(LifeSiteNews) — Outgoing Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina advocated Monday that Lindsay Clancy should be publicly executed for murdering her three children in a case that ended in a highly contentious mistrial.
Clancy evaded conviction September 4 for the 2023 murder of her three children when a mistrial was declared after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. That she did it was undisputed, but the defense argued she was not responsible due to “postpartum psychosis,” which allegedly brought her to a point at which she decided to end her children’s lives before attempting to kill herself.
Most of the predominantly female jury was reportedly sympathetic enough to acquit, but one male holdout refused, preserving the possibility of a future trial convicting her. Mirroring the cultural flashpoint the case has become in the court of public opinion, several female jurors have condemned their colleague in interviews, with one giving the unintentionally revealing quote, “He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”
Mace, who announced her retirement from Congress in June after failing to win the Republican nomination for governor of South Carolina, spoke Monday with TMZ on Capitol Hill.
After dismissing Clancy defense attorney Kevin Reddington’s request for a pardon from President Donald Trump as a “publicity stunt,” Mace declared simply, “Her children are dead, she should be dead too.”
“She should get the death penalty,” she reiterated. “It should be public. It should be a public execution (…) It could be by firearm, it could be by electric chair, I don’t really care.” The lawmaker defended the idea as a “warning to women everywhere, you don’t kill your kids.”
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Nancy Mace is calling for Lindsay Clancy to be publicly executed … telling TMZ DC’s @jacob_wass the Massachusetts mom accused of killing her three children “should be dead too.” pic.twitter.com/HNQ1hnjytJ
— TMZ (@TMZ) September 15, 2026
In past centuries, public execution used to be commonplace, with gallows erected in town squares for public hangings of criminals. But as execution methods became more sophisticated and societal mores changed, so too did the normalcy of displaying state-sanctioned killings. Today, members of the public and press may attend executions, but the last public execution in the United States was of convicted murderer Roscoe “Red” Jackson in 1937.
Known during her congressional tenure for her flair for the dramatic, Mace has been accused of periodically making such provocative statements as bids for attention (last month, she revealed her arms were covered with tattoos to express “the pain that I need to feel”). But many on social media were receptive to executing Clancy, if not necessarily televising it.
Because of the holdout juror, the principle of double jeopardy did not attach to the trial and Clancy can be prosecuted again. But the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office has not yet confirmed if it plans to attempt a new trial. In the meantime, Clancy is confined to a state mental facility, with her next hearing slated for September 29.