Brockton woman who killed two of her children granted new trial by state’s highest court - The Boston Globe
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered a new trial for a woman convicted of killing her children, citing the exclusion of psychiatric evidence. The ruling may set a precedent for how insanity defenses are handled in future criminal cases.
Why it matters
The decision clarifies the legal standards for evidence admissibility in insanity defense cases, potentially impacting high-profile criminal trials in the state.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday ordered a new trial for a Brockton mother convicted of killing her two children in 2022, a decision that could have a wide impact for criminal defendants claiming insanity.
In a unanimous ruling, the seven-member court said Superior Court Judge William F. Sullivan was wrong to withhold from the jury details of Latarsha L. Sanders’ psychiatric history from the four years she spent awaiting trial in prison and in a state psychiatric hospital.
The Sanders case has striking echoes to another in Massachusetts in which a mother is on trial for murdering her children; in that one, Lindsay Clancy of Duxbury is also claiming an insanity defense, and not only is the district attorney the same in both trials, but so too is the judge — Sullivan.
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