'It Could Be by Firearm, It Could Be Electric Chair. I Don't Really Care': After the Lindsay Clancy Mistrial, Mace Returned to TMZ and Demanded a Public Execution in a State That Abolished Capital Punishment in 1984

Reporting relied on: TMZ, which conducted both the September 2 and September 14 on-camera interviews with Rep. Mace in Washington; and Mediaite, which transcribed the September 2 remarks. All quotations below are verbatim and attributed to the outlet that recorded them. The Lindsay Clancy case is an active criminal matter: a mistrial was declared September 4, 2026, and a retrial decision is pending at a September 29, 2026 status hearing. Clancy has pleaded not guilty; her defense argues she was not criminally responsible by reason of postpartum psychosis. Maceopedia takes no position on the merits of the case.

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Ten days after the Lindsay Clancy mistrial, Rep. Nancy Mace stopped a TMZ camera in Washington and escalated.

Her September 2 appearance during jury deliberations had already drawn criticism for a false legal prediction ("she's going to walk free because of this pink mob") and an unfounded racial claim about who would and wouldn't support a Black defendant. That appearance is documented here. On September 4, the jury declared a mistrial, split 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal by reason of insanity, and the judge sent the case back. Clancy remained in a state psychiatric hospital.

On September 14, 2026, Mace returned to the camera with no correction of her earlier claims and a sharper demand.

What she said on September 14

"Her children are dead, she should be dead too."

"She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution."

"It could be by firearm, it could be electric chair. I don't really care. Not an injection."

"Be a warning to women everywhere, you don't kill your kids."

"Lindsay Clancy deserves nothing less than the death penalty. There is no other answer for a monster who strangled her own three children."

Every sentence above is her own, recorded on camera, on September 14, 2026.

The law she isn't describing

Massachusetts abolished capital punishment in 1984, when the Supreme Judicial Court struck the statute down in Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz, 393 Mass. 150. The state has not executed anyone since 1947. There is no firearm execution protocol, no electric chair, and no active legislation to restore capital punishment. What Mace called for does not exist in the jurisdiction where the case is being tried. The maximum sentence available at retrial is life in prison without parole, on a first-degree murder conviction.

The case is also not over. A status hearing is set for September 29, 2026, at which Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz will address whether to retry or negotiate a plea. As of the date of Mace's September 14 appearance, Lindsay Clancy had not been convicted of anything. She was in a state psychiatric hospital.

What the mistrial actually showed

When Mace made her original "walk free" prediction on September 2, she attributed it to a racist "pink mob" corrupting the jury. The actual jury dynamics ran the other way. Eleven of the twelve jurors sided with the insanity defense that Mace was attacking. The one holdout was the single juror who refused to follow the judge's instruction on the insanity standard, and that holdout's refusal is what forced the mistrial. The verdict the majority favored, not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, would have meant indefinite commitment to a state psychiatric facility, not freedom. A Massachusetts insanity acquittal is confinement under a different label.

So the "pink mob" Mace attacked represented, functionally, the position of eleven of the twelve sworn jurors. Her prediction of freedom was wrong as a matter of law. The mistrial made it wrong as a matter of fact.

What Trump said

Asked about the mistrial, President Trump offered a different frame:

"It's on television so much, it's hard not to follow it."

"She did a horrible, horrible thing. Can't be worse. But you'll find out what the price to pay is. There'll be a price. It's going to be mental institution or jail or something."

Trump called it a "horrible tragedy" and a "terrible situation." He declined a pardon request from Clancy's attorney, calling it a "state situation." He did not say she would walk free. His prediction, "mental institution or jail or something", is an accurate description of what Massachusetts law provides: an insanity acquittal produces a psychiatric commitment, and a conviction produces prison. Neither is freedom.

That is a different conclusion than the one Mace stated twice: on September 2 ("walk free because of this pink mob") and implicitly on September 14, when her demand for a public execution presupposed a criminal justice system capable of delivering one in Massachusetts, which it cannot.

The pattern across three appearances

This is the third time in less than three weeks that Mace has inserted herself into the Clancy case on camera with a legally impossible demand or a false legal claim.

On August 27, on her own "Get Maced" broadcast, she called for Clancy to receive the death penalty "and I'd prefer it to be public", the first time she specified the method, while the jury was still deliberating in a state with no death penalty. Maceopedia documented that segment here.

On September 2, she told TMZ the defendant would "walk free," which is not what Massachusetts law provides for any of the outcomes the jury was considering.

On September 14, after the mistrial confirmed that eleven jurors had sided with the defense she was attacking, she returned to TMZ and added "firearm or electric chair."

Each appearance escalated. None included a correction of the prior one. The case remains open.

By the numbers

• 5 new verbatim quotes from the September 14 TMZ appearance
• 1984, the year Massachusetts abolished capital punishment
• 1947, the year of the state's last execution
• 11 of 12 jurors sided with the insanity defense Mace was attacking
• 0 days Lindsay Clancy has been free since her arrest in February 2023
• September 29, 2026, the next court date, at which the retrial decision will be made

Sources

• September 14, 2026 TMZ interview: TMZ, Washington, on-camera remarks by Rep. Nancy Mace (source for all five verbatim quotes above)
• September 2, 2026 TMZ interview and Mediaite transcription: previous Maceopedia dispatch
• Massachusetts capital punishment: Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz, 393 Mass. 150 (1984), full opinion; Death Penalty Information Center, "Massachusetts"
• Mistrial, jury split, and current case status: CBS News, NBC News, CNN, WBUR (September 4, 2026 coverage); retrial status hearing date September 29, 2026
• Trump post-mistrial statements: multiple outlets, September 2026
• August 27 "Get Maced" broadcast: Maceopedia dispatch

This dispatch is criticism of on-camera political statements Nancy Mace made herself, in public interviews, about a matter of public concern. Every quotation is her own, recorded on camera and attributed. The Lindsay Clancy case is an active criminal matter: a mistrial was declared September 4, 2026, a retrial decision is pending at a September 29, 2026 status hearing, and Clancy has not been convicted. Her defense argues she was not criminally responsible by reason of postpartum psychosis; Maceopedia takes no position on the merits. The legal explanation above describes Massachusetts law on capital punishment and insanity verdicts as reported by the sources linked. Massachusetts has no death penalty.