Rep. Nancy Mace is calling for the mother accused of strangling her three children to face a public death penalty, a demand that goes well beyond what even the prosecution has sought in the case.
Mace, the outgoing South Carolina Republican, told TMZ on Monday that Lindsay Clancy should be put to death in front of the public for allegedly killing her three young children in 2023. The 48-year-old congresswoman and mother of two did not hedge.
"She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution," Mace said. She added that the method did not matter to her.
"It could be by firearm, it could be electric chair, I don't really care."
Mace called Clancy a "serial killer", a characterization, not a legal finding. Clancy has not been convicted of any crime. Her murder trial ended in a mistrial on September 4 after a hung jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Eleven of twelve jurors sided with the defense argument that Clancy should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. One holdout juror prevented acquittal.
Clancy is now likely facing a new trial. The case has drawn enormous public attention and sharp political reaction since the mistrial was declared.
What set Mace's comments apart from standard tough-on-crime rhetoric was her stated rationale. She framed a public execution not merely as justice for three dead children but as a message aimed at other mothers.
Mace described Clancy's execution as a "warning to women everywhere, you don't kill your kids." She also said plainly: "Her children are dead, she should be dead too. She deserves nothing less."
The congresswoman also took aim at Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, who had issued what S1 describes as a "Hail Mary request" to President Trump to pardon Clancy. Mace called the pardon plea a "nasty, ugly" publicity stunt.
That pardon request was always a legal dead end. Both Trump and Reddington himself acknowledged that a presidential pardon is impossible in this case because Clancy faces state charges, not federal ones. The president can only pardon federal offenses.
President Trump addressed the pardon plea on Sunday when reporters asked about it. His tone was measured and somber, a sharp contrast with Mace's remarks the following day.
"It's a very sad situation. I certainly heard that, but look, it's very sad. There is no winner there. There's no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead."
Trump did not endorse the death penalty for Clancy, did not weigh in on the insanity defense, and did not comment on the mistrial beyond acknowledging the tragedy. He treated the matter as a state case, which it is.
The mistrial itself has created its own controversy. The jury split, eleven in favor of acquittal by reason of insanity, one holdout, raised questions about the strength of the prosecution's case and the dynamics inside the jury room. One juror in the case admitted she changed her vote and may still believe Clancy is guilty, adding another layer of uncertainty to the proceedings.
Mace's demand for execution skips past a basic fact: there has been no conviction. A mistrial means the jury could not agree, and the case resets. Clancy is legally presumed innocent. Whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in a retrial, or whether a retrial will even proceed on the same terms, remains an open question.
The defense's insanity argument clearly resonated with nearly the entire jury. Eleven out of twelve jurors agreed with it. That does not mean Clancy is innocent of killing her children, it means a near-unanimous jury found she may not have been mentally responsible for her actions. A single juror blocked that outcome.
Mace's comments do not engage with the insanity defense or the jury's near-unanimous finding. She treats the case as settled when it is not. The children are dead, three of them, allegedly strangled in 2023. That fact is not in dispute. But the legal process that determines guilt, mental state, and punishment is ongoing.
The trial also drew attention for incidents beyond the courtroom. A woman was accused of filming jurors during the proceedings, an episode that underscored the intense public pressure surrounding the case.
Conservative voters rightly expect the justice system to hold people accountable for horrific crimes. Three children are dead. The public's anger is justified. And the insanity defense, especially when it succeeds, often strikes ordinary people as a loophole that lets the guilty walk free.
But calling for a public execution before a conviction exists is not accountability. It is performance. Mace is an outgoing lawmaker with no role in the prosecution, no authority over state criminal law, and no obligation to weigh the evidence the jury actually heard. Her statements to TMZ land as political theater, not a serious policy position.
The conservative case for law and order has always rested on process, fair trials, honest verdicts, and punishments that fit both the crime and the Constitution. Demanding a public execution for a defendant who has not been convicted does not strengthen that case. It undermines it.
If the system fails to deliver justice for those three children, that failure will be worth every ounce of outrage. But the system has not finished yet, and skipping to the end is not how the rule of law works.
