Dr. Phillip Resnick

Reviewed: 2026-09-02 - claims checked against the trial transcripts; an unverified quotation and two unsourced dates removed.

Source: Day 18 of the trial transcript in this archive (Commonwealth v. Lindsay Clancy, Plymouth Superior Court). Background beyond his testimony is not asserted here.

Entity Type: Person

Role: Expert witness called by the defence

Profession: Forensic psychiatrist

In the record: 145 turns, all on Day 18

Lines marked (record) are established in the transcripts held here.

Nothing on this page should be read as a finding of the court.

Testimony in this case

Dr. Resnick was called by the defence on Day 18 and testified about Lindsay

Clancy's mental state at the time of the deaths.

her first child and more significant with her second (record: Day 18)

postpartum onset together with what he described as frank psychosis on the day,

saying she was "clearly psychotic on that day" (record: Day 18, 39:03)

her clinicians while being frank with her own family, naming her sister, mother

and mother-in-law (record: Day 18)

The defence rested after his testimony, and the Commonwealth called a rebuttal

witness (record: Day 18).

The reported voice

The archive previously carried a sentence on this page presented as the words of

the voice Clancy reported hearing. That quotation was not accurate and did not

belong on this page, and it has been removed.

What the record contains is the testimony of Dr. Avram Mack, not Dr. Resnick,

who reported the voice as having said something to the effect of asking her to

kill the children, framed as a last chance so that she could then kill herself

(record: Day 18). Dr. Mack's own phrasing ("to the effect of") signals that he

was reporting the sense of it rather than exact words, so this archive does not

present any version of it as a verbatim quotation.

Attorney Buckingham questioned the significance of the "last chance" framing,

and Dr. Mack answered that it suggested an awareness that what she was doing

would be disallowed by the children's father (record: Day 18).

Andrea Yates

Kevin Reddington asked Dr. Resnick whether he had also worked on the matter of

Andrea Yates, establishing the connection (record: Day 18). ADA Jennifer

Sprague returned to the comparison in cross-examination, putting to him that

Yates had committed herself to hospital five times and attempted suicide twice

while trying not to harm her children (record: Day 18).

The archive previously dated his Yates involvement to 2005 in one place and 2006

in another. Neither date is in this record and both have been removed. The

transcripts establish that he worked on the matter; they do not establish when.

Related entities

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In the trial record

Generated from the transcripts. Every figure below is counted from the record itself, not estimated.

In their own words

Called by the Defense. Inferred from the direct examination: Kevin Reddington asked 10 of the first 10 questions put to this witness. Direct examination precedes cross-examination, so the counsel who opens is the party that called them.

Examined by: Kevin Reddington (Defense), 79 questions; Jennifer Sprague (Commonwealth), 56 questions.

Speaks in the record: 145 turns across 1 day.

Named elsewhere in the archive: 142 times across 23 sources.

Also appears in the transcripts as: Phillip Resnick

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