Three weeks before the Lindsay Clancy jury heard closing arguments, the Supreme Judicial Court threw out another Massachusetts mother’s murder conviction in a case that turned on the same question.
Latarsha Sanders stabbed her two young sons to death in their Brockton apartment in February 2018. She never disputed that she killed them. The only issue at her trial, as at Clancy’s, was whether she was criminally responsible when she did it. A jury said she was.
On August 6, 2026, the SJC ordered a new trial.
What went wrong at the first trial
The Court identified two errors, and both are worth understanding because they show where insanity cases actually get won and lost.
The medical records. After her arrest, Sanders was diagnosed with mental illness. The trial judge excluded those records. The SJC held that was error: under G.L. c. 233, § 79, hospital records are admissible, and records of psychiatric diagnoses made after the killings bear directly on whether a defendant was criminally responsible during them.
This is the recurring problem in these prosecutions. Psychosis is rarely documented in real time. A person in the middle of it is not filing paperwork about it. The proof usually arrives afterward, from clinicians who evaluate the defendant in custody, which is exactly why excluding that evidence guts the defense.
The closing argument. The prosecutor told the jury that Sanders had copied plotlines from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit involving “voodoo rituals.” There was no evidence she had ever watched the show.
That is argument invented from nothing, offered to explain away her account as performance rather than illness. The SJC would not tolerate it.
Why this matters for the Clancy verdict
Two things carry directly across.
First, the SJC is willing to reverse. Because first-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts receive automatic plenary review under G.L. c. 278, § 33E, the Court examines the entire case rather than only the issues counsel raised, and it can order a new trial or reduce the verdict outright. Sanders is a live demonstration that this is not a formality. We explained how that review works in what happens if Lindsay Clancy is found guilty.
Second, look at what drew the reversal: the exclusion of after-the-fact psychiatric evidence, and a prosecutor’s closing that went past the record.
Both have echoes in the Clancy trial. Kevin Reddington’s case rests almost entirely on evaluations conducted long after January 2023, and he has already moved for a mistrial over the Commonwealth twice putting Clancy’s Catholic faith and the idea of “mortal sin” before the jury. Judge William Sullivan denied the motion but struck the testimony and called it an absolutely inappropriate area of testimony. That record now exists, preserved, in a case headed for § 33E review if she is convicted. We covered the strategy behind that motion in our review of Reddington’s defense.
What happens to Sanders now
The conviction is vacated, not dismissed. Plymouth County prosecutors must decide whether to try the case again, and if they do, Sanders gets a second jury, this time with her psychiatric records in evidence.
Retrials in criminal responsibility cases have a history of going differently. Andrea Yates was convicted at her first trial in Texas and found not guilty by reason of insanity at her second on substantially the same facts. The difference was what the second jury was permitted to hear.
The standard, in plain terms
Massachusetts uses the test from Commonwealth v. McHoul. A person is not criminally responsible if, because of mental disease or defect, she lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of law. Two independent routes, and a defendant needs only one.
The burden belongs to the prosecution. Once the defense fairly raises lack of criminal responsibility, the Commonwealth must prove the defendant was responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. Most people assume the reverse, and that assumption is the single biggest misunderstanding in both of these cases. Our explainer covers it in full: how an insanity defense is actually fought in Massachusetts.
Common questions
Who is Latarsha Sanders?
A Brockton woman convicted of first-degree murder in the February 2018 stabbing deaths of her two young sons. The Supreme Judicial Court vacated her conviction on August 6, 2026 and ordered a new trial.
Why did the SJC order a new trial?
The trial judge improperly excluded hospital records of psychiatric diagnoses made after her arrest, which are admissible under G.L. c. 233, § 79 and relevant to criminal responsibility. The prosecutor also argued in closing that she had copied television plotlines, without any evidence supporting it.
Does this mean she goes free?
No. The conviction is vacated, not the charges. Prosecutors may retry the case.
How is this connected to the Lindsay Clancy trial?
Both cases turn on criminal responsibility rather than on whether the defendant caused the deaths. Sanders shows the SJC reversing on issues, after-the-fact psychiatric evidence and improper closing argument, that have parallels in the Clancy record.
What is section 33E review?
Every Massachusetts first-degree murder conviction is reviewed automatically by the Supreme Judicial Court, which examines the whole case and may order a new trial or reduce the conviction to a lesser degree of guilt.