Judge Judy on Nancy Mace: It's Ridiculous.
Rep. Nancy Mace told TMZ on September 14 that Lindsay Clancy, a defendant no jury has convicted, deserves a public execution by firearm or electric chair. The next day TMZ put Mace's call to Judith Sheindlin, Judge Judy, on the same sidewalk beat. Sheindlin said there was no question Clancy killed her children and that the only question was whether there was an excuse for it, told the reporter to make up his own mind, and warned of a danger in not retrying the case. Then TMZ asked her about Mace's call for a public execution. Her answer was three words: I think it's ridiculous. This is Maceopedia's record of both TMZ clips, every quote verbatim and attributed.
Reporting relied on: TMZ, which conducted both on-camera interviews (Mace on September 14, 2026, and Judith Sheindlin the following day); and Briefly, "Judge Judy weighs in on Lindsay Clancy case, TMZ street interview", which flagged the Sheindlin exchange. Every quotation below is the speaker's own, as recorded by TMZ.
Two TMZ sidewalk interviews, one day apart, put the same question to two people and got two very different answers. This is the record of both.
Maceopedia's edited splice of the two TMZ clips: Mace's call for a public execution, then Judge Judy's reaction, every line captioned verbatim. Source footage: TMZ.
What Mace said
On September 14, 2026, after the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy ended in a mistrial, Nancy Mace stopped at a TMZ camera and was asked about the case. Clancy is the former Duxbury labor-and-delivery nurse who admitted killing her three children in January 2023, has pleaded not guilty, and whose defense argues she was not criminally responsible because she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis. Asked what should happen to her, Mace said this:
"Her children are dead. She should be dead, too."
Pressed, she went further:
"She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution."
Asked to spell out what that meant:
"It could be by a firearm. It could be electric chair. I don't really care."
And she framed it as a deterrent:
"It should be a warning to women. Everywhere, you don't kill your kids."
What Judge Judy said
The next day, TMZ caught up with Judith Sheindlin, the retired family-court judge known to a generation of daytime viewers as Judge Judy, and asked her about the same case. On Clancy, Sheindlin was blunt but careful to leave the verdict to the listener:
"There is no question, my dear, that she killed her children. The only question is, is there an excuse for it. Make up your own mind on that one."
Asked what should happen next, she said the risk ran the other way from a walkaway:
"I think there is a danger in that, in not retrying."
Then the reporter told her that TMZ had gotten Nancy Mace the day before, and that Mace had called for the public execution of Lindsay Clancy, and asked if she had any comment. Sheindlin, who spent a quarter century on the bench in New York before three decades ruling on television, answered in three words:
"Yes, I think it's ridiculous."
The record
Whatever one thinks of the Clancy case, and reasonable people disagree sharply about postpartum psychosis and criminal responsibility, the legal picture Mace's demand runs into is not a matter of opinion.
Massachusetts has no death penalty. The Commonwealth abolished capital punishment in 1984, when its highest court struck the statute down, and it has carried out no execution since 1947. There is no lawful method of execution in Massachusetts to demand, public or otherwise.
Clancy has never been convicted, and has never been free. Her trial ended in a mistrial, not a verdict, which under the law means the case can be retried, not that anyone walked out the door. She has been held throughout at a state psychiatric facility, and appears in court in a wheelchair.
So the thing Mace told a national audience should happen, a televised execution, is one the state where the case sits made unlawful more than forty years ago, aimed at a woman a jury has not convicted of anything. That is the gap Sheindlin, forty years a judge, summed up in one word.
Sources & related coverage
- The interviews: TMZ conducted both sidewalk interviews, Mace on September 14, 2026, and Judith Sheindlin the following day (TMZ posted the Sheindlin clip on September 17, 2026).
- Flagged by: Briefly, "Judge Judy weighs in on Lindsay Clancy case, TMZ street interview".
- No death penalty in Massachusetts: the statute was struck down in Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz, 393 Mass. 150 (1984) (full opinion); Death Penalty Information Center, "Massachusetts".
- Related Maceopedia coverage: "This Was Murder" on Her Show. "Public Execution" on TMZ. Same Week. and "She's Going to Walk Free Because of This Pink Mob".
This dispatch is criticism of on-camera political statements Nancy Mace made herself, in a public interview, about a matter of public concern, and it reproduces a public figure's on-camera reaction to those statements. Every quotation is the speaker's own, transcribed from interviews TMZ recorded and attributed to TMZ. The Lindsay Clancy case is a criminal matter that ended in a mistrial: the defendant has pleaded not guilty, her defense argues she was not criminally responsible by reason of postpartum psychosis, and no jury has convicted her. Maceopedia takes no position on the outcome of that case and offers no clinical, medical, or psychological characterization of anyone. The legal statements above describe Massachusetts law on capital punishment and mistrials as reported by the linked sources. Massachusetts has no death penalty.
Read next
September 17, 2026 · Dispatch"This Was Murder" on Her Show. "Public Execution" on TMZ. Same Week.
On Monday September 14, Nancy Mace used her own show to defend the Clancy mistrial holdout juror, decry the doxxing campaign against him, and invoke due-process principle. Four days later she told TMZ that Clancy, never convicted, deserves a public execution by firearm or electric chair. The show clip and the TMZ clip are from the same week.
September 17, 2026 · DispatchAnne Emerson, Crime Podcaster: Nancy Mace is totally out of her depth here.
On September 16, 2026, the Sinclair true-crime panel "Criminally Obsessed" on NBC 10 WJAR reacted to Rep. Nancy Mace's TMZ demand that Lindsay Clancy be publicly executed. Host Anne Emerson said Mace "was never in that courtroom," had "no idea" about the postpartum psychosis at issue, "says things that are pretty outrageous on a regular basis," and was "way out of her depth." This is Maceopedia's record of the panel, every quote verbatim and attributed, with the legal facts Mace left out: Massachusetts has had no death penalty since 1984, Clancy's murder trial ended in a mistrial with an 11-to-1 jury for acquittal by reason of insanity, and she remains held in a state psychiatric hospital, never convicted.
September 24, 2026 · DispatchMace Hits Mehdi Hasan With His Own Deleted "Make American Planes Crash Again" Post on Piers Morgan
During a heated September 17, 2026 Piers Morgan Uncensored debate over radical Islam, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) turned the tables on journalist Mehdi Hasan by throwing one of his own deleted posts back at him. Mace reminded Hasan that after a fatal U.S. plane crash he had written "Make American Planes Crash Again," calling it "disgusting," "hypocritical," and "a bad joke about Donald Trump crashing planes." Hasan posted the line on February 16, 2025 as a jab at Trump over aviation safety, then deleted it the next day, calling it poorly worded. This is the same on-air clash in which Hasan called Mace "a racist bigot."
- September 18, 2026 · Dispatch
She Called Clancy a Serial Killer. The Next Morning She Said She Enjoyed the Fight.
On September 8, 2026, Nancy Mace appeared on the "Shotgun" YouTube channel and called Lindsay Clancy "no different than any other serial killer." She defended the lone holdout juror for conviction, called a mistrial "better than not guilty," and praised defense attorney Kevin Reddington's courtroom theatrics by saying he "deserves an Oscar." The next morning she told Dominique Lucre she had been "going toe to toe with Kevin Reddington" the night before and that she "enjoyed" it.
September 18, 2026 · Dispatch"You're a Racist Bigot!" Mehdi Hasan Calls Out Nancy Mace to Her Face on Piers Morgan
On September 17, 2026, journalist Mehdi Hasan called Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) "a racist bigot" directly to her face during a heated debate on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Hasan cited Mace's own public record: she tweeted "not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim," called for no Muslim American to hold public office, and publicly defended Dasha Kilpatrick, a woman who confronted Muslim shoppers at a Texas grocery store. Mace defended her comments as concern about radical ideology, not Muslims broadly. Hasan argued that her pattern of statements applied to Muslims as a class, making her characterization as a "racist bigot" warranted. The exchange aired live on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
September 3, 2026 · Dispatch'She's Going to Walk Free Because of This Pink Mob': Nancy Mace's Lindsay Clancy TMZ Hit Manufactured a Racial Controversy Around Two Claims That Are Provably Wrong, One of Them About the Law
On September 2, 2026, with the Lindsay Clancy jury deadlocked into its fifth day, Rep. Nancy Mace stopped to talk to TMZ in Washington and turned the Massachusetts murder trial into a racial controversy. She told the camera the 'pink mob' of women supporting Clancy would abandon her 'if she were Black,' that 'the left is inherently racist,' and that Clancy is 'going to walk free because of this pink mob.' The two claims driving the segment do not survive the facts. Mace named no case to support the racial charge, and 'walk free' is not what the law provides: Clancy's defense is asking the jury for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, which in Massachusetts means indefinite commitment to a locked psychiatric hospital, not release; a deadlocked jury means a retrial, not freedom; and Clancy has been held in a state psychiatric hospital the entire time. This is Maceopedia's record of the interview, every quote verbatim and attributed.