For example, there’s this:

The State Department’s new policy uses powers under the Immigration and Nationality Act to yank visas from those “who knowingly engage in, have engaged in, or facilitate birth tourism to the United States,” including so-called visa fixers, or individuals who coach foreigners on ways to lie or exploit America’s immigration laws.

The US has long maintained a set of rules intended to prevent birth tourism.

The words “a set of rules” links to this article dated January 23, 2020, written at the beginning of the final year of Trump’s first term as president. This tidbit of information is of interest:

Chinese citizens do not require a visa to visit certain U.S. territories, such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. The birth tourism industry is rampant there, with more annual births to Chinese visitors than native residents.

Birthright citizenship tends to be organized by those who make money off it, so this move against them is an excellent idea.

The post Bravo Rubio appeared first on The New Neo.

Modern-day jurors have a tendency to discuss trials and deliberations publicly, and a number of Clancy case jurors have come out with a lot to say, post-trial. Their decision came down, as I figured it would, to the idea of reasonable doubt, held by eleven jurors who would have put Clancy in a mental hospital for an undetermined amount of time rather than in prison for life.

I’ve written before about the fact that Massachusetts law supports that verdict (whether you think it’s a good law or not, and personally I do not) and how unusual that law is. Here’s a post I wrote on the subject.

I will add that in law school I studied the law of criminal responsibility as it relates to mental illness, and I also have my training as a family therapist, and I have long thought there is no good solution to the problem of psychosis and crime. There is a wide variety of legal approaches – very wide, actually – all with pros and cons, and all unsatisfactory.

The approach I prefer is to sentence the person, and if there is diminished responsibility because of a psychosis, the person starts serving the sentence in a mental hospital and finishes out the term in prison when the hospital deems the person recovered from the psychosis, with the total in both institutions being the time served. It’s not a great solution at all, but I think it is probably better than the others.

But it’s very far from the law prevailing in Massachusetts, the law under which Clancy was tried and which operates in this case.

Those who believe Clancy should have been found guilty seem to perceive a sex divide in the jurors’ opinions because the lone holdout was a male – as well as a race divide because he was also black. But there were two other males on the jury, and they sided with the nine women on the panel. The jurors are being portrayed by many on the right more or less this way (the following excerpt is by John Hinderaker):

You know the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy case? The one who thought strangling her three children was a crime worth punishing? The one the liberal white women jurors denounced as dumb? Unable to understand the jury instructions and comprehend the subtle concept of reasonable doubt? Turns out he was the only juror “of color.” The holdout juror was a black guy …

But that’s a false dichotomy. Based on Massachusetts law, I might even have reluctantly sided with those “liberal white women jurors” in their verdict (not necessarily in their descriptions of the lone holdout, which by the way don’t seem to have actually included the word or even the concept “dumb”). Was the holdout the only person on the jury who thought strangling three children was a horrific crime “worth punishing”? But the jurors were not being asked if it was a serious crime worth punishing. They were being asked whether Clancy’s moral sense and criminal responsibility were compromised by her serious mental problems:

“We weren’t trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did. And she’s admitting that. We’re trying to figure out did she know right from wrong at that time,” foreperson Roni Carlson said.

Legally in Massachusetts, if the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lindsay Clancy knew right from wrong and also could have restrained herself from those criminal acts, then the verdict of the eleven would be quite appropriate. That seems to me to be the case, whether I like that verdict or not. But instead, the lone holdout is being considered by the right as a hero and as the only virtuous person on the jury, and the eleven others (nine women and two men) are considered to be excusing the murder of children rather than trying to follow the law while realizing full well how horrific these crimes were.

But the most important reason the holdout should come in for criticism is this (at least, according to the other jurors who gave interviews): he had agreed with them that there was reasonable doubt that Clancy should be held fully responsible and yet he was determined to find her guilty anyway. That’s a form of jury nullification, basically, because it’s not the way the law in Massachusetts works. In Massachusetts, if reasonable doubt on the score exists, you must find the defendant not guilty:

“He admitted he had reasonable doubt and I started filling out the forms, I was so excited,” the foreperson said.

“There were three forms I had to fill out and I started filling them out, I wrote my signature on each one but then he said, ‘But I’m still not going to say she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.’”

Nor did the interviewed jurors blame Clancy’s husband Patrick instead, which was one of the conspiracy theories popular with some especially extreme online Lindsay-defenders. Here’s what two of the jurors said about Clancy’s husband:

Juror No. 5 said she “will never be the same” after hearing Patrick’s 911 call, which was not publicly broadcast.

The “horrifying” [911 call made by Patrick] dispelled any online conspiracy theories that the husband was somehow involved, according to the anonymous panelist.

“All I could think was that if these people could have heard that visceral, blood-curdling scream, I don’t think I could name a single actor or actress that could have performed that the way he did, and not that he performed it, but I will never be the same after that,” she said.

“Just to imagine living through that and being the person to find your children in that scenario, it shakes you.”

I think it’s very interesting that a great many people on the right who think Clancy absolutely should have been found guilty are playing the race card about the lone holdout juror. They are asserting that the eleven (who were white) who voted to commit Clancy are racists putting down a heroic black man.

Now it turns out that the holdout juror had a history of domestic violence allegations. The Hinderaker article says this:

It is a rule of modern life that anyone who dissents from leftist dogma must be destroyed.

However, there was a reason to reveal the information that’s not about “destroying” this man. That reason was this [my emphasis]:

The holdout juror who caused Lindsay Clancy’s mistrial has a history of alleged domestic violence such as grabbing his wife by the throat and punching his nephew, according to a report.

The still-unnamed juror, only described as a black man in his 30s, faced a criminal charge in September 2021 for allegedly assaulting his wife, NBC10 Boston reported. …

A juror questionnaire in Massachusetts asks whether someone has been arrested, charged with a crime, or been served with a court order — all boxes that the holdout juror should have checked.

If he’d answered honestly, he almost certainly would not have been serving on the jury. I think this matters and that it’s not merely some idle and vicious doxxing, as Matt Walsh writes:

They’re flat-out doxxing an anonymous juror because he didn’t acquit a triple murderer. These people are evil beasts. Demons from hell.

And Hinderaker wrote:

This was an effort by a “reporter” named Sue O’Connell and a Boston television station, NBC10, to doxx the holdout juror and ruin his life. Why? So that in the future, no one will dare to oppose the agenda of the far left while serving on a jury. Every juror must toe the line, or else.

Left out is the fact that the juror apparently lied in order to get on the jury. And so perhaps he did have an agenda after all. There’s a reason they ask that question of jurors. Do we not care about that sort of thing anymore? I submit that we should care and that we certainly would care if this juror had come to a conclusion with which we disagreed.

It’s fully possible to give a reasoned argument about why a guilty verdict would have been the correct one. But do it without playing the race card – something about which the right always mocks the left. And do it without pretending that this guy didn’t violate the jury selection rules, at least if these allegations about him are true.

The post The Lindsay Clancy eleven and the sole holdout appeared first on The New Neo.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced charges against a former government employee and his alleged accomplice, who are accused of selling immigration benefits and expedited application processing.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) praised the DOJ on September 6 for bringing charges against former USCIS Senior Immigration Services Officer Lukman Owolabi Ganiyu and Adeniyi Akeem Somoye. These two allegedly spent years taking gratuities in return for manipulating the immigration application process.

Some background:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has provided details of how Lukman Owolabi Ganiyu, a Nigerian-American and former senior officer at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, allegedly made over a million dollars from desperate immigration applicants by bypassing rigorous background checks, required interviews, and supervisory reviews to obtain permanent residency and citizenship.

Despite the Donald Trump administration’s clampdown on immigration, Mr Ganiyu allegedly used his position as a USCIS senior officer to access applications from Nigerians and foreigners in the Electronic Immigration System and grant unlawful approvals between December 2019 and March 2026.

Mr Ganiyu, working in the Dallas Field Office, came under scrutiny after colleagues found he went to great lengths to approve green card applications, including those of individuals outside his jurisdiction and purview.

For instance, Mr Ganiyu assigned himself as the ISO2 (immigration service officer) on the I-130 immigration application (petition for alien relative) of M.N. (the applicant’s full name was redacted to initials in filings), even though the case was in the Minneapolis-St. Paul field office, according to court documents. Although he was in the Dallas Office, he made himself the case officer on November 3, 2022. On the same day, he approved the application after bypassing supervisory review.

In other words, he over-extended himself in a way that became suspicious. Otherwise, he probably would have gotten away with it.

As for his accomplice:

Somoye allegedly acted as a financial intermediary. Prosecutors say he handled about $1.7 million in transfers involving applicants through bank accounts, Zelle and Cash App, while allegedly keeping part of the money. He also allegedly deposited $449,010 in cash. The complaint says Ganiyu and Somoye frequently exchanged money “back and forth” with applicants.

Nice little gig.

The post Another day, another fraud appeared first on The New Neo.

I’ve noticed a great deal of confusion about postpartum depression versus postpartum psychosis. The two are different entities.

Postpartum psychosis is rare and postpartum depression is common. With postpartum psychosis, the sufferer is more likely to be at risk for harming or killing her children even through she has shown nothing but love and caring for them in the past. Postpartum psychosis does not lead to random assaults, when it does lead to crimes. It leads to child harming or child murder, usually under the sway of a delusion of some sort, and often coupled with suicide attempts or completed suicides.

See this:

The postpartum period is the time of highest risk in a woman’s lifetime for the development of a mental illness. Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) defines the postpartum period as the immediate, relatively short time following delivery, in research studies this period has been defined as ranging from a few days to 12 months.

Postpartum-onset psychological problems generally fall into one of three categories: so-called baby blues, postpartum depression, and postpartum psychosis. Baby blues affect up to 70 percent of mothers and include mild symptoms of crying and irritability which end by the second week after childbirth. Postpartum-onset depression affects from 7 to 15 percent of mothers and is characterized by sadness, crying, self-blame, loss of control, irritability, anxiety, tension, and sleep difficulties. Factors such as personality, negative feelings toward the infant, marital discord, poor social supports, and ambivalence over parenthood appear to predispose women to the onset of depressive symptoms in the postpartum period.

Postpartum psychosis, the most severe of postpartum mental disorders, occurs in 1 to 2 of 1,000 births and frequently requires hospitalization to stabilize symptoms. … The disorder is characterized by an extended period of loss of contact with reality that may include auditory or visual hallucinations, delusions, or rapid mood swings. The auditory and visual hallucinations may focus on violence toward self or the infant.

Risk factors for postpartum psychosis can be of both biologic and genetic origins. One study found that the rate of postpartum psychosis in mothers with bipolar disorder was 26 percent, with the rate in mothers with bipolar disorder and a family history of postpartum psychosis increasing to 57 percent. …

… [R]esearch supports that postpartum psychosis is associated with prominent cognitive disturbances, ranging from mental confusion and indecision to intrusive and bizarre thoughts. Women with this disorder can appear delirious and disorganized. Second, symptoms can arise and dissipate suddenly, with the woman appearing lucid one moment and psychotic the next. Third, although DSM-IV-TR classifies it as a psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, research shows that the syndrome can have both affective and psychotic components.

It has been estimated that four percent of women with postpartum psychosis commit infanticide. …

The insanity defense is successful in less than 0.1 percent of all criminal trials. However, major population studies, including McKee and Shea, d’Orban, and Bourget and Bradford, found insanity pleas successful in 20, 27, and 15 percent of infanticide cases, respectively. These results suggest that, regardless of the legal or medical guidelines, the law treats women who kill their children with more leniency. Nonetheless, infanticide case outcomes vary extremely. At least two such women have been sentenced to death, whereas some have been released without a prison sentence

That article is from 2012, and the review of cases goes back a ways before that. So we’re not talking about the result of recent internet social media hysteria influencing trials. Most of the data almost certainly predates the ascendance of social media.

You may decide that postpartum psychosis is a myth promulgated by those who wish to avoid punishment for killing their children. I think that underestimates the power of psychosis in general and this type of psychosis in particular. Note also that, as a defense to child murder, it’s most often unsuccessful. It certainly would be far less likely to be a successful defense in cases in which there is no history of deep postpartum disturbance and the seeking of psychological help prior to the murders.

Note also that postpartum psychosis is already very rare, and in that small group 4% go on to murder their children, which makes that phenomenon exceedingly rare indeed. However, I’ve seen people in discussion groups involving the Clancy murders to state that 50,000 women kill their children in the US every year. That bears no resemblance to the actual figures, which are much smaller although still profoundly disturbing:

Between 1976 and 2004, 30 percent of all children younger than five years old who were murdered were killed by their mothers, while 31 percent were killed by their fathers. A study by Brown University showed that from 1976 to 2007, on average, there were 500 cases of filicide a year in the United States.

So that 50,000 figure overstates filicide by a huge factor. Plus, mothers account for about half of the actual figure. This is in marked contrast to the much more lopsided statistics between the sexes for crimes of violence in general.

Nor is the idea of postpartum psychosis as connected with child murder an especially new one:

In the United States, psychiatrists recognized the significance of recent childbirth in acts against infants. In 1927, the field divided infanticide based on whether the mother was still lactating, or breastfeeding. Many cases were attributed to exhaustion or what was then called lactation psychosis, a recognition that hormonal changes and the stress of parenting a newborn could affect one’s well-being.

That article cites a different statistic for filicide in the US – a higher one, although still far short of 50,000 a year:

The Washington Post cites a Brown University study in 2014 that found three thousand filicides occur each year in the United States.

The following are the categories of motivations for maternal filicide (not just for filicide in which the perpetrator claims postpartum psychosis – this is for filicide in general):

Resnick, in his 2016 study, found that mothers who kill their children have one of five motives: altruistic filicide, or the belief that the child is better off dead (usually because the parent intends to commit suicide and does not wish to leave the child alone or because the child has a real or perceived disability); acutely psychotic filicide, or no understandable reason; fatal maltreatment filicide, when a mother abuses the child but does not necessarily intend to kill the youngster; unwanted child filicide, when a mother wants to be free of the child she feels is holding her back (possibly because a new partner does not want stepchildren or the parent seeks a benefit such as insurance money); and spouse revenge filicide, when a mother kills the child to wound the father for actions such as abandonment or infidelity, as in the myth of Medea. Altruistic filicide is the most common—Resnick found that it accounted for 49 percent of the cases reviewed—while spouse revenge filicide is the rarest at 2 percent. Among maternal infanticides, or the killing of a child younger than one year, perpetrators were often unemployed women in their early twenties.

My perception of the Clancy case is that most people who defend Clancy and think she was not criminally responsible believe that her motive was that she was acutely psychotic, period. On the other hand, those who believe she’s guilty of murder tend to believe that her motive was either the first – altruistic suicide – or unwanted child filicide (that she wanted to rid herself of inconvenient children cramping her style in some way).

There are also some Clancy-defenders who believe she didn’t even do it, but that falls into a different category entirely. In addition, there are some people who think Clancy should be found guilty who believe that even if she was psychotic it should not absolve her of any criminal responsibility.

Another high-profile case of maternal filicide and claimed mental illness was that of Susan Smith, in which it seems fairly clear that it was actually unwanted child filicide; Smith was found guilty of murder. She had also distinguished herself by claiming a black man had kidnapped her children:

On October 25, 1994, Smith reported to police that she had been the victim of a carjacking by a black man while driving her 1990 Mazda Protégé sedan with her sons – Michael, aged three, and Alexander, aged 14 months – still in the back seat. For nine days, she made dramatic pleas on national television for their safe return. However, following an intensive investigation and a nationwide search for them, she confessed on November 3, 1994, to letting her car roll into nearby John D. Long Lake, drowning them inside. Her motivation was reportedly to facilitate a relationship with a local wealthy man named Tom Findlay. Prior to the murders, he sent her a letter ending their relationship and expressing that he did not want children. She said there was no motive nor did she plan the murders, stating that she was not in a right state of mind.

Very different fact situation.

The post Postpartum psychosis is not postpartum depression appeared first on The New Neo.

The word “insanity” is actually fairly meaningless in this case, as well. It’s not the legal standard by which Clancy might be found to have had reduced criminal responsibility. I think many people are letting their everyday ideas about “insanity” get in the way of understanding the relevant legal standard in Massachusetts:

In the state of Massachusetts, a person may be found not guilty of a crime “if they lacked criminal responsibility when they committed the offense,” according to the Massachusetts Court System. …

Jurors are instructed that in order to prove a defendant is criminally responsible for their conduct, prosecutors must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not suffer from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense.”

There’s also this:

The second way to prove criminal responsibility, according to the state court system, is for prosecutors to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, even if the defendant suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged offense, the defendant nonetheless retained the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of their conduct and to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.”

That’s the more basic question with Clancy: she would not only have to have known right from wrong at the time (I think she probably did know right from wrong) but she would also have to have been able to “conform her conduct” to the law despite having a mental disease or defect. That last part is the real question: could she or couldn’t she conform her conduct to the law? In order for jurors to find that she could conform her conduct to the law, it would have to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.. But I think there clearly was reasonable doubt on that score, and/or it’s certainly understandable that someone could in good faith find reasonable doubt.

Nor do we know exactly what the eleven jurors in this case had agreed on for a verdict and what the lone holdout wanted. There were many possibilities for the agreed-on verdict of the eleven, but we can be pretty sure it wasn’t murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence. Of the other possibilities:

Jurors also have the option to find Clancy guilty of the lesser offenses of second-degree murder, which is punishable by a life sentence with the possibility of parole, or manslaughter, which carries a 20-year maximum sentence.

If she is ever found not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility, the court would begin the process of committing Clancy to a state psychiatric facility. Her commitment order would be subject to regular review by the court, though she could be committed to the facility indefinitely.

I think it most likely that the verdict the eleven voted for was “not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility,” and the penalty would be subsequent commitment, and that Clancy would probably end up being confined for a very very long time.

Can we assume we know what the single holdout wanted? Almost certainly it wasn’t “not guilty due to lack of criminal responsibility.” But I wouldn’t assume it was “guilty of murder” either, although many people are assuming that. However, it could have been “guilty of second-degree murder” or “guilty of manslaughter.” We simply don’t know; I wonder if we’ll ever know.

The post The Lindsay Clancy possibilities appeared first on The New Neo.

What might happen in a second trial? Perhaps a plea deal of some sort; it’s very hard to say.

However, I was surprised to read yesterday that there is apparently only a single juror who is holding out:

The trial of Lindsay Clancy — which has captivated the nation since July — took a bombshell turn on Thursday when it was revealed that there was one juror who disagreed with the rest following 36 hours of intense deliberation.

The news, which came via a note from the forewoman that a single holdout “refuses to listen to the law” on reasonable doubt, left Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington visibly raging — and demanding the person be kicked off the 12-person jury and replaced with an alternate.

The judge did not grant that demand. But it sounds as though the holdout is for a guilty verdict and the rest are not – although, as I’ve said before, I don’t see how Clancy goes free and I don’t think she will, whatever the verdict.

The law in Massachusetts on this is very unusual – in fact, I think it is singular. This is how it works [emphasis mine]:

Once the defense raises the issue of the accused’s mental state at the time of the crime, prosecutors bear the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was criminally responsible, said Daniel Medwed, a university distinguished professor of law.

“In Massachusetts, we don’t typically use the term ‘insanity defense,’” Medwed said, citing the stigma that attaches to the word “insanity.” Instead, it’s referred to as “lack of criminal responsibility.” …

In Massachusetts, the defense may apply when a person’s mental condition prevents them from understanding or controlling their actions at the time of an alleged crime, including during an episode of psychosis. A qualifying mental disease or defect also need not fit a specific medical diagnosis.

You can see how this might lead to a situation in which a holdout juror refuses to listen to the law on reasonable doubt. That’s because the law on this in Massachusetts is very much tilted in favor of the defendant. In other states, the burden of proof for lack of criminal responsibility is different:

In many jurisdictions, insanity is an affirmative defense, meaning the burden falls on the defense to prove that a defendant had “a mental disease or defect” that prevented them from understanding the nature of their actions, Medwed said. But that is not the case in Massachusetts, he said.

Procedurally, that means the defense “doesn’t have to do as much” in the way of persuading jurors compared with other states, according to Medwed.

However, an affirmative defense doesn’t have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It needs to be proved by a preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence, defending on the jurisdiction.

The state of things as I write these words is this:

The judge in Lindsay Clancy’s trial has given the defense one hour to make an emergency appeal before declaring a mistrial. …

A filing from Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney has been submitted to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, according to the clerk’s office.

And the court is on lunch break.

The post The Clancy jury apparently will end in a mistrial appeared first on The New Neo.

First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said that the arrest of the Honduran national in California for allegedly unlawfully registering to vote shows the state’s vulnerability.

Essayli told Bill Melugin on Fox News:

“This case really highlights the vulnerability in California’s voter rolls. They basically allow anybody to register to vote on the honor system. There’s nobody in government that is checking to confirm you’re a citizen, and in fact, in this case, he on the form put down a California driver’s license and a social, which he had because he has a visa that does not prove you’re a citizen. And according to the Secretary of State, they say at least half a million people don’t even provide that information when they register to vote.”

The Democrats have decided this is in their best interests. It could easily be corrected, but is not.

It makes one wonder just how blue California would be if there was actual voting security. I think it would still be blue, but not as overwhelmingly. We may never know, because it’s hard to imagine that the Democrats in California would want to tighten up their enforcement. There’s really no reason to do so, because the current situation benefits them.

The post California doesn’t really care if you’re a citizen or not when you vote appeared first on The New Neo.

According to whistleblower Daniel Wiesenfeld, a former Brooklyn prosecutor who works in the Investor Protection Bureau, James produced her chosen defendant and ordered her staff to find a crime, any crime.

Wiesenfeld sent an email to call on fellow lawyers not to assist James further in weaponizing her office. He recounted his own experience as a prosecutor in her office and how Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe allegedly directed him to target “Trump himself, Truth Social, Hewlett Packard (DOJ approved merger) . . . without having a credible reason for targeting the organizations and individuals.”

He added that “If you believe Trump is using the [Department of Justice] attorneys to prosecute his enemies and further his political interests, you should find it equally troubling that Tish [James] is doing exactly the same thing.”

In his blistering email, Wiesenfeld reminded his colleagues that they have other things to do than hunt down James’ enemies. While she wastes “significant public taxpayer dollars to target convenient public enemies,” Wiesenfeld reminded them that there is “rampant nonprofit homeless shelter fraud and antisemitic crimes in and around synagogues.”

Instead, James concentrated on an absurd civil case against Trump where the “victims” made money, lost nothing, and wanted more business from the Trump corporation.

We’ve known this for a long long time. The basic idea is not new and in fact, James campaigned on it. She had identified the criminal and all she had to do was find the crime. The one she and her underlings found was absurd, underscoring how difficult it was to come up with a crime for which to prosecute Trump. They had to essentially make one up.

So, what is new about this? The details are being fleshed out via a whistleblower.

Turley points out, correctly I believe, that most on the left still applaud her:

James is unlikely to be deterred by Wiesenfeld’s email. She knows that the far left still prefers performative lawfare to actual enforcement of fraud and other laws. Some voters would willingly watch billions stolen in program fraud in exchange for just one more trophy Trump conviction.

In fairness to James, she has always been open about what she is and what she was offering.

Absolutely.

Not only that, but some of the left are recipients of the largesse of that fraud. So of course they don’t mind – it’s a win/win situation for them.

[NOTE: I recently heard a bunch of very garden-variety non-DSA Democrats talk with relish about wanting to impeach Trump. Again. For what, they didn’t say; it was just assumed this would be a good thing.]

The post Letitia James was out to get Trump appeared first on The New Neo.

Opinion: it absolutely should succeed.

Here’s its legal basis:

In the petition, Joseph argued that Gov. Tim Walz broke the law in reassigning authority of the case to Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, making Ellison’s involvement illegitimate. The petition also claimed “there was no medical evidence to support the bogus theory of ‘asphyxia’ advanced by the state,” and that the Hennepin County District Court should have convened a grand jury before charging Chauvin. …

Chauvin first filed a petition to overturn his conviction in 2023, stating that he would not have pled guilty if his attorney told him that a pathologist offered to testify that Chauvin didn’t cause Floyd’s death. The courts denied his petition. Chauvin and Joseph returned in 2025 requesting another review of his case, arguing his rights were violated by faulty testimony and jury instructions. The courts dismissed that petition, as well.

There also have been several appeals; none have been granted. The bases for the appeals rested mainly on the following:

… that Chauvin wasn’t given a fair trial due to intensive pretrial media coverage over riots and civil unrest around the globe that followed Floyd’s killing; that the jury should have been sequestered during the trial; and that the trial should have been held outside of Hennepin County due to bias in the jury pool.

Once a person is sentenced, the bar is set very high for revisiting the issues and granting such requests. I believe that in the Chauvin case the requirements have been met, but it doesn’t surprise me that Chauvin has had no success in these efforts. I’ve written an enormous number of posts on George Floyd’s death and the Chauvin trial, so I won’t recap the details except to say that I’m with Elon Musk here:

“The facts show that [Chauvin] was not the cause of death, nor did he at any time intend for a death to occur,” Musk’s social media post read. “Whatever else he may be, he is not a murderer. That is the truth.”

The post There’s a bid to vacate Chauvin’s state conviction appeared first on The New Neo.

I am fairly certain she won’t be “getting off,” whatever the verdict. If she is found to have had diminished capacity due to psychosis, her stay in a mental hospital will be very long, IMHO. She brutally murdered her three young children. That is the reality, and they’re not just letting her out in a month. My guess is that she would be staying for many many years and perhaps even for life.

For example, Andrea Yates – who killed her 5 children in Texas in 2001, twenty-five years ago – and was found found guilty but ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity (see this for the twistings and turnings of her legal situation), is still institutionalized in a mental hospital. Massachusetts is different than Texas of course, but here’s how it works in Massachusetts:

Massachusetts law says the court can order her hospitalized for up to 40 days for “observation and examination,” and prosecutors or hospital officials can then petition for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility.

If a judge determines Clancy is mentally ill and releasing her “would create a likelihood of serious harm,” she could be committed to a facility, the law states. The initial commitment is generally valid for six months and can be renewed in one-year periods.

“She’ll never be released unless there’s a finding by a judge that she doesn’t represent a danger to herself or others,” Rossman said.

She might never get out. Also, she’s probably still a suicide risk, although as a paraplegic she might have trouble accomplishing it.

If I had to guess, I’d predict the jury will be hung. But that’s 100% a guess.

The post Whatever the verdict, Lindsay Clancy is extremely unlikely to be getting out quickly appeared first on The New Neo.