September 4, 2026
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Michael's Daily Notes
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The Lindsay Clancy jury has now sent two deadlock notes to the judge. A third will likely mean a mistrial. So before the jurors return at 9 a.m., I'm asking: if this ends in a hung jury, should Massachusetts try her again?
The facts are not in dispute. In January 2023, Clancy strangled her three children - Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months - then jumped from a window in a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed. The defense says postpartum psychosis and command hallucinations drove her. Prosecutors say she planned it, sending her husband on an errand far enough away to give her time.
Jed Rubenfeld, the Yale law professor, wrote a piece in The Free Press that explains why this jury was set up to fail. In Massachusetts, the state must prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt, a heavy lift when the experts themselves disagree. And the crime that best fits what Clancy did - voluntary manslaughter, which Massachusetts courts define as a killing arising "from the frailty of human nature" - was never on the jury's menu. The Commonwealth still follows old common-law rules that reserve that charge for fistfights and cuckolded husbands, not for a mother in mental collapse. Rubenfeld's conclusion: whatever the jurors decide, the law all but guarantees the wrong answer.
That's the case for not retrying. Twelve people couldn't agree after six days, and a second jury would face the same bad options. The case for retrying is simpler: a hung jury is not an acquittal, and three children are dead.
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DAILY POLL
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If the Lindsay Clancy case ends in a mistrial, should she be retried?
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TOP STORY
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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to pause a Boston federal judge's order blocking parts of a new U.S. Postal Service rule imposing envelope-design and voter-data requirements on mail-in ballots, warning that North Carolina and Alabama begin mailing ballots as soon as Sept. 4.
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TODAY'S YOUTUBE
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SPONSORED BY PARX CASINO
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IN OTHER NEWS
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A new Gallup poll finds Americans’ support for stronger labor unions has reached a record high, with 47% wanting unions to have more influence, while 71% approve of unions overall despite growing doubts that organized labor will actually become more powerful.
Fox News Media has parted ways with Patrick Ignozzi, executive producer of Mornings with Maria, a day after Maria Bartiromo's ouster amid reports she leaked internal Fox Business guidance on Trump coverage to White House officials.
The feminist icon, who died Wednesday at 92, spent most of her life critical of marriage before wedding entrepreneur David Bale in 2000 and becoming stepmother to actor Christian Bale; she never had children of her own and never remarried after David Bale's death from brain lymphoma in 2003.
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A MESSAGE FROM COMCAST
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As Lindsay Clancy's trial for killing her three children spotlights postpartum psychosis in the U.S., survivors and psychiatrists point to the U.K.'s Mother and Baby Units — inpatient facilities that keep mothers with their infants during treatment — as a life-saving model America lacks.
Three Pennsylvania youth football coaches were charged with disorderly conduct after a sideline fight during the final minutes of a Steel City Youth Football League game between Carlynton and Keystone Oaks in Carnegie was caught on video.
In a previously unreported August phone call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told President Trump he opposed a White House-floated plan to create a FINRA-style national AI regulator, as the administration weighs that approach against a lighter industry-led model championed by David Sacks.
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CARTOONS
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by Eric Allie
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MORE NEWS
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An internal Air Force email obtained by CBS News shows the Pentagon told personnel in August to stop calling ongoing U.S. military operations against Iran 'Operation Epic Fury,' three months after officials say the named operation formally concluded on May 5.
Jerry Sandusky, disgraced former assistant coach for Penn State football, has withdrawn his request for a Centre County evidentiary hearing where an accuser was expected to recant testimony, and instead plans to seek a federal appeal to overturn his 2012 child sex abuse convictions.
Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney's nearly four-hour film "Musk," premiering at Venice before an October theatrical release from Bleecker Street and a 2027 HBO debut, argues the world's richest man is a dangerous confidence man aggregating data and power that could tilt the midterms and threaten democracy.
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For the Left
Netanyahu says Iran’s Islamic Republic is weaker than ever as intensifying U.S. and Israeli military action, economic turmoil, and sanctions make regime change an increasingly central goal.
For the Right
Gloria Steinem’s death comes amid a growing conservative backlash against her feminist legacy, as debates over reproductive rights, traditional gender roles and women’s equality intensify.
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