Announcer: Welcome to Today's Issues, offering a Christian response to the issues of the day. Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Today is another day, people. Wednesday, September 9, 2026. There will never be another one. That would be a great title for a book.
Host: Never, never be another day like today. Yeah, it's safe to say.
Tim Wildmon: It only gets better from here on this program. Or worse.
Host: No, it only gets better. It's only up from here.
Tim Wildmon: Only up. Okay. We're going upward. Tim Wildmon here with Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, brother Ed.
Ed Vitagliano: Good morning, Tim.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley Wildmon, good morning, Wesley.
Wesley Wildmon: Hey, good morning.
Tim Wildmon: And our Canadian American. That's right, Fred Jackson. Good morning, Fred.
Fred Jackson: Good morning.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, trying to bring peace to the border.
Host: We've recently slapped Fred with a tariff while he was gone.
Host: Yeah, while he was gone. Yeah, he's not allowed to have popcorn for free like the rest of us.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, we've just got to stop the popcorn tariff.
Host: Tariff on popcorn.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, my goodness gracious. All right. Well, welcome everybody to Today's Issues, hour and a half, which is now an hour and whatever it is, 23 and a half minutes to go on the program.
Tim Wildmon: I just wanted to, we went to, by we I mean a group of us went to Davenport, Iowa, last night for a dinner with our folks there in the area and had a great time. I just wanted to say a shout-out sounds so nineties. I don't know what the appropriate word is today. Hello, greetings to everybody in that area. It's the Quad Cities area, so we had a great, great time.
Host: Yeah, was there a couple testimonies or something that you wanted to bring back?
Tim Wildmon: There he is. Usually one thing is I'm thankful for that you can rent planes so I'm not in the Chicago airport this morning on a weather delay or mechanical delay. We were able to lease a plane that was comparable to paying for all the people to fly commercially and all that stuff. So that way we were able to get back last night. Hour and 20 minute flight, great weather.
Host: You're on the show this morning.
Tim Wildmon: I'm on the show this morning. So testimony.
Host: Yeah, I want to hear that testimony that you shared this morning.
Tim Wildmon: All right. There was a gentleman there at our event, our dinner, and he came up to me after it was over and said, hey, I just wanted to tell you what an impact, and he was almost teary-eyed, what an impact American Family Radio has had on my life.
Tim Wildmon: And so he said, you know, I was a Christian, but was not really, didn't understand a biblical worldview, right, that we communicate each and every day with all our shows here on American Family Radio. So he just said, you just made a big, big difference in my life and I just wanted to say thank you. And so that's, you know, you don't.
Host: So he got involved.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. That's right.
Host: In politics because of AFR.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. And I want to challenge our listeners right now to, hey, sometime in the week or the next two weeks, just find one person to tell them to listen to American Family Radio. You know, I don't know how you do, you know, buy them lunch and say, you owe me, or whatever you need to do.
Tim Wildmon: But we need our current listeners to help us recruit new listeners, because a lot of people know fellow Christians, but they don't, they listen to, you know, they don't, they're not engaged. They don't understand what's going on. They're ignorant. And the way they can get out of the ignorance about what's going on in the culture to strengthen their biblical worldview is to listen to, we're not the only ones, but I mean, that's what we do, American Family Radio. So tell somebody about it. See if you can convert somebody. Yeah, go ahead.
Host: It takes about two to three minutes and you can help them download the AFR app on their phones, too.
Tim Wildmon: Right. You take their phone physically from them and you don't give it back.
Host: The app consent. I'm going to turn it to your consent.
Tim Wildmon: And don't give it back until you're able to download the app. Then you can give it back.
Host: Their phone.
Tim Wildmon: There's ways to do it.
Host: I don't recommend that one.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, what I'm saying about it.
Host: To just physically take it? No, call.
Tim Wildmon: Well, maybe that's inappropriate, you think?
Host: Yeah, you don't want to be the Christian that goes, hey, can I borrow your phone real quick? And then you download American Family Radio. Now listen to this. Now listen to this in front of me. Yeah, don't be that Christian.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, but you know what? You're right. The AFR app is a great tool to get people to use.
Ed Vitagliano: You know, just to kind of piggyback after what you were just sharing there about how there are a lot of Christians who, when we say ignorant, folks, we're not saying they are ignorant. We're saying they don't know.
Tim Wildmon: In the true use of the words.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes, they don't know what's happening. And a lot of times people don't realize what's happening until it comes in their front door. It affects someone in their family, their children, they found out something's going on in school.
Ed Vitagliano: A lot of people found out what was happening during COVID when parents were listening at the door as to what their kids were being taught because their kids were learning remotely. And so what we're saying is that a lot of times by the time you find out about it, you find out about the, you know, you're caught off guard, drag queen story hour at a library, it's too late.
Ed Vitagliano: And so we try to let people know what's happening so they can get involved and they can head some of this stuff off before it knocks on their front door.
Tim Wildmon: Amen. All right, so anyway, moving right along here. Jenna Ellis will be with us at the bottom of the hour. Fred, why will Jenna be with us?
Fred Jackson: Jenna is going to talk to us about the Lindsay Clancy case. We had a hung jury, a mistrial in that case. I think most of our listeners are familiar. She is a woman, and the part about what she did is not in question. She killed her three kids, and her defense was that she was criminally insane.
Fred Jackson: The jury, there were 12 people on the jury, 11 voted for acquittal, and one refused to do that. So it was a hung jury.
Tim Wildmon: Wait a minute, how many voted for acquittal?
Fred Jackson: Eleven. Eleven were willing to find her not guilty by reason of insanity. A couple of the jurors, we will hear from an audio that will play for Jenna, which will explain your reaction as to why, and your reaction will be even more shocked.
Host: Because Tim and I have not heard this video, this audio, and it's supposedly pretty stunning.
Fred Jackson: What these jurors said, right. There were nine women and three men on that jury. We now know that the one holdout was a man. A number of the women jurors are now speaking out as to how they, on their attempt to convince this man to vote with them, and he refused. That's the broad context of their comments.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. So this, I'm looking forward to hearing because I've not heard this. Okay. That's at the bottom of the hour.
Fred Jackson: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: So we'll spend a few minutes, probably much of the second half of this hour talking to Jenna Ellis about this case and what it means broadly. So we're going to discuss that with her. I'm, well.
Host: Save it.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, well, I'm just, you know, the idea that we're talking about an acquittal on something like this is maybe, I'll try to be open-minded. Will you, Ed?
Ed Vitagliano: No.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. Me neither. That was just empty words.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Fred, what else is in the news? Give us some. What do you got, good Fred? I know you're, I call you Good News Fred.
Fred Jackson: Well, if I had shares in oil companies, I might be happy today.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. There, that's a great spin on the price of oil and gasoline going up. I like that.
Fred Jackson: Yeah, if you were invested in oil, you would be a happy man today.
Host: You'd be a happy man.
Fred Jackson: Because if you're in oil, you got a 401k, do a little happy dance.
Host: For the rest of us.
Host: Don't make your back go out.
Fred Jackson: Yeah. For the rest of us, probably while we're waiting to get Jenna on the line, go out and get some gas this morning. Because early this morning, the average price of a barrel of oil went over $100 again.
Host: I don't know where I'm going to keep any more barrels, though. I already don't have any more room left in my backyard.
Tim Wildmon: Anyway, it's over $100 a barrel. What does that mean? Most people don't trade in oil futures or whatever like that or have stock in oil companies. But what does that mean for the person at the gas pump? That's my question.
Fred Jackson: Well, the gas prices have been rising pretty steadily over the last 10 days. This is going to bump it up again, let's put it that way, depending on where you buy gas. If you're a poor soul that lives in California, you're probably talking six, seven dollars a gallon for gasoline. I don't know what the average is today, but I'm sure it's well over four dollars, approaching five across the country.
Fred Jackson: And if you use diesel, we really feel sorry for you. And let's face it, those 18 wheelers that carry stuff to grocery stores and Walmarts and Costcos and Sam's, they're going to be charging more for all those products on those trucks. That's what this means.
Fred Jackson: Now, this happened early this morning in the wake of what happened late yesterday, our time. U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf area hit five Iranian tankers. Iran responded by shooting some missiles at some of our U.S. military establishments in Jordan. Now, you may think, well, okay, that's really good. The United States did that.
Fred Jackson: But because oil is a global commodity, the people who were going to buy that Iranian oil could be China, could be India, whatever the case may be. They now have to go buy their oil somewhere else, which increases the competition for that oil, which economics 101 drives up the price for oil for everybody.
Tim Wildmon: Supply and demand.
Fred Jackson: That's what it does. So on the one hand, yes, cheer what we're doing in the Persian Gulf to Iranian oil. But on the other hand, understand it's going to continue to force the cost of oil up.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. Let's talk about this for a minute, politically speaking, because I think it's time for President Trump to either get out of that situation, and if you want to claim victory, whatever you want to do, or he needs to have, listen to me, a serious, not a serious formal address to the nation from Marco Rubio. That would be my preference, or JD Vance even, but Trump is the president.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, so if he can, I would prefer, well, I like all three of those. I like Rubio and Vance as a spokesperson for President Trump's administration more than I do him. Okay, but he is the president. He is the Commander in Chief. So I would prefer that he, Donald Trump, make a formal address from the White House in a speech that explains the whole situation in Iran and what we're doing, what our goal is, what our objectives are, because right now that's unclear to the American people, I think.
Tim Wildmon: And we're just languishing in this daily news of tit-for-tat over there, and the economy is being affected in a bad way because of the oil and gasoline prices. But I think, I'm not saying, the Trump haters, you know, the TDS people, they're never going to agree, but I'm talking about for the middle of America, for the person out there in America who goes, yeah, we need to have security in the world as much as we can and protect our interests. He needs to explain what we're doing, okay, and give us some clear objectives.
Tim Wildmon: In other words, remember why we started this, because Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, so we're punishing them for that because they're a danger to the globe, to the world, and to our country. A lot of people have lost their connection to the seriousness of the issue at hand. If it isn't, they're just going to see groceries going up and prices of gas and they're going to go, why is this happening? Because of Trump's war. Well, President Trump, I'm saying what the left would say, because of Trump's war. Does that make sense to you?
Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. No, I think that would be helpful. Now, the only thing, let me just give one caveat. I don't think you want the president letting Iran know what we're doing and what our plans are. But in a general sense, I think there does need to be some explanation. The American people will endure hardship if they understand why they're doing it and if that reason is something that they can get behind.
Tim Wildmon: It's got to be more than Trump saying, we're going to hit them harder.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: You see what I'm saying?
Ed Vitagliano: I think that right now, and I'm just going by what I think.
Tim Wildmon: I do.
Host: You're just sharing your heart.
Ed Vitagliano: I'm sharing my heart.
Host: Share your heart.
Ed Vitagliano: I want to know why this, we kind of know why it happened. I want to know what the plan is, what does winning look like, and how we're going to get there. And maybe when the president thinks this will be over.
Ed Vitagliano: And I think most Americans would be willing to give the, but like you said, not the TDS people, the Trump haters. He could discover gold and make America the richest country in the world and people would still hate him. There are people who are like that. But I think most people give the president the benefit of the doubt if he explains what you're asking an explanation for. And it could help Republicans.
Wesley Wildmon: Yeah, and we've mentioned, let me set this up. One, I've said all along, I'm not changing my mind here, although new information does help, I do think that at the three month mark, we should have been claiming, okay, here's the things we've accomplished and we're coming home.
Wesley Wildmon: But with that said, though, we've mentioned this before, not enough, but the president, his administration, and the military, they do have information that we don't have. Keep that in mind. One of those is which, in the last four months, our Navy SEALs have been working overnight every day to try to un-mine or not try to un-mine the Strait of Hormuz. Does it de-mine or un-mine or does it matter?
Tim Wildmon: I don't know.
Host: De-mine.
Tim Wildmon: Take the mines out of the Strait of Hormuz that Iran uses to blow ships up. How about that one?
Wesley Wildmon: Yep. Okay, go ahead. So they have been doing that mission that we weren't aware of until it's almost complete, and it's taken almost four months. Now, that would be a good time to mention that, that that's something they've been doing, because the Strait of Hormuz has been an issue for the entire time.
Ed Vitagliano: And that is, to the earlier point we were making, that's one of those things you don't want to let Iran know we're doing while we're doing it. That puts those guys in danger.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, I'm just saying, I think it's time for President Trump to, in my opinion, make a formal address to the country. And maybe at the White House, in the Oval Office, you remember the old-fashioned way? My fellow Americans, and if it's only 10 minutes, that's okay, but it needs to be a serious address to the country. Why we're there, what we're doing, how long we're going to stay, what the mission is. All those things need to be reiterated, because right now, the thing is just sort of languishing. Go ahead.
Ed Vitagliano: Everything you said, yes, just do not include that Iran is willing to make a deal.
Tim Wildmon: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: Just leave that part out.
Tim Wildmon: You said that?
Ed Vitagliano: No.
Host: He has said that.
Ed Vitagliano: Trump has.
Tim Wildmon: You said that.
Ed Vitagliano: I think you got...
Host: It's tongue-in-cheek.
Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I guess there were about 50 times.
Tim Wildmon: But not recently.
Host: Is that tongue-in-cheek on steroids, what I just did?
Ed Vitagliano: It gets to me. You almost got me.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, that's why I'm saying he needs to reset. Because, you know, he did say many times back, especially back in the spring and the early summer, they were just dying to make a deal, and as it turns out, that wasn't true.
Ed Vitagliano: That's right.
Host: Which is about seven months.
Tim Wildmon: And made a lot of people think Trump's being played. And people go, well, Trump's usually the guy that is, you're usually the one who's playing folks, not getting played. All right, you're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Next story, Fred.
Fred Jackson: Well, speaking of President Trump and speeches, he is the keynote speaker tonight in Dallas, Texas, where the Republicans are having a first ever midterm convention.
Tim Wildmon: Okay.
Fred Jackson: All the stars of the Trump cabinet will be there, but President Trump speaks tonight, keynote address, Vice President Vance tomorrow night for this two-day convention in Dallas. A lot of people believe that the convention is being held because they need a platform to put out a public relations message. He's going to talk about it.
Tim Wildmon: Maybe Dallas in the speech would be what I'm talking about. I would prefer an Oval Office address instead of a campaign rally type situation. But anyway, maybe he'll lay out the objectives and clarify the mission in Iran tonight.
Fred Jackson: Yeah, I'm sure Iran will come up. I'm sure the success of the Trump administration going after illegal immigrants, all of that.
Tim Wildmon: By the way, excuse me for interrupting. It's rare for me. But the inflation is down. I saw, and the job numbers report was very good, too. You won't see that in the liberal mainstream media, but I did see those numbers. So while President Trump's administration has had some negative news, those were good news. Did you guys see this?
Host: Yes.
Host: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, so those were points of good news I'm sure he'll mention tonight. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Fred Jackson: Yeah, I'm sure he will talk about that. You know, the other factor when we talk about the Iran war is the relationship that we have with Israel right now. You know, Israel is going to have elections next month, and there's an avenue of talk right now that's coming out of Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to make very clear that regardless of what the United States does in Iran, Israel will take care of the business that it needs to take care of.
Fred Jackson: Because in the last 48 hours, Israel has had to do some business with Hezbollah still in southern Lebanon. And also, believe it or not, there are still Hamas terrorists in Gaza. And so we have all of that that's going on right now that is a bit of a sidebar to this, but an important sidebar when we talk about what's going on in Iran.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. You're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Thanks for listening to AFR. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Fred. Jenna Ellis will be with us in just a few minutes. We're going to discuss the very high profile and national story involving, oh, I'm sorry.
Host: Her last name's Clancy.
Tim Wildmon: Clancy, Clancy, that you know, she killed her three kids. And then she, don't try, she's on trial. Everybody knows this. And then she did it and then she asked for...
Host: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: And now we have a jury that's a hung jury. I thought it was going to be the other way because of the hung jury. In other words, I thought there's 12 jurors, right?
Host: Correct.
Tim Wildmon: I thought it was going to be 11 to convict, one to hold out. But as it turns out, it's the other way, 11 to acquit and one held out to convict, I guess. And so Jenna Ellis is going to be joining us. Let's go ahead and take our break right here.
Tim Wildmon: What does this mean going forward? Is this isolated, this kind of reasoning, to Massachusetts because it's a very liberal state? You understand what I'm saying? Is this a state law that's being applied here that maybe is more lenient to the convict? Not to convict, both things.
Host: It's a state case.
Tim Wildmon: Criminal.
Host: Yeah. There was a copycat too within the last week. They did the same thing, and he's claiming insanity.
Tim Wildmon: Are we really going to see people being able to kill their children and then just claim insanity? Oops, I was temporarily insane, and get away with it. We'll be back. We'll talk more about this with Jenna Ellis.
Announcer: This is Today's Issues. Email your comments to comments at AFR.net. Past broadcasts of Today's Issues are available for listening and viewing in the archive at AFR.net. Now, back to more of Today's Issues.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back everybody to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. I'm Tim with Ed, Wesley, and Fred. And we are going to break down now in a little more detail and legal observation, a legal observation from Jenna Ellis, the story involving, Fred, set this. Well, Jenna, welcome. Good morning.
Jenna Ellis: Good morning. Great to be with you guys.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. Set this up for us, Fred.
Fred Jackson: So this is the Lindsay Clancy case. If you've been near a TV over the last couple of weeks, you probably saw the trial. She was on trial for killing her three children. Her defense was because she was temporarily insane. Postpartum psychosis was her defense, that she wasn't therefore responsible for what she did to her three children.
Fred Jackson: There was a 12 person jury. They wrestled with this case. They came back and forth into the courtroom with questions a number of times, telling the judge, hey, listen, we cannot come to a conclusion. Finally, on Friday afternoon, they came back, and what we found out was 11 jurors were willing to acquit her on the insanity defense. But there was one juror who was not willing to go along with that. Therefore, the judge declared a mistrial.
Fred Jackson: What has happened since then in the last couple of days, the nine women, three men on the jury, a couple of the female jurors have come forward to talk about what went on inside in their efforts to convince this one male member of the jury to vote with them. Here's a couple of clips. We'll play a couple of clips for you of two different women who sat on the jury.
Juror: He admitted he had reasonable doubt, and I started filling out the forms. I was so excited. I actually did. There were three forms I had to fill out, and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one, and then he said, but I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity.
Interviewer: And number four, in the door to the room is trying to kind of swing that person from the very beginning. So where did you come down from the very beginning? Like, what was your vote?
Juror: So originally I saw as though she was guilty and she was clearly responsible for it, and maybe I still believe that in a certain way.
Tim Wildmon: I don't know about any of that. Do we have the clip where the lady says about how he could not get over the fact?
Wesley Wildmon: We don't have that one.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Jenna is going to talk about that. I didn't understand what she said there. What did she say?
Fred Jackson: She was willing to find her guilty initially, but I think due to pressure in that jury room, she changed her decision. Jenna, go.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, so all of this was completely wild when we heard from three of the female jurors, including the foreperson, that was the first clip that you played. And the clip that Wesley was referring to, one of the female jurors said about the holdout male juror that, quote, he had the hardest time getting off of the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children, unquote.
Jenna Ellis: So what you have basically is three female jurors, and we know that there were 11 total of the jurors, nine women, two men, who empathized with Lindsay Clancy over wanting to hold her criminally responsible. And this is where we get as a society when you have toxic empathy, when you excuse and justify anyone's immoral, evil actions on the basis of, well, they were misunderstood, or well, let's understand their back story, or well, let's see what other circumstances were at play, or well, you know, they had mental health issues, or well, she was a new mom and, you know, just struggling.
Jenna Ellis: Well, there may be extraneous other factors. There always are, but that doesn't excuse the criminal responsibility of the act itself. And so the incredibly infuriating thing that I think Christians are looking at is the justification of evil on the basis of toxic empathy. Because one thing that I learned from these interviews is that the trial itself, the actual trial, didn't even matter. It was how much you empathized with Lindsay Clancy, how much they liked the defense attorney, how much they didn't prefer the prosecutor, what they thought based on their emotions rather than the law and the facts.
Jenna Ellis: And our criminal justice system is predicated on a right to a jury of your peers. And that idea is only valid and can only work out practically if you have reasonable, responsible people in society who are actually willing to judge the actions of their fellow citizens. But we live in a society right now that says, oh, don't judge anyone. Just affirm their choices. And that's what we're seeing play out in this jury and what we're seeing in real time.
Jenna Ellis: And so the bigger issue beyond just this one case, which absolutely those beautiful little children deserve justice, but the bigger issue for society is that you will see this more and more and more. When we keep telling people you can't judge another person, you just have to affirm the life choices that anyone else commits because you don't know what's going through their mind. You don't know the trials that they're facing. And so who are you to judge? We hear that over and over. This is the consequence.
Tim Wildmon: You know, I think these jurors who are letting her off the hook, if she had killed their children, they wouldn't be saying, oh, she was just psychotic for a while. They'd be wanting to demand justice if she had strangled, you see what I'm saying?
Host: That's a good point.
Jenna Ellis: Well, the counter to that, though, is that the father, Patrick Clancy, even during his testimony seemed to empathize with her. And those were his children, and so he didn't call, if you listen to his testimony, was he absolutely distraught and all of the things that you should feel? Yes. However, he also was not actually specifically saying that he hoped that she would be found accountable for this, which was absolutely, again, just wild to me.
Tim Wildmon: I don't know what to say. We say that and then we talk, right?
Host: Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano: You know, Jenna, I said early on in this case, this has been going on for two or three weeks, the trial, just the trial, that I would have been sympathetic to Lindsay Clancy if she had just simply left her family and moved and said, I can't take it anymore. I have this psychosis. She, you know, moves to California. She moves to Hawaii and she abandons her husband and her children. I would have at least been a little sympathetic and said, well, she just couldn't, you know, she was just overwhelmed. But she didn't do that. She didn't just leave her family. She murdered her three children.
Ed Vitagliano: We pointed out earlier in the week there was a 1954 case involving Constance Fisher, who is a Maine housewife. She drowned her three young children in a bathtub while suffering from the same thing, postpartum psychosis. She was found innocent or not guilty by reason of insanity. She and her husband reconciled and had three more kids, and she did the same thing.
Ed Vitagliano: Okay, now I'm not saying that this is true about Lindsay Clancy. I'm just saying you've got to hold people accountable for their actions, or we say this all the time, there are people who defend illegal immigrants being in this country and say, and with compassion say, they're just seeking a better life. And then they drive drunk or they murder someone, and we don't seem to be able to say people are responsible for their actions, and we let compassion overrule what most cultures would consider a common sense approach to crime. What do you think?
Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. I mean, deterrence is a huge element of the justice system. Deterrence to say, look, if you commit this act, this is what society is going to do to you. I mean, this is why in the early days of our country, we put people in the stocks and pillory in the public square to publicly say, you know, this is the societal condemnation for the actions, or they were publicly hanged, even, you know, if they committed far less serious offenses than murdering their children.
Jenna Ellis: But when you have a progressive kind of school of thought to the criminal justice system instead of punishment, which is required for justice for the victims and then also a deterrent, that's the classical theory. But the progressive theory is this restorative model that we need to focus on the action of what went wrong from the perspective of the defendant, and we need to be able to rehabilitate and restore them so that they can come back into society, and that's the purpose of the justice system.
Jenna Ellis: And I saw this as a prosecutor and also as a defense attorney, that this whole restorative justice model and this soft on crime model doesn't actually work because people know that if they just go through the system and the system is so focused on helping them instead of punishing them, then it's not really deterrence at all. And that's where we've come for the last, you know, 20 years of all of this nonsense that's been perpetuated in our system.
Wesley Wildmon: Jenna, this is what's here. I'm looking online. I watched the video that was sent around in show prep about what the lady said that you quoted at the beginning, and for ironic reasons online, I cannot find the quote in any of these articles. Could you, you had that quote? Could you share that again?
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. She said, he, referring to the one holdout juror, he had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.
Wesley Wildmon: That's it. Think about that.
Host: Yeah.
Wesley Wildmon: That is, that is, that is.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, would this happen in Kansas or, you know, you understand what I'm saying? Tennessee or something? Is this because you've got so many far lefties living up in Massachusetts that they, do you understand what I'm asking?
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, and I think that's in part, but I think the other major part of the problem is the way that Massachusetts law is written for the insanity defense, because it should be a really high threshold to actually invoke that defense at trial. And when this happened and Clancy's attorney was allowed to present this defense, it becomes what's called a complete affirmative defense, meaning that the prosecution not only has to prove every element of the crime that they charged, murder, beyond a reasonable doubt, but also disprove the affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jenna Ellis: So basically what you had at this trial and why everybody's been talking about how the jury was so focused on reasonable doubt, how do you possibly conclusively, or even beyond reasonable doubt, prove or disprove what someone was going through in terms of psychosis? There's not a blood test. There's not a contemporaneous test to say, okay, is this part of her DNA? You can't go back into those 18 minutes. And from her own attorney's arguments, she only suffered the psychosis for those 18 minutes. How do you possibly disprove that? And that's in part what some of these jurors are arguing.
Jenna Ellis: But while I was focused, like Wesley, on the fact that this juror is literally characterizing these murders as vicious, I mean, not accidental, not unknowing or unimaginable, she literally knows that this is a vicious killing. But she's saying essentially, but we don't know. Of course, there's a reasonable doubt of whether she heard a voice or not. And so by Massachusetts law, we have to say that she's not criminally responsible. That's the part of the law that needs to...
Tim Wildmon: Okay. What's to stop anybody in Massachusetts now from saying I heard a voice?
Host: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: Well, I think you said, Jenna, how do you prove, how do you prove or disprove that?
Jenna Ellis: That's why we need to change the law. And these kind of affirmative defenses should not be allowed to move forward in cases.
Tim Wildmon: The other thing, real quickly, for those who don't know, who haven't followed this closely, what were the steps that Lindsay Clancy took before she killed her three children? Because a person who's psychotic, that's what she claims, right? And I'm not saying there isn't postpartum psychosis.
Host: She was psychotic for the 18 minutes.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. Yes. That's my question. People who are psychotic maybe, who go nuts to use a street vernacular, they go out and howl at the moon, okay?
Host: Or just snap.
Tim Wildmon: Or snap, or they start yelling and throwing things maybe. But tell us what Lindsay Clancy did to murder her children. She had to get up to that point.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. Well, without getting too graphic, I mean, there was absolutely preparation because we saw that she sent her husband out of the home. She sent him on several errands that she knew would take...
Tim Wildmon: Did voices tell her to do that?
Jenna Ellis: And supposedly, according to her lawyer, right? So the steps that she took immediately preceding the murders were deliberate and prepared. And then even the murders themselves, I mean, she had to take her children one by one down to the basement, and strangling a human being takes a while. I mean, this isn't an instant gunshot or one after another, three in a row.
Host: Yeah.
Jenna Ellis: And to see that and to take the preparation that she did, I mean, a lot of the jurors were focused on the medication she was on, the fact that she cried for help. To me that actually cuts against her. Because if she was so focused, like Ed was saying, if she was so focused on the fact like, nobody is helping me, I can't deal with this anymore, then you remove yourself from the situation. You don't send your husband away so that you have the time, motive, and opportunity to commit these murders.
Tim Wildmon: Now this was thought out. This is a person of sound mind in terms of their methodical planning. Okay, first thing I need to do, check this, send my husband away. Second thing I need to do to get my, I need to get the weapons so I can strangle the kids. Third thing I need to do is one at a time take them down. I mean, think about this. I mean, I hate to be graphic too, but this is premeditated. This is thought out. This is planned. This isn't howling at the moon.
Tim Wildmon: So I don't know what to say in my response to this. Could she be down at Target in two months or a year from now?
Host: Well, it depends on how...
Tim Wildmon: I mean, is she going to get off the hook totally?
Jenna Ellis: Well, it depends on how the rest of this goes. And actually, just as we were speaking, a headline, breaking news from Fox News said that her attorney is filing an appeal based on double jeopardy, which technically, so when a jury is impaneled, then you can only be tried once for the crime. So if she was found not guilty, for example, she can't be tried again by the state. But if the mistrial happens, you didn't actually get to verdict. And so usually to see another jury is not considered double jeopardy.
Jenna Ellis: But what the argument appears to be is that this wasn't an ordinary good faith deadlock. And so Reddington, her lawyer's argument, appears to be a more narrow improper mistrial theory that the judge should have investigated whether this holdout juror was violating his oath, considered removing him and substituting an alternate. And because the judge declared a mistrial without exhausting all of the alternatives, there was no what the law calls manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. So essentially she'll face double jeopardy before a new jury improperly. So, I mean, there's a lot of legal issues that still need to be resolved.
Jenna Ellis: But going back to your point about the preparation, this is where I think the jury could have overcome this, well, did she hear a voice or not? I mean, that to me is like a lawyer suggesting, is it possible that she could have heard a voice? Well, sure. How about not by the voice? Well, is it possible that an alien came and assisted her? I mean, okay, is that possible? Sure. But is it probable? Is it something that beyond a reasonable doubt you actually believe?
Jenna Ellis: I mean, defense attorneys can assert all kinds of wild theories. That doesn't require us to say, well, because I have some doubt or because you can't prove it to a certainty, reasonable doubt is something, I mean, just the term reasonable is obvious that, you know, of course she didn't hear a voice. I mean, you can get beyond a reasonable doubt really easily with the rest of the evidence in this case.
Tim Wildmon: Anybody else got anything to ask Jenna before we move on here?
Ed Vitagliano: No, I did not know about this defense strategy. This would be, I don't know, heartbreaking just doesn't do this justice, if this is declared to be a double jeopardy thing and the prosecutors cannot retry Lindsay Clancy and she walks, I wouldn't know what to say about that.
Tim Wildmon: Well, I would also say if it was 11 to one, is that what it was, 11 to one to let her go?
Host: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: They don't have a chance to win. Oh, you're saying to convict her?
Jenna Ellis: Well, hopefully the prosecution will take some lessons from what they didn't do as well, and they'll focus also on a better jury because what's also come out is that several of the jurors were medical professionals or nurse practitioners, and they brought in, and this was also actually unlawful, they brought in their medical expertise into the jury room and started basically talking to the other jurors as expert witnesses, which you're not allowed to do, and tried to interpret the toxicology reports and all that based on their own opinions. And so hopefully in a next trial, the prosecution would strike those types of jurors for cause just based on what has gone on that we know about now in that jury room.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, if she were found guilty, let's just say there's a retrial just for argument's sake, and she's found guilty. Is it possible that she would be put in a psych ward, for lack of a better term? Can you be sentenced to a psych ward for 20 years, or is that where they put you in the psych ward? Is that what you call it? I don't want to miss...
Host: Mental health facility.
Tim Wildmon: And you put them in there, but then the people who run it say, she's done enough. She's free to go after six weeks or two months or whatever arbitrary time they decide.
Jenna Ellis: Well, typically, and it depends on the sentencing structure in Massachusetts, and I'm not as familiar with that specific state law, but typically she could be sentenced initially to serve part of her sentence in a mental health institution until she's determined to be of sound mind and then finishes the rest of her sentence in prison. And so, you know, the judge would, if she's found guilty of murder, sentence her according to that.
Jenna Ellis: And the problem, and that, you know, the jurors likely didn't know or maybe they didn't care, if she's found not criminally responsible, not completely not guilty, not criminally responsible by reason of insanity, then she goes to the mental institution only until she's deemed sane and fit to re-enter society. That could be six months. I mean, you know, this was only 18 minutes of her psychotic breakdown, allegedly, and she clearly hasn't had another psychotic breakdown in the last three years since this occurred. So, you know, she's out in what, six months, 18 months? So that's the problem that so many people said, well, if she's found not guilty by reason of insanity, she'll be locked up forever in a loony bin. That's not accurate.
Tim Wildmon: All right, the bigger issue here, and I think from a biblical worldview point of view, is what is the value of a human life? Those three children who were murdered, do we value that human life, those three kids who were murdered? And if so, if they're valued, what is the punishment for the person who murdered them, biblically?
Jenna Ellis: Well, biblically speaking, this is why I'm an advocate of the death penalty. And I think that Charlie Kirk's assassin should, and now is thankfully, facing the death penalty. Because if you take a life and are not justified, it's not self-defense or one of the very narrow exceptions, if you intentionally take the life of another human being, and this is why we need to criminalize abortion as well, then you should face the death penalty. And that's very scriptural. And I mean, Charlie himself advocated for that, ironically. And so I think she should face the death penalty three times over. And obviously you can't do that, but in Massachusetts, three consecutive life sentences, that would be justice in this case.
Jenna Ellis: Because you're not just taking one life. You are taking the life essentially of every child and every grandchild and every great-grandchild. You're taking out an entire family line when you end a life. Same thing with abortion.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. All right, Jenna, thank you. The Bible speaks to it. Thanks so much.
Jenna Ellis: All right. Thank you very much.
Tim Wildmon: That's Jenna Ellis. We'll see where this goes. What's the next step? They're going to decide whether to do a retrial, another trial.
Host: Yeah. And from what Jenna was saying, this may be it if it's considered to be double jeopardy, having another trial.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, we'll be back in a few moments with more of Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network.
Announcer: Welcome to Today's Issues, offering a Christian response to the issues of the day. Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Today is another day, people. Wednesday, September 9, 2026. There will never be another one. That would be a great title for a book.
Host: Never, never be another day like today. Yeah, it's safe to say.
Tim Wildmon: It only gets better from here on this program. Or worse.
Host: No, it only gets better. It's only up from here.
Tim Wildmon: Only up. Okay. We're going upward. Tim Wildmon here with Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, brother Ed.
Ed Vitagliano: Good morning, Tim.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley Wildmon, good morning, Wesley.
Wesley Wildmon: Hey, good morning.
Tim Wildmon: And our Canadian American. That's right, Fred Jackson. Good morning, Fred.
Fred Jackson: Good morning.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, trying to bring peace to the border.
Host: We've recently slapped Fred with a tariff while he was gone.
Host: Yeah, while he was gone. Yeah, he's not allowed to have popcorn for free like the rest of us.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, we've just got to stop the popcorn tariff.
Host: Tariff on popcorn.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, my goodness gracious. All right. Well, welcome everybody to Today's Issues, hour and a half, which is now an hour and whatever it is, 23 and a half minutes to go on the program.
Tim Wildmon: I just wanted to, we went to, by we I mean a group of us went to Davenport, Iowa, last night for a dinner with our folks there in the area and had a great time. I just wanted to say a shout-out sounds so nineties. I don't know what the appropriate word is today. Hello, greetings to everybody in that area. It's the Quad Cities area, so we had a great, great time.
Host: Yeah, was there a couple testimonies or something that you wanted to bring back?
Tim Wildmon: There he is. Usually one thing is I'm thankful for that you can rent planes so I'm not in the Chicago airport this morning on a weather delay or mechanical delay. We were able to lease a plane that was comparable to paying for all the people to fly commercially and all that stuff. So that way we were able to get back last night. Hour and 20 minute flight, great weather.
Host: You're on the show this morning.
Tim Wildmon: I'm on the show this morning. So testimony.
Host: Yeah, I want to hear that testimony that you shared this morning.
Tim Wildmon: All right. There was a gentleman there at our event, our dinner, and he came up to me after it was over and said, hey, I just wanted to tell you what an impact, and he was almost teary-eyed, what an impact American Family Radio has had on my life.
Tim Wildmon: And so he said, you know, I was a Christian, but was not really, didn't understand a biblical worldview, right, that we communicate each and every day with all our shows here on American Family Radio. So he just said, you just made a big, big difference in my life and I just wanted to say thank you. And so that's, you know, you don't.
Host: So he got involved.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. That's right.
Host: In politics because of AFR.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. And I want to challenge our listeners right now to, hey, sometime in the week or the next two weeks, just find one person to tell them to listen to American Family Radio. You know, I don't know how you do, you know, buy them lunch and say, you owe me, or whatever you need to do.
Tim Wildmon: But we need our current listeners to help us recruit new listeners, because a lot of people know fellow Christians, but they don't, they listen to, you know, they don't, they're not engaged. They don't understand what's going on. They're ignorant. And the way they can get out of the ignorance about what's going on in the culture to strengthen their biblical worldview is to listen to, we're not the only ones, but I mean, that's what we do, American Family Radio. So tell somebody about it. See if you can convert somebody. Yeah, go ahead.
Host: It takes about two to three minutes and you can help them download the AFR app on their phones, too.
Tim Wildmon: Right. You take their phone physically from them and you don't give it back.
Host: The app consent. I'm going to turn it to your consent.
Tim Wildmon: And don't give it back until you're able to download the app. Then you can give it back.
Host: Their phone.
Tim Wildmon: There's ways to do it.
Host: I don't recommend that one.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, what I'm saying about it.
Host: To just physically take it? No, call.
Tim Wildmon: Well, maybe that's inappropriate, you think?
Host: Yeah, you don't want to be the Christian that goes, hey, can I borrow your phone real quick? And then you download American Family Radio. Now listen to this. Now listen to this in front of me. Yeah, don't be that Christian.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, but you know what? You're right. The AFR app is a great tool to get people to use.
Ed Vitagliano: You know, just to kind of piggyback after what you were just sharing there about how there are a lot of Christians who, when we say ignorant, folks, we're not saying they are ignorant. We're saying they don't know.
Tim Wildmon: In the true use of the words.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes, they don't know what's happening. And a lot of times people don't realize what's happening until it comes in their front door. It affects someone in their family, their children, they found out something's going on in school.
Ed Vitagliano: A lot of people found out what was happening during COVID when parents were listening at the door as to what their kids were being taught because their kids were learning remotely. And so what we're saying is that a lot of times by the time you find out about it, you find out about the, you know, you're caught off guard, drag queen story hour at a library, it's too late.
Ed Vitagliano: And so we try to let people know what's happening so they can get involved and they can head some of this stuff off before it knocks on their front door.
Tim Wildmon: Amen. All right, so anyway, moving right along here. Jenna Ellis will be with us at the bottom of the hour. Fred, why will Jenna be with us?
Fred Jackson: Jenna is going to talk to us about the Lindsay Clancy case. We had a hung jury, a mistrial in that case. I think most of our listeners are familiar. She is a woman, and the part about what she did is not in question. She killed her three kids, and her defense was that she was criminally insane.
Fred Jackson: The jury, there were 12 people on the jury, 11 voted for acquittal, and one refused to do that. So it was a hung jury.
Tim Wildmon: Wait a minute, how many voted for acquittal?
Fred Jackson: Eleven. Eleven were willing to find her not guilty by reason of insanity. A couple of the jurors, we will hear from an audio that will play for Jenna, which will explain your reaction as to why, and your reaction will be even more shocked.
Host: Because Tim and I have not heard this video, this audio, and it's supposedly pretty stunning.
Fred Jackson: What these jurors said, right. There were nine women and three men on that jury. We now know that the one holdout was a man. A number of the women jurors are now speaking out as to how they, on their attempt to convince this man to vote with them, and he refused. That's the broad context of their comments.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. So this, I'm looking forward to hearing because I've not heard this. Okay. That's at the bottom of the hour.
Fred Jackson: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: So we'll spend a few minutes, probably much of the second half of this hour talking to Jenna Ellis about this case and what it means broadly. So we're going to discuss that with her. I'm, well.
Host: Save it.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, well, I'm just, you know, the idea that we're talking about an acquittal on something like this is maybe, I'll try to be open-minded. Will you, Ed?
Ed Vitagliano: No.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. Me neither. That was just empty words.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Fred, what else is in the news? Give us some. What do you got, good Fred? I know you're, I call you Good News Fred.
Fred Jackson: Well, if I had shares in oil companies, I might be happy today.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. There, that's a great spin on the price of oil and gasoline going up. I like that.
Fred Jackson: Yeah, if you were invested in oil, you would be a happy man today.
Host: You'd be a happy man.
Fred Jackson: Because if you're in oil, you got a 401k, do a little happy dance.
Host: For the rest of us.
Host: Don't make your back go out.
Fred Jackson: Yeah. For the rest of us, probably while we're waiting to get Jenna on the line, go out and get some gas this morning. Because early this morning, the average price of a barrel of oil went over $100 again.
Host: I don't know where I'm going to keep any more barrels, though. I already don't have any more room left in my backyard.
Tim Wildmon: Anyway, it's over $100 a barrel. What does that mean? Most people don't trade in oil futures or whatever like that or have stock in oil companies. But what does that mean for the person at the gas pump? That's my question.
Fred Jackson: Well, the gas prices have been rising pretty steadily over the last 10 days. This is going to bump it up again, let's put it that way, depending on where you buy gas. If you're a poor soul that lives in California, you're probably talking six, seven dollars a gallon for gasoline. I don't know what the average is today, but I'm sure it's well over four dollars, approaching five across the country.
Fred Jackson: And if you use diesel, we really feel sorry for you. And let's face it, those 18 wheelers that carry stuff to grocery stores and Walmarts and Costcos and Sam's, they're going to be charging more for all those products on those trucks. That's what this means.
Fred Jackson: Now, this happened early this morning in the wake of what happened late yesterday, our time. U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf area hit five Iranian tankers. Iran responded by shooting some missiles at some of our U.S. military establishments in Jordan. Now, you may think, well, okay, that's really good. The United States did that.
Fred Jackson: But because oil is a global commodity, the people who were going to buy that Iranian oil could be China, could be India, whatever the case may be. They now have to go buy their oil somewhere else, which increases the competition for that oil, which economics 101 drives up the price for oil for everybody.
Tim Wildmon: Supply and demand.
Fred Jackson: That's what it does. So on the one hand, yes, cheer what we're doing in the Persian Gulf to Iranian oil. But on the other hand, understand it's going to continue to force the cost of oil up.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. Let's talk about this for a minute, politically speaking, because I think it's time for President Trump to either get out of that situation, and if you want to claim victory, whatever you want to do, or he needs to have, listen to me, a serious, not a serious formal address to the nation from Marco Rubio. That would be my preference, or JD Vance even, but Trump is the president.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, so if he can, I would prefer, well, I like all three of those. I like Rubio and Vance as a spokesperson for President Trump's administration more than I do him. Okay, but he is the president. He is the Commander in Chief. So I would prefer that he, Donald Trump, make a formal address from the White House in a speech that explains the whole situation in Iran and what we're doing, what our goal is, what our objectives are, because right now that's unclear to the American people, I think.
Tim Wildmon: And we're just languishing in this daily news of tit-for-tat over there, and the economy is being affected in a bad way because of the oil and gasoline prices. But I think, I'm not saying, the Trump haters, you know, the TDS people, they're never going to agree, but I'm talking about for the middle of America, for the person out there in America who goes, yeah, we need to have security in the world as much as we can and protect our interests. He needs to explain what we're doing, okay, and give us some clear objectives.
Tim Wildmon: In other words, remember why we started this, because Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, so we're punishing them for that because they're a danger to the globe, to the world, and to our country. A lot of people have lost their connection to the seriousness of the issue at hand. If it isn't, they're just going to see groceries going up and prices of gas and they're going to go, why is this happening? Because of Trump's war. Well, President Trump, I'm saying what the left would say, because of Trump's war. Does that make sense to you?
Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. No, I think that would be helpful. Now, the only thing, let me just give one caveat. I don't think you want the president letting Iran know what we're doing and what our plans are. But in a general sense, I think there does need to be some explanation. The American people will endure hardship if they understand why they're doing it and if that reason is something that they can get behind.
Tim Wildmon: It's got to be more than Trump saying, we're going to hit them harder.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: You see what I'm saying?
Ed Vitagliano: I think that right now, and I'm just going by what I think.
Tim Wildmon: I do.
Host: You're just sharing your heart.
Ed Vitagliano: I'm sharing my heart.
Host: Share your heart.
Ed Vitagliano: I want to know why this, we kind of know why it happened. I want to know what the plan is, what does winning look like, and how we're going to get there. And maybe when the president thinks this will be over.
Ed Vitagliano: And I think most Americans would be willing to give the, but like you said, not the TDS people, the Trump haters. He could discover gold and make America the richest country in the world and people would still hate him. There are people who are like that. But I think most people give the president the benefit of the doubt if he explains what you're asking an explanation for. And it could help Republicans.
Wesley Wildmon: Yeah, and we've mentioned, let me set this up. One, I've said all along, I'm not changing my mind here, although new information does help, I do think that at the three month mark, we should have been claiming, okay, here's the things we've accomplished and we're coming home.
Wesley Wildmon: But with that said, though, we've mentioned this before, not enough, but the president, his administration, and the military, they do have information that we don't have. Keep that in mind. One of those is which, in the last four months, our Navy SEALs have been working overnight every day to try to un-mine or not try to un-mine the Strait of Hormuz. Does it de-mine or un-mine or does it matter?
Tim Wildmon: I don't know.
Host: De-mine.
Tim Wildmon: Take the mines out of the Strait of Hormuz that Iran uses to blow ships up. How about that one?
Wesley Wildmon: Yep. Okay, go ahead. So they have been doing that mission that we weren't aware of until it's almost complete, and it's taken almost four months. Now, that would be a good time to mention that, that that's something they've been doing, because the Strait of Hormuz has been an issue for the entire time.
Ed Vitagliano: And that is, to the earlier point we were making, that's one of those things you don't want to let Iran know we're doing while we're doing it. That puts those guys in danger.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, I'm just saying, I think it's time for President Trump to, in my opinion, make a formal address to the country. And maybe at the White House, in the Oval Office, you remember the old-fashioned way? My fellow Americans, and if it's only 10 minutes, that's okay, but it needs to be a serious address to the country. Why we're there, what we're doing, how long we're going to stay, what the mission is. All those things need to be reiterated, because right now, the thing is just sort of languishing. Go ahead.
Ed Vitagliano: Everything you said, yes, just do not include that Iran is willing to make a deal.
Tim Wildmon: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: Just leave that part out.
Tim Wildmon: You said that?
Ed Vitagliano: No.
Host: He has said that.
Ed Vitagliano: Trump has.
Tim Wildmon: You said that.
Ed Vitagliano: I think you got...
Host: It's tongue-in-cheek.
Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I guess there were about 50 times.
Tim Wildmon: But not recently.
Host: Is that tongue-in-cheek on steroids, what I just did?
Ed Vitagliano: It gets to me. You almost got me.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, that's why I'm saying he needs to reset. Because, you know, he did say many times back, especially back in the spring and the early summer, they were just dying to make a deal, and as it turns out, that wasn't true.
Ed Vitagliano: That's right.
Host: Which is about seven months.
Tim Wildmon: And made a lot of people think Trump's being played. And people go, well, Trump's usually the guy that is, you're usually the one who's playing folks, not getting played. All right, you're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Next story, Fred.
Fred Jackson: Well, speaking of President Trump and speeches, he is the keynote speaker tonight in Dallas, Texas, where the Republicans are having a first ever midterm convention.
Tim Wildmon: Okay.
Fred Jackson: All the stars of the Trump cabinet will be there, but President Trump speaks tonight, keynote address, Vice President Vance tomorrow night for this two-day convention in Dallas. A lot of people believe that the convention is being held because they need a platform to put out a public relations message. He's going to talk about it.
Tim Wildmon: Maybe Dallas in the speech would be what I'm talking about. I would prefer an Oval Office address instead of a campaign rally type situation. But anyway, maybe he'll lay out the objectives and clarify the mission in Iran tonight.
Fred Jackson: Yeah, I'm sure Iran will come up. I'm sure the success of the Trump administration going after illegal immigrants, all of that.
Tim Wildmon: By the way, excuse me for interrupting. It's rare for me. But the inflation is down. I saw, and the job numbers report was very good, too. You won't see that in the liberal mainstream media, but I did see those numbers. So while President Trump's administration has had some negative news, those were good news. Did you guys see this?
Host: Yes.
Host: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah, so those were points of good news I'm sure he'll mention tonight. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Fred Jackson: Yeah, I'm sure he will talk about that. You know, the other factor when we talk about the Iran war is the relationship that we have with Israel right now. You know, Israel is going to have elections next month, and there's an avenue of talk right now that's coming out of Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to make very clear that regardless of what the United States does in Iran, Israel will take care of the business that it needs to take care of.
Fred Jackson: Because in the last 48 hours, Israel has had to do some business with Hezbollah still in southern Lebanon. And also, believe it or not, there are still Hamas terrorists in Gaza. And so we have all of that that's going on right now that is a bit of a sidebar to this, but an important sidebar when we talk about what's going on in Iran.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. You're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Thanks for listening to AFR. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Fred. Jenna Ellis will be with us in just a few minutes. We're going to discuss the very high profile and national story involving, oh, I'm sorry.
Host: Her last name's Clancy.
Tim Wildmon: Clancy, Clancy, that you know, she killed her three kids. And then she, don't try, she's on trial. Everybody knows this. And then she did it and then she asked for...
Host: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: And now we have a jury that's a hung jury. I thought it was going to be the other way because of the hung jury. In other words, I thought there's 12 jurors, right?
Host: Correct.
Tim Wildmon: I thought it was going to be 11 to convict, one to hold out. But as it turns out, it's the other way, 11 to acquit and one held out to convict, I guess. And so Jenna Ellis is going to be joining us. Let's go ahead and take our break right here.
Tim Wildmon: What does this mean going forward? Is this isolated, this kind of reasoning, to Massachusetts because it's a very liberal state? You understand what I'm saying? Is this a state law that's being applied here that maybe is more lenient to the convict? Not to convict, both things.
Host: It's a state case.
Tim Wildmon: Criminal.
Host: Yeah. There was a copycat too within the last week. They did the same thing, and he's claiming insanity.
Tim Wildmon: Are we really going to see people being able to kill their children and then just claim insanity? Oops, I was temporarily insane, and get away with it. We'll be back. We'll talk more about this with Jenna Ellis.
Announcer: This is Today's Issues. Email your comments to comments at AFR.net. Past broadcasts of Today's Issues are available for listening and viewing in the archive at AFR.net. Now, back to more of Today's Issues.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back everybody to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. I'm Tim with Ed, Wesley, and Fred. And we are going to break down now in a little more detail and legal observation, a legal observation from Jenna Ellis, the story involving, Fred, set this. Well, Jenna, welcome. Good morning.
Jenna Ellis: Good morning. Great to be with you guys.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. Set this up for us, Fred.
Fred Jackson: So this is the Lindsay Clancy case. If you've been near a TV over the last couple of weeks, you probably saw the trial. She was on trial for killing her three children. Her defense was because she was temporarily insane. Postpartum psychosis was her defense, that she wasn't therefore responsible for what she did to her three children.
Fred Jackson: There was a 12 person jury. They wrestled with this case. They came back and forth into the courtroom with questions a number of times, telling the judge, hey, listen, we cannot come to a conclusion. Finally, on Friday afternoon, they came back, and what we found out was 11 jurors were willing to acquit her on the insanity defense. But there was one juror who was not willing to go along with that. Therefore, the judge declared a mistrial.
Fred Jackson: What has happened since then in the last couple of days, the nine women, three men on the jury, a couple of the female jurors have come forward to talk about what went on inside in their efforts to convince this one male member of the jury to vote with them. Here's a couple of clips. We'll play a couple of clips for you of two different women who sat on the jury.
Juror: He admitted he had reasonable doubt, and I started filling out the forms. I was so excited. I actually did. There were three forms I had to fill out, and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one, and then he said, but I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity.
Interviewer: And number four, in the door to the room is trying to kind of swing that person from the very beginning. So where did you come down from the very beginning? Like, what was your vote?
Juror: So originally I saw as though she was guilty and she was clearly responsible for it, and maybe I still believe that in a certain way.
Tim Wildmon: I don't know about any of that. Do we have the clip where the lady says about how he could not get over the fact?
Wesley Wildmon: We don't have that one.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Jenna is going to talk about that. I didn't understand what she said there. What did she say?
Fred Jackson: She was willing to find her guilty initially, but I think due to pressure in that jury room, she changed her decision. Jenna, go.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, so all of this was completely wild when we heard from three of the female jurors, including the foreperson, that was the first clip that you played. And the clip that Wesley was referring to, one of the female jurors said about the holdout male juror that, quote, he had the hardest time getting off of the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children, unquote.
Jenna Ellis: So what you have basically is three female jurors, and we know that there were 11 total of the jurors, nine women, two men, who empathized with Lindsay Clancy over wanting to hold her criminally responsible. And this is where we get as a society when you have toxic empathy, when you excuse and justify anyone's immoral, evil actions on the basis of, well, they were misunderstood, or well, let's understand their back story, or well, let's see what other circumstances were at play, or well, you know, they had mental health issues, or well, she was a new mom and, you know, just struggling.
Jenna Ellis: Well, there may be extraneous other factors. There always are, but that doesn't excuse the criminal responsibility of the act itself. And so the incredibly infuriating thing that I think Christians are looking at is the justification of evil on the basis of toxic empathy. Because one thing that I learned from these interviews is that the trial itself, the actual trial, didn't even matter. It was how much you empathized with Lindsay Clancy, how much they liked the defense attorney, how much they didn't prefer the prosecutor, what they thought based on their emotions rather than the law and the facts.
Jenna Ellis: And our criminal justice system is predicated on a right to a jury of your peers. And that idea is only valid and can only work out practically if you have reasonable, responsible people in society who are actually willing to judge the actions of their fellow citizens. But we live in a society right now that says, oh, don't judge anyone. Just affirm their choices. And that's what we're seeing play out in this jury and what we're seeing in real time.
Jenna Ellis: And so the bigger issue beyond just this one case, which absolutely those beautiful little children deserve justice, but the bigger issue for society is that you will see this more and more and more. When we keep telling people you can't judge another person, you just have to affirm the life choices that anyone else commits because you don't know what's going through their mind. You don't know the trials that they're facing. And so who are you to judge? We hear that over and over. This is the consequence.
Tim Wildmon: You know, I think these jurors who are letting her off the hook, if she had killed their children, they wouldn't be saying, oh, she was just psychotic for a while. They'd be wanting to demand justice if she had strangled, you see what I'm saying?
Host: That's a good point.
Jenna Ellis: Well, the counter to that, though, is that the father, Patrick Clancy, even during his testimony seemed to empathize with her. And those were his children, and so he didn't call, if you listen to his testimony, was he absolutely distraught and all of the things that you should feel? Yes. However, he also was not actually specifically saying that he hoped that she would be found accountable for this, which was absolutely, again, just wild to me.
Tim Wildmon: I don't know what to say. We say that and then we talk, right?
Host: Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano: You know, Jenna, I said early on in this case, this has been going on for two or three weeks, the trial, just the trial, that I would have been sympathetic to Lindsay Clancy if she had just simply left her family and moved and said, I can't take it anymore. I have this psychosis. She, you know, moves to California. She moves to Hawaii and she abandons her husband and her children. I would have at least been a little sympathetic and said, well, she just couldn't, you know, she was just overwhelmed. But she didn't do that. She didn't just leave her family. She murdered her three children.
Ed Vitagliano: We pointed out earlier in the week there was a 1954 case involving Constance Fisher, who is a Maine housewife. She drowned her three young children in a bathtub while suffering from the same thing, postpartum psychosis. She was found innocent or not guilty by reason of insanity. She and her husband reconciled and had three more kids, and she did the same thing.
Ed Vitagliano: Okay, now I'm not saying that this is true about Lindsay Clancy. I'm just saying you've got to hold people accountable for their actions, or we say this all the time, there are people who defend illegal immigrants being in this country and say, and with compassion say, they're just seeking a better life. And then they drive drunk or they murder someone, and we don't seem to be able to say people are responsible for their actions, and we let compassion overrule what most cultures would consider a common sense approach to crime. What do you think?
Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. I mean, deterrence is a huge element of the justice system. Deterrence to say, look, if you commit this act, this is what society is going to do to you. I mean, this is why in the early days of our country, we put people in the stocks and pillory in the public square to publicly say, you know, this is the societal condemnation for the actions, or they were publicly hanged, even, you know, if they committed far less serious offenses than murdering their children.
Jenna Ellis: But when you have a progressive kind of school of thought to the criminal justice system instead of punishment, which is required for justice for the victims and then also a deterrent, that's the classical theory. But the progressive theory is this restorative model that we need to focus on the action of what went wrong from the perspective of the defendant, and we need to be able to rehabilitate and restore them so that they can come back into society, and that's the purpose of the justice system.
Jenna Ellis: And I saw this as a prosecutor and also as a defense attorney, that this whole restorative justice model and this soft on crime model doesn't actually work because people know that if they just go through the system and the system is so focused on helping them instead of punishing them, then it's not really deterrence at all. And that's where we've come for the last, you know, 20 years of all of this nonsense that's been perpetuated in our system.
Wesley Wildmon: Jenna, this is what's here. I'm looking online. I watched the video that was sent around in show prep about what the lady said that you quoted at the beginning, and for ironic reasons online, I cannot find the quote in any of these articles. Could you, you had that quote? Could you share that again?
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. She said, he, referring to the one holdout juror, he had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.
Wesley Wildmon: That's it. Think about that.
Host: Yeah.
Wesley Wildmon: That is, that is, that is.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, would this happen in Kansas or, you know, you understand what I'm saying? Tennessee or something? Is this because you've got so many far lefties living up in Massachusetts that they, do you understand what I'm asking?
Jenna Ellis: Yeah, and I think that's in part, but I think the other major part of the problem is the way that Massachusetts law is written for the insanity defense, because it should be a really high threshold to actually invoke that defense at trial. And when this happened and Clancy's attorney was allowed to present this defense, it becomes what's called a complete affirmative defense, meaning that the prosecution not only has to prove every element of the crime that they charged, murder, beyond a reasonable doubt, but also disprove the affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jenna Ellis: So basically what you had at this trial and why everybody's been talking about how the jury was so focused on reasonable doubt, how do you possibly conclusively, or even beyond reasonable doubt, prove or disprove what someone was going through in terms of psychosis? There's not a blood test. There's not a contemporaneous test to say, okay, is this part of her DNA? You can't go back into those 18 minutes. And from her own attorney's arguments, she only suffered the psychosis for those 18 minutes. How do you possibly disprove that? And that's in part what some of these jurors are arguing.
Jenna Ellis: But while I was focused, like Wesley, on the fact that this juror is literally characterizing these murders as vicious, I mean, not accidental, not unknowing or unimaginable, she literally knows that this is a vicious killing. But she's saying essentially, but we don't know. Of course, there's a reasonable doubt of whether she heard a voice or not. And so by Massachusetts law, we have to say that she's not criminally responsible. That's the part of the law that needs to...
Tim Wildmon: Okay. What's to stop anybody in Massachusetts now from saying I heard a voice?
Host: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: Well, I think you said, Jenna, how do you prove, how do you prove or disprove that?
Jenna Ellis: That's why we need to change the law. And these kind of affirmative defenses should not be allowed to move forward in cases.
Tim Wildmon: The other thing, real quickly, for those who don't know, who haven't followed this closely, what were the steps that Lindsay Clancy took before she killed her three children? Because a person who's psychotic, that's what she claims, right? And I'm not saying there isn't postpartum psychosis.
Host: She was psychotic for the 18 minutes.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. Yes. That's my question. People who are psychotic maybe, who go nuts to use a street vernacular, they go out and howl at the moon, okay?
Host: Or just snap.
Tim Wildmon: Or snap, or they start yelling and throwing things maybe. But tell us what Lindsay Clancy did to murder her children. She had to get up to that point.
Jenna Ellis: Yeah. Well, without getting too graphic, I mean, there was absolutely preparation because we saw that she sent her husband out of the home. She sent him on several errands that she knew would take...
Tim Wildmon: Did voices tell her to do that?
Jenna Ellis: And supposedly, according to her lawyer, right? So the steps that she took immediately preceding the murders were deliberate and prepared. And then even the murders themselves, I mean, she had to take her children one by one down to the basement, and strangling a human being takes a while. I mean, this isn't an instant gunshot or one after another, three in a row.
Host: Yeah.
Jenna Ellis: And to see that and to take the preparation that she did, I mean, a lot of the jurors were focused on the medication she was on, the fact that she cried for help. To me that actually cuts against her. Because if she was so focused, like Ed was saying, if she was so focused on the fact like, nobody is helping me, I can't deal with this anymore, then you remove yourself from the situation. You don't send your husband away so that you have the time, motive, and opportunity to commit these murders.
Tim Wildmon: Now this was thought out. This is a person of sound mind in terms of their methodical planning. Okay, first thing I need to do, check this, send my husband away. Second thing I need to do to get my, I need to get the weapons so I can strangle the kids. Third thing I need to do is one at a time take them down. I mean, think about this. I mean, I hate to be graphic too, but this is premeditated. This is thought out. This is planned. This isn't howling at the moon.
Tim Wildmon: So I don't know what to say in my response to this. Could she be down at Target in two months or a year from now?
Host: Well, it depends on how...
Tim Wildmon: I mean, is she going to get off the hook totally?
Jenna Ellis: Well, it depends on how the rest of this goes. And actually, just as we were speaking, a headline, breaking news from Fox News said that her attorney is filing an appeal based on double jeopardy, which technically, so when a jury is impaneled, then you can only be tried once for the crime. So if she was found not guilty, for example, she can't be tried again by the state. But if the mistrial happens, you didn't actually get to verdict. And so usually to see another jury is not considered double jeopardy.
Jenna Ellis: But what the argument appears to be is that this wasn't an ordinary good faith deadlock. And so Reddington, her lawyer's argument, appears to be a more narrow improper mistrial theory that the judge should have investigated whether this holdout juror was violating his oath, considered removing him and substituting an alternate. And because the judge declared a mistrial without exhausting all of the alternatives, there was no what the law calls manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. So essentially she'll face double jeopardy before a new jury improperly. So, I mean, there's a lot of legal issues that still need to be resolved.
Jenna Ellis: But going back to your point about the preparation, this is where I think the jury could have overcome this, well, did she hear a voice or not? I mean, that to me is like a lawyer suggesting, is it possible that she could have heard a voice? Well, sure. How about not by the voice? Well, is it possible that an alien came and assisted her? I mean, okay, is that possible? Sure. But is it probable? Is it something that beyond a reasonable doubt you actually believe?
Jenna Ellis: I mean, defense attorneys can assert all kinds of wild theories. That doesn't require us to say, well, because I have some doubt or because you can't prove it to a certainty, reasonable doubt is something, I mean, just the term reasonable is obvious that, you know, of course she didn't hear a voice. I mean, you can get beyond a reasonable doubt really easily with the rest of the evidence in this case.
Tim Wildmon: Anybody else got anything to ask Jenna before we move on here?
Ed Vitagliano: No, I did not know about this defense strategy. This would be, I don't know, heartbreaking just doesn't do this justice, if this is declared to be a double jeopardy thing and the prosecutors cannot retry Lindsay Clancy and she walks, I wouldn't know what to say about that.
Tim Wildmon: Well, I would also say if it was 11 to one, is that what it was, 11 to one to let her go?
Host: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: They don't have a chance to win. Oh, you're saying to convict her?
Jenna Ellis: Well, hopefully the prosecution will take some lessons from what they didn't do as well, and they'll focus also on a better jury because what's also come out is that several of the jurors were medical professionals or nurse practitioners, and they brought in, and this was also actually unlawful, they brought in their medical expertise into the jury room and started basically talking to the other jurors as expert witnesses, which you're not allowed to do, and tried to interpret the toxicology reports and all that based on their own opinions. And so hopefully in a next trial, the prosecution would strike those types of jurors for cause just based on what has gone on that we know about now in that jury room.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, if she were found guilty, let's just say there's a retrial just for argument's sake, and she's found guilty. Is it possible that she would be put in a psych ward, for lack of a better term? Can you be sentenced to a psych ward for 20 years, or is that where they put you in the psych ward? Is that what you call it? I don't want to miss...
Host: Mental health facility.
Tim Wildmon: And you put them in there, but then the people who run it say, she's done enough. She's free to go after six weeks or two months or whatever arbitrary time they decide.
Jenna Ellis: Well, typically, and it depends on the sentencing structure in Massachusetts, and I'm not as familiar with that specific state law, but typically she could be sentenced initially to serve part of her sentence in a mental health institution until she's determined to be of sound mind and then finishes the rest of her sentence in prison. And so, you know, the judge would, if she's found guilty of murder, sentence her according to that.
Jenna Ellis: And the problem, and that, you know, the jurors likely didn't know or maybe they didn't care, if she's found not criminally responsible, not completely not guilty, not criminally responsible by reason of insanity, then she goes to the mental institution only until she's deemed sane and fit to re-enter society. That could be six months. I mean, you know, this was only 18 minutes of her psychotic breakdown, allegedly, and she clearly hasn't had another psychotic breakdown in the last three years since this occurred. So, you know, she's out in what, six months, 18 months? So that's the problem that so many people said, well, if she's found not guilty by reason of insanity, she'll be locked up forever in a loony bin. That's not accurate.
Tim Wildmon: All right, the bigger issue here, and I think from a biblical worldview point of view, is what is the value of a human life? Those three children who were murdered, do we value that human life, those three kids who were murdered? And if so, if they're valued, what is the punishment for the person who murdered them, biblically?
Jenna Ellis: Well, biblically speaking, this is why I'm an advocate of the death penalty. And I think that Charlie Kirk's assassin should, and now is thankfully, facing the death penalty. Because if you take a life and are not justified, it's not self-defense or one of the very narrow exceptions, if you intentionally take the life of another human being, and this is why we need to criminalize abortion as well, then you should face the death penalty. And that's very scriptural. And I mean, Charlie himself advocated for that, ironically. And so I think she should face the death penalty three times over. And obviously you can't do that, but in Massachusetts, three consecutive life sentences, that would be justice in this case.
Jenna Ellis: Because you're not just taking one life. You are taking the life essentially of every child and every grandchild and every great-grandchild. You're taking out an entire family line when you end a life. Same thing with abortion.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. All right, Jenna, thank you. The Bible speaks to it. Thanks so much.
Jenna Ellis: All right. Thank you very much.
Tim Wildmon: That's Jenna Ellis. We'll see where this goes. What's the next step? They're going to decide whether to do a retrial, another trial.
Host: Yeah. And from what Jenna was saying, this may be it if it's considered to be double jeopardy, having another trial.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, we'll be back in a few moments with more of Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network.
Jenna Ellis joins the program to analyze the hung jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial, where eleven jurors voted to acquit on grounds of insanity while one holdout refused. Ellis examines how the jury's emotional empathy may have overridden legal standards, the breaking news of a double jeopardy appeal by Clancy's attorney, and the broader cultural shift away from personal accountability in the justice system. Tim Wildmon calls for President Trump to deliver a formal address outlining clear objectives for the ongoing conflict with Iran, as US military action against Iranian tankers in the Persian Gulf sends oil prices above one hundred dollars per barrel. The hosts discuss the economic impact on American families and the administration's communication strategy. Fred Jackson also reports on the Republican midterm convention in Dallas featuring President Trump and Vice President Vance, and notes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's pledge to act independently against Iran regardless of American policy decisions.
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