[A.] I know lots of people have opinions about the Lindsay Clancy trial, and I wanted to pass along the Massachusetts standard criminal jury instructions for such matters. (I can't be certain that this is the instruction that was actually given in the case, but it's the recommended instruction for such cases, so I assume the actual instruction wasn't far off.) If you have followed the factual allegations in the case, please post a comment and indicate how you would have voted if you were a juror, based on your knowledge (even if limited) of the factual allegations, and why you would have so voted.
Please keep in mind two important things:
[1.] Once evidence triggering the defense is raised, the government must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. To draw an analogy from how people talk about the reasonable doubt standard as to other guilt/innocence questions, Massachusetts takes the view that it is better that 10 non-insane people are wrongly acquitted than that one insane person is wrongly convicted.
