A Massachusetts judge refused to throw out murder charges against Lindsay Clancy, the mother who strangled her three children with exercise bands, rejecting a defense motion that claimed prosecutors hadn't proven she did it — a remarkable argument from a lawyer who already stipulated to her involvement in the killings and now wants the public to believe there's no evidence at all.

Here's why this matters: the mental health defense industry has built an entire apparatus around escaping accountability for the most unthinkable acts, and the system is playing along. An 11-1 jury nearly walked Clancy entirely. Three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — were strangled in their own basement, and eleven jurors were ready to say nobody was criminally responsible.

Judge William Sullivan wasn't having it. On Thursday, he denied defense attorney Kevin Reddington's motion for a required finding of not guilty, ruling that both physical and circumstantial evidence were sufficient for a rational jury to find Clancy guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge noted he was required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to prosecutors — and that weighing conflicting expert testimony is the jury's job, not his.

Reddington's argument was brazen even by defense-bar standards. "Where is the evidence that she did this?" he asked the court Tuesday, insisting the "entire case is based on speculation." Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham called the claim "laughable," and for good reason: Clancy's DNA was on the exercise bands used to kill the children, she was alone in the house with them while her husband picked up takeout and medication, and she told her husband she had tried to kill herself and the children were in the basement. As Buckingham noted, "the entire record is voluminous as to information supporting the fact that she did this."

But here's the kicker: Reddington himself previously filed a motion in which Clancy was willing to stipulate in writing to her involvement in the children's deaths. During the first trial, the defense didn't dispute that she carried out the killings — they argued she wasn't criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis. Now Reddington wants to pretend there's no evidence she did it at all. The New York Post reported this was his fourth failed attempt to get the charges tossed.

The first trial ended Sept. 4 in a mistrial after jurors said three times they couldn't reach unanimity. Several jurors spoke out afterward, revealing the panel split 11-1 in favor of acquittal on the criminal responsibility question. Both sides' experts agreed Clancy had serious mental illness; three prosecution experts testified she still retained substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct. Sullivan wrote plainly that mental illness alone does not preclude a finding of criminal responsibility.

The Guardian and the Dallas Morning News covered the ruling straight, while the Post framed it as a deserved slapdown. WJLA provided the most detail on the judge's reasoning, including Sullivan's acknowledgment of conflicting expert testimony — which he rightly placed in the jury's lane, not his.

The question now is whether prosecutors will retry the case. They haven't announced their plans. A new trial date hasn't been set. Clancy returns to court Nov. 2. Three children are dead, their mother's DNA was on the ligatures, and the last jury nearly let her walk. The system that spent months treating Clancy at a psychiatric hospital before she killed her kids — and that nearly acquitted her after — has some explaining to do.