Acquittal

Howdy, folks.

Ever since that broadcast last year, when I read a poem entitled Not Guilty, we've had requests from judges, lawyers, police officers, and even a jailer in northern Alaska to repeat it.

So, here it is.

Not Guilty.

I guess I've seen a thousand men go in this jail and out, from tramps with month-old whiskers to rich men with a gout.

Not one of them was guilty of the crimes the law accused.

Loose-lipped.

All these law enforcement guys knew that the verdict would be not guilty.

Facts are always totally screwed up.

But

Well, I'm just reading here.

It says they call him arrogant, unwilling to listen, dismissive of information during deliberations, One of the jurors said the man admitted he had a reasonable doubt after the panel rewatched an interview in evidence.

She said she immediately started filling out the verdict forms, only for him to say he still wouldn't find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity.

The jurors, they repeatedly read him the definition of reasonable doubt, but he wouldn't budge.

... pointing at Lindsay Clancy, whose life hangs in the balance of this gut-wrenching case.

And the defense says all that stands between Lindsay Clancy and a verdict of Not Guilty by reason of insanity is one juror who cannot follow the law.

There's one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you've given him or her on reasonable doubt.

What do you mean by cannot follow the law? Because everyone's entitled to their own, y- you know, opinion about the case I suppose.

Gregory told the lawyer assigned to defend him against three charges that he had been hearing voices for at least a couple of years, but hadn't acted on anything they'd said.

His lawyer recommended he enter a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, or NGRI, which was accepted by the prosecutor and the court.

I went along with it, Gregory said.

He said you won't be locked up no longer than six months.

As a result, Gregory spent far longer under the control of Washington's legal system than the maximum jail term for the crimes he was charged with, a position he shares with the majority of NGRI cases, according to legal experts.

One judge remarked, quote, hospitals have been pressured by public outrage to bend over backwards to make sure that no insanity equity is released too soon.

even if such pressure is contrary to the intent and spirit of being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Quote, Gregory repeatedly told his social worker each year when his applications for release were denied, quote, It appeared all but inevitable that Gregory would die in a psychiatric institution, powerless to persuade a court he could be safely released without the hospital's support.

It was very traumatic.

But you and I had texted before and you I basically said, well, what about the plea deal? What about the plea deal? Like what's going to happen? And you were like, oh, he's pleading not guilty.

And for you, this was like completely obvious and not surprising at all.

The least interesting development.

Yeah, it was not even noteworthy to you.

I had to ask you and pull it out of you.

Like, of course, he's pleading not guilty now.

But if you look on social media.

[suspenseful music] This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruschi and Robin Drake.

Let's talk about not guilty.

What could possibly happen there if this jury finds Lindsay Clancy not guilty by, uh, lack of criminal responsibility? She doesn't walk out of the courtroom, she goes somewhere else.

And the question everybody in the audience is asking is, what somewhere else actually means for the woman who's already paralyzed, already in a hospital, and already on 24-hour S-watch.

Under Massachusetts law, not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect verdict does not mean release.

The court can order the defendant hospitalized for up to 40 days of observation.

After that, the DA or hospital superintendent can petition for involuntary commitment.

Eric Faddis, defense attorney and former prosecutor, is here with, uh, myself and Robin Drake, retired FBI special agent, chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program.

Third trial, the jury came in with an acquittal after minutes of deliberation.

[clapping] That wasn't enough for this jury.

What they said was, "Acquittal is not good enough for Fatty Arbuckle." And they indicated that there was never any evidence of any criminal act.

Very unusual for a jury to ever come back and make a public statement like that following a, uh, decision of acquittal.

Arbuckle had hoped that this was the end of it, but cancel culture existed long before Twitter.

A well-known case of postpartum psychosis is Andrea Yates.

Andrea Yates was found not guilty of killing her five children because of postpartum psychosis, and it seems as if the defense is preparing to argue that this is pretty much Andrea Yates 2.0.

This trial is expected to run six to eight weeks, and the witness list is massive.

Massive.

He's known for his tattoos, like one in Latin that says, "Never represent an informant." And then he has this other one, Milan Labay, which basically means, "Come and take them." Honestly, it fits him.

I think he sort of gives off this vibe of really nothing scares him.

One article I read, it says he's a motorcycle-riding grandpa, and on his Jeep, he has a license plate that says NG, which stands for Not Guilty.

His office is just as intense, I've heard.

A-Q-U...

A-C-Q-U-I-T to acquit.

Absolver, exonerar, exculpar.

All right.