Anne 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.
Reporting relied on the NBC 10 WJAR (Turn to 10) segment "Criminally Obsessed", a Sinclair true-crime panel uploaded September 16, 2026, in which host Anne Emerson and the WJAR anchor react to Rep. Nancy Mace's September 14 TMZ interview. Every quotation below is verbatim from that broadcast, matched to the station's own caption track. The characterization in the headline is Anne Emerson's, offered on air. It is not Maceopedia's own claim.
On September 16, 2026, a Sinclair-owned true-crime panel turned its attention to a sitting member of Congress. The segment was "Criminally Obsessed" on NBC 10 WJAR in Providence, and the subject was Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who two days earlier had told a TMZ camera that Lindsay Clancy should be publicly executed. The panel's host, true-crime podcaster and reporter Anne Emerson, did not hedge her read on it.
"She is our representative down here in South Carolina. And when she said that, I was not actually surprised. I feel like Nancy Mace says things that are pretty outrageous on a regular basis."
Then Emerson drew the line the headline captures. In her words, Mace was talking about a trial she never sat through, about a psychiatric collapse she had not studied.
"She was never in that courtroom. She has no idea, from just maybe watching it on TV, what the postpartum psychosis issues were that this woman was dealing with. So, unfortunately, way out of her depth."
That is Emerson's characterization, on a Sinclair broadcast, of an elected official's public statement. It is her opinion, plainly labeled as opinion, and we carry it as hers.
What Mace said, and why a panel reacted
The remark that drew the panel was not ambiguous. On September 14, 2026, Mace told TMZ that Clancy, a Massachusetts mother whose murder trial had just ended in a mistrial, "should get the death penalty," that "it should be a public execution," and that the method "could be by a firearm, it could be electric chair, I don't really care." Maceopedia documented that interview in full here: "This Was Murder" on Her Show. "Public Execution" on TMZ. Same Week.
The WJAR anchor allowed that Mace has an audience for it.
"Well, she's got a base, and I bet some people watching agree with her. They'd say, 'Yeah, she killed three kids, and she ought to be brought to justice.'"
He then walked through where the actual case stands: whether the prosecutor "goes for a second bite of the apple or offers some kind of a deal," and the media "obsession with the holdout juror" whose lone vote produced the mistrial. Clancy's own defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, has been blunter still about Mace's grasp of the case, telling reporters she "doesn't know what she's talking about ... about law in Massachusetts."
The record
Emerson's "way out of her depth" is opinion. The reasons behind it are documented fact, and they are the context Mace left out.
- Massachusetts has had no death penalty since 1984, when the state's highest court struck it down. There is no lawful public execution to demand. A firing squad or an electric chair is not an available sentence in Massachusetts for anyone, convicted or not.
- Clancy has not been convicted of anything. Her murder trial ended on September 4 and 5, 2026, in a mistrial: the jury deadlocked 11 to 1, with the eleven voting to accept the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity and a single holdout. A mistrial is not a conviction. It is not an acquittal either. It means the case is unresolved.
- She remains held in a state psychiatric hospital, where she has been throughout, not free and not released. Her defense is that severe postpartum psychosis left her not criminally responsible in January 2023, when she killed her three children and then attempted to take her own life, an attempt that left her paralyzed.
- The case is ongoing and contested. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not said whether he will seek a retrial. Clancy's next court date is at the end of September 2026.
Mace called, on camera, for the public execution of a woman whom no jury has convicted, in a state that could not execute her even if one had. A Sinclair true-crime panel that covers these cases for a living listened to that and reached the verdict Emerson stated out loud.
Watch the panel
The Sinclair "Criminally Obsessed" segment, verbatim, with the anchor's framing and Anne Emerson's response:
Source: NBC 10 WJAR (Turn to 10), "Criminally Obsessed," Sinclair. Uploaded September 16, 2026. Video: YouTube 5qAW4VbzJh4. Panel: host Anne Emerson and the WJAR anchor. Verbatim from the broadcast caption track. This dispatch is Maceopedia's attributed record of a public statement about a public official. The opinions quoted belong to the speakers named. The Clancy case is ongoing and contested; nothing here asserts her guilt or innocence.
Sources: NBC 10 WJAR, "Criminally Obsessed," Sept. 16, 2026 | Maceopedia: the TMZ "public execution" record
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