasked solely with weighing evidence and applying the law—not with effecting social change.
“You are there as a juror to do only one thing: base your verdict on the evidence and law,” Nolte wrote. “You’re not there to create a ‘turning point.’ You’re not there to ‘change something’ or to ‘make it better.'”
The Case and the Controversy
Lindsay Clancy stood trial for the murders of her three children. The trial ended in a hung jury after eleven jurors reportedly voted to acquit and one held out for conviction. Nolte, who said he withheld his own opinion until both sides had presented their cases, concluded that Clancy was “guilty as hell.”
He argued that the killings were meticulously planned and therefore premeditated, and that someone in a true psychotic state would not attempt to hide their actions because they would believe their conduct was normal.
“If you want to see a woman truly suffering from psychosis, look at the woman shot down by police in Times Square a couple of weeks ago after she ran around stabbing people,” Nolte wrote. “That’s a crazy person. That’s someone who is lost in a true psychosis.”
Nolte praised the lone juror who voted to convict, calling the eleven others “un-American individuals who put their own personal agenda above their duty to the law.”
The column is the latest flashpoint in a broader national debate over the Clancy case, which has drawn intense media coverage and sparked arguments about mental illness, the legal definition of insanity, and the role of mercy in the justice system.
Critics Question the Logic
Nolte also challenged the juror’s claim that acquitting Clancy would prevent similar tragedies.
“How is letting Lindsay Clancy off the hook going to stop this from ever happening again?” he asked, suggesting that the opposite might be true. He went on to argue that treating a child murderer like a civil rights icon is dangerous.
“Treating a child murderer like she’s Rosa Parks is a recipe for disaster,” he wrote.
While Nolte’s column is a strongly worded opinion piece, it reflects a growing conservative critique of jury nullification when it is used to send progressive messages. Legal experts often debate whether jurors should follow the letter of the law or whether they have a right to nullify based on conscience, but Nolte’s stance leaves no room for ambiguity.
The juror’s comments have not been independently verified beyond the CBS interview, and Breitbart did not provide additional context about the trial’s evidence or the defense’s arguments.
As the case continues to generate headlines, the question of whether a jury should consider the broader social implications of its verdict remains deeply divisive.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/14/nolte-lindsay-clancy-juror-admits-not-guilty-vote-about-sending-message/