What happens when a complicated court case gets reduced to a 15-second clip?

In this episode of Off the Record, Gerstner Adam Law attorneys Paul Adam and Colin Gerstner discuss how media coverage and social media can influence public perception of high-profile trials—even when the story being debated online isn’t the same question a jury is actually being asked to decide.

The conversation focuses on two widely discussed cases: the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in Massachusetts and the famous McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit involving Stella Liebeck.

Paul and Colin break down how legal concepts such as burden of proof, admissible evidence, mistrials, punitive damages, and comparative negligence can get lost when court proceedings are reduced to headlines, memes, and viral clips.

In This Episode:

⚖️ What the Lindsay Clancy trial was actually about
🧠 Postpartum psychosis and criminal responsibility
📋 What “beyond a reasonable doubt” means
👥 What happens when a jury is deadlocked
🚫 Why certain evidence may never be shown to a jury
📱 How viral clips can distort a trial
☕ What actually happened in the McDonald’s hot coffee case
💵 Compensatory damages vs. punitive damages
📊 How comparative negligence affected Stella Liebeck’s award
🏛️ Why jury service matters
🎥 Why a social-media clip isn’t a shortened version of a trial

The Lindsay Clancy case ended in a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was criminally responsible for killing her three children. Her defense argued that postpartum psychosis prevented her from being legally responsible for her actions, while prosecutors argued that the killings were intentional.

The McDonald’s case is also more complicated than the common shorthand. Stella Liebeck suffered severe burns after spilling coffee served at a temperature approaching 190 degrees. About 16% of her body was burned, including third-degree burns over roughly 6%, and she required an eight-day hospitalization and skin grafting.

Watch More Off the Record

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Meet the Hosts

Paul Adam
https://www.gerstnerlawoffice.com/legal-team/paul-adam/

Colin Gerstner
https://www.gerstnerlawoffice.com/legal-team/colin-gerstner/

#OffTheRecord #GerstnerAdamLaw #LindsayClancy #McDonaldsCoffeeCase #TrialLaw #JuryTrial #LegalPodcast #BurdenOfProof #PunitiveDamages #MontanaLaw

Colin Gerstner — 0:06

Off the record.

Paul Adam — 0:08

Welcome back to Off the Record with Gerstner Adam Law. I’m Paul Adam. This is Colin Gerstner.

Today we’re talking about a couple of hot topics: famous trials, how they’ve been portrayed in the media, and how the media can distort the facts of a case, how a trial proceeds, or really just the public’s opinion of a case.

Colin Gerstner — 0:38

Sure. Yep. It’s good to be back in here.

You know, it’s fall. There’s a little crispness in the air. It’s kind of nice walking outside in the mornings. Almost sweatshirt weather—my favorite kind of weather.

Paul Adam — 0:50

Jeans and boots.

Colin Gerstner — 0:51

Jeans and boots. Football’s back.

Paul Adam — 0:53

Yep.

Colin Gerstner — 0:54

But yeah, I want to talk today about a couple of famous trials and discuss how they’re portrayed by the media and how that can influence public opinion.

We’ll discuss two cases separated by decades.

The first one is the Lindsay Clancy trial. Trial number one, at least, just got over. There’s potential for a retrial, and as of this recording, I don’t think it’s been decided whether there will be a retrial or not.

The second one is the ever-famous McDonald’s hot coffee case, which happened in 1994.

So, start with the Lindsay Clancy one.

For current reporting on the case, WBUR has covered the trial and mistrial extensively. Read WBUR’s coverage of the Lindsay Clancy mistrial.

Paul Adam — 1:35

Yeah, boy, there’s been a lot of coverage on this.

I’m sure most of our listeners have some general knowledge of what’s happened, but Lindsay Clancy was charged with murdering her three children.

The defense is really not that she didn’t do it, but that she did not have the mental state necessary to commit first-degree murder.

Colin Gerstner — 2:03

Correct.

Neither Paul nor I watched the actual trial. I know it was televised or livestreamed in some capacity. We did not watch any of it.

I’ve seen clips of it on social media. I think none of us could avoid it. Talking at home with family and friends, people show you random stuff.

I wanted to talk about it.

Initially, this case is tragic. Whether you think Lindsay Clancy should be held criminally responsible for the death of her children or not, this is a terrible case. It involved three kids who were killed.

Nothing we say here is to trivialize that at all.

I think that tragedy gets lost in some of the memes and stuff we see on social media.

So I want to start with that. This is a tragic case, no matter what you think the outcome should be.

Paul Adam — 3:01

Yeah.

The media’s influence—not on the jurors, not on the outcome of the case, but on the public’s perception—shapes an entire country and how we view things.

It’s brought up issues about postpartum depression that certainly a lot of men have never considered or never really thought that much about.

Colin, we’re both dads. Both of our wives have had kids, and postpartum depression is a very real thing. Those hormonal swings are a very real thing.

So this has really put a spotlight on that, where it’s easy to gloss over that as dads or guys, I think.

Colin Gerstner — 3:50

Sure.

So if you’ve been living under a rock or aren’t on social media—and probably therefore much healthier than the rest of us—let’s talk generally about the facts of the case.

Lindsay Clancy is a Massachusetts woman, and she was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of her three children: Cora, age five; Dawson, age three; and Callan, who was eight months old.

She was charged in Massachusetts by the district attorney there, who alleged that Ms. Clancy planned the killings and charged her with first-degree murder.

As an aside, terminology changes based on the state.

In Montana, we would call this deliberate homicide. We don’t have first-, second-, or third-degree murder. We have different terms: deliberate homicide, mitigated deliberate homicide, and negligent homicide.

Montana law distinguishes among those offenses rather than using first-, second-, and third-degree murder terminology. Montana Legislature: homicide offenses.

Paul Adam — 4:41

I don’t want to go off script here too much, Colin, but I have thought about that.

Why wasn’t—so the difference between first-degree, second-degree, third-degree murder, which we don’t have in Montana—those are different degrees of mental state, right?

Would second-degree murder be like negligent, like you didn’t intend to commit that murder? Doesn’t that take out the mental-state aspect of it?

Colin Gerstner — 5:15

I don’t think necessarily mental state. I think it’s the degree of planning.

Again, we’re having flashbacks to law school here because in Montana we don’t have first, second, and third degrees.

We have deliberate homicide, which means purposely or knowingly killing somebody.

Then there’s mitigated deliberate homicide, which means you did kill them, but there are reasons that don’t justify it, but for lack of a better word provide some excuse to be convicted of a lesser offense.

Paul Adam — 5:42

No, no. I know what you’re going to say.

You’re walking in on your wife having an affair with somebody else, and you’re in a fit of fury and rage, and you kill the guy.

Colin Gerstner — 5:58

Yeah. Yep.

It’s a crime. You shouldn’t do it. You shouldn’t ever kill somebody in that situation.

But the result could be a lower sentence. You could be convicted of mitigated deliberate homicide instead of deliberate homicide.

Then there’s negligent homicide, which is maybe you’re driving drunk and kill somebody, or firing a gun recklessly.

You certainly don’t intend to hurt anybody, but you should have known better than to fire a gun in the direction of a house—something like that.

Paul Adam — 6:41

Do you think this Clancy case would have been a better fit for a third-degree murder charge?

Colin Gerstner — 6:48

It seemed like third degree is akin to our negligent homicide. I don’t think so.

From my understanding, these kids were strangled. So if you’re going to convict her of anything, it would be first or second degree, depending on Massachusetts law.

If the state is right, there’s clearly an intent to kill the children.

Colin Gerstner — 7:13

So they really had to go with the intentional-killing element and nothing less.

Paul Adam — 7:13

Interesting. I know that’s not on our script, Colin, but it’s interesting stuff.

Colin Gerstner — 7:25

Crucially, the defense never disputed that Ms. Clancy caused the death of her children.

Instead, the defense was that she was not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis and the effects of medications she had been prescribed—basically, that she did not have the requisite mental state to be held criminally responsible.

The law differs by state.

Here in Montana, we have a mental disease or defect framework. Massachusetts uses different terminology and standards.

Current reporting on the Clancy trial describes the defense as an insanity defense based on postpartum psychosis.

Paul Adam — 8:18

And that burden of proof is such a big deal.

If you’ve seen any of the coverage on this, burden of proof is the hot topic.

Did the state prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt?

Maybe there was one juror who was the lone holdout in this case that resulted in a hung jury. Did that juror have reasonable doubt? Did they not have reasonable doubt?

Burden of proof is a huge deal. You have to understand that so you can apply the law to that standard.

Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute defines beyond a reasonable doubt as the burden the prosecution must meet to obtain a criminal conviction. Cornell LII: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

Colin Gerstner — 8:51

Correct.

It’s beyond a reasonable doubt. So it’s not just, “I think this person committed a crime,” or, “Yeah, it’s likely this person committed a crime.”

You have to say, beyond a reasonable doubt, in my mind this person violated the law and committed this crime.

Paul Adam — 9:05

Yeah.

Colin Gerstner — 9:06

And it’s not an academic exercise. It’s real.

That’s the struggle as a jury—trying to apply it to the facts of a case.

Paul Adam — 9:13

Yeah.

Colin Gerstner — 9:14

So the main takeaway in all this is that Ms. Clancy did not dispute causing her children’s deaths. The issue was whether she was criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis.

After a long trial—and these famous trials always last way longer than I think they should—the jury deadlocked.

In criminal cases, there’s a 12-person jury, and the verdict has to be unanimous for a conviction or acquittal.

After days of deliberation, they decided they couldn’t agree, and the judge declared a mistrial.

A hung jury is a jury that cannot reach the required verdict, and that can result in a mistrial and possible retrial. Cornell LII: Hung Jury.

As of this recording, I don’t know whether the prosecution has said one way or another whether they’re going to retry the case.

Paul Adam — 10:28

Yeah. We were talking earlier this week about the challenges in retrying this case with the public eye that’s been on it.

Social media—I mean, this podcast is all about media influence.

Trying to retry something like this and get an unbiased jury willing to listen to all the facts of the case, listen to all the evidence, and take in no outside opinions seems incredibly difficult.

Colin Gerstner — 11:00

I’m thinking back to our last trial. Jury selection took four hours, and it wasn’t a publicized case. It was just a civil negligence case.

It took all morning to get 12 jurors that we, the defense, and the court thought could fairly determine the case.

I can’t imagine in this case. Nationwide, everybody knows about it.

Colin Gerstner — 11:33

And this is a state-court trial where your jury pool is going to be within the geographical boundaries of that jurisdiction.

It’s not like you have some nationwide jury pool. People in that community are going to have opinions about this.

Paul Adam — 11:53

Yeah.

Colin Gerstner — 11:53

This trial was well covered by the national media.

There were all sorts of commentators making remarks and expressing opinions.

What was interesting to me is what I’ll call the “clip economy” that arose around it in real time.

As a trial is happening, we get all these clips posted from influencers, maybe random people—I don’t know—on the internet. They have their face superimposed on the clip, and they’re providing their analysis of what’s going on.

As far as I can tell, many of these people have no experience in the criminal justice system. They’re not trained in it, but they’re commenting on what’s being left out, what should have been said, and the impact of a piece of evidence.

That was fascinating to me.

Paul Adam — 12:54

Yeah.

Colin Gerstner — 12:55

I saw a statistic from during the trial that there were a huge number of TikTok videos under the Clancy hashtag.

Some clips might be legitimate analysis. Maybe it’s a criminal defense attorney providing an opinion—that’s fair.

But some were just roasting the prosecutor’s appearance or creating theories about what a bow in the prosecutor’s hair supposedly meant.

Paul Adam — 13:40

I will say, though, this is the type of coverage that makes the public aware of these issues.

If you’re willing to do your own independent research and not get your knowledge only from social-media posts, TikTok, Instagram, or whatever it may be, but you hear about these issues in different formats and then do your own research, that’s great.

I think that’s great for the public and for these high-profile social issues too.

Colin Gerstner — 14:18

Yeah. I’m not saying legacy media is the only way you should get information.

There should be a role for citizens to chime in, of course.

One of the best clips I saw—the defense attorney’s name is Kevin Reddington, who’s by all means skilled, a good attorney.

One person dubbed him “Kevin Shreddington” because of the way they thought he was shredding the prosecution’s case.

I’ll just call him Shreddington because that’s a heck of a nickname. I hope I get some sweet nickname like that someday.

But one thing that caught me was these Facebook detectives who used selectively chosen clips to conclude that the husband killed the kids.

That’s just a wild theory.

The defense never asserted that.

Even Kevin Reddington went out of his way to debunk it. The defense wasn’t denying that Ms. Clancy caused the children’s deaths; the argument was about criminal responsibility.

That was the issue being litigated.

Paul Adam — 15:43

And like we were talking about earlier, a lot of topics are going to be excluded from being introduced at trial.

These are through motions in limine.

They’re meant to streamline a trial to the most relevant and admissible issues.

If somebody is thinking, “Why didn’t they put on this person?” or “Why didn’t they present this evidence?” chances are there may have been pretrial rulings deciding what evidence could or couldn’t come in.

A motion in limine is a pretrial request asking a judge to exclude particular evidence or arguments from being presented to the jury. Cornell LII: Motion in Limine.

Colin Gerstner — 16:31

Sure.

Again, I don’t know Massachusetts criminal procedure, but here we have pretrial procedures where the defense gives notice of defenses it’s going to assert.

For example, self-defense is similar in the sense that if you’re charged with homicide but claim self-defense, you’re saying, “Yes, I killed that person, but it was legally justified.”

In this case, I assume the defense put the state on notice that it was relying on the mental-disease-or-defect type of defense.

So the state, knowing that, isn’t necessarily going to put on evidence proving the husband’s alibi if that isn’t disputed.

If the husband was at a store at the time, they may not need to introduce surveillance footage or other evidence corroborating that story because it’s simply not an issue in the case.

Colin Gerstner — 17:32

And that’s not hiding evidence. It’s not trying to mislead anyone.

These are issues the parties know about, and the judge may already have ruled on what is relevant and admissible.

The conspiracy theories rub me the wrong way because there’s often a legal reason why certain things aren’t being presented.

Colin Gerstner — 18:00

Another thing—and this isn’t material to any conclusion—but I saw clips that were hard on the prosecution.

Maybe they’re worthy of criticism. I don’t know. I didn’t watch enough.

But they’ll watch a clip where maybe it was a dumb question or a dumb action.

Having done trials and depositions, there’s no way you can get through hours and hours of examination without looking like an idiot at some point.

You’ve had a bunch of criminal trials. You’re a former prosecutor.

Maybe every single trial, at the end of the day, you’re like, “Oh, that was a dumb question,” or, “Gosh, I looked like an idiot at that point.”

Paul Adam — 18:36

Oh yeah.

You can only prepare so much, but once you’re in the show—once you’re putting on the trial—a lot of it is thinking on your feet.

You’re responding in real time and cross-examining in real time.

It never comes out as clear and concise as you want.

Colin Gerstner — 19:02

So the takeaway is that, using the conspiracy theory that the husband did it as an example, the defense never disputed that Ms. Clancy caused the deaths.

The internet spent weeks arguing about a question that never went to the jury.

That was my takeaway from watching all these clips—people spend their time and effort arguing over something that really wasn’t an issue in the trial.

Paul Adam — 19:28

But it probably got somebody a lot of views on TikTok, and that’s all they wanted in the end.

Colin Gerstner — 19:34

Yep.

Paul Adam — 19:35

I’m sure you and I are going to have a lot more talk in the office about the Lindsay Clancy trial, the next steps, and what happens next.

Maybe we’ll have a follow-up episode once it’s determined whether they’re going to retry it or not.

But let’s jump to the next case, another controversial case.

I’m sure many people have heard about the McDonald’s hot coffee case.

Colin Gerstner — 20:04

Gosh, it happened in 1994, and I still hear it routinely.

I have clients who come in who were hurt, typically in auto crashes, and they’ll say, “Gosh, I never thought I’d see a lawyer, but this isn’t like I spilled coffee on myself.”

Paul Adam — 20:22

It’s always brought up in the context of, “Oh, that’s such a ridiculous lawsuit. I can’t believe someone was able to sue them for this.”

That’s the context.

Colin Gerstner — 20:33

It’s part of our culture, really.

It comes up in jury selection. We’ve seen it where you’re asking about general damages, pain and suffering, and somebody raises their hand and says, “Yeah, I can appreciate that, but you shouldn’t get a million dollars because you spilled some coffee on yourself.”

It’s part of our lingo.

Paul Adam — 20:53

What’s the lyric?

Colin Gerstner — 20:55

It’s “American Life,” I think, the name of the song.

There’s a line about spilling coffee and winning a million dollars.

Paul Adam — 21:00

Yeah.

Colin Gerstner — 21:03

It’s just ingrained in us.

Paul Adam — 21:04

But we are here to—

Colin Gerstner — 21:06

Debunk—

Paul Adam — 21:08

Debunk that.

Colin Gerstner — 21:10

So I want to talk about the actual facts of the case because people have this impression that it was a woman who spilled a cup of coffee on her clothes, was mad about it, was slightly inconvenienced, and got a million dollars from a jury.

What actually happened was that McDonald’s was serving coffee at temperatures approaching 190 degrees.

At those temperatures, hot liquid can cause severe burns very quickly.

Stella Liebeck’s injuries were serious: about 16% of her body was burned, including about 6% with third-degree burns. She was hospitalized for eight days and underwent skin grafting.

Paul Adam — 22:02

Yeah. I don’t know who could drink coffee at 190 degrees. You’re a little bit below boiling at that point.

But McDonald’s knew there had been complaints about burns from its coffee and had prior notice of injuries.

Colin Gerstner — 22:28

Right.

Evidence at trial showed that, during the prior decade, McDonald’s had received hundreds of reports involving coffee burns.

The issue wasn’t that one pot of coffee happened to be hot. The jury heard evidence that this was a known, repeated problem.

Reporting on the case has noted evidence of more than 700 prior burn reports.

Paul Adam — 23:01

And that’s the problem.

If you make one pot of coffee and it turns out too hot and burns somebody, maybe that’s an accident.

But if there’s a known course of conduct where people are being seriously hurt and nothing changes, that’s a very different situation.

Colin Gerstner — 23:35

Correct.

So, in 1992, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck bought a cup of coffee from a McDonald’s drive-through.

She wasn’t driving. She was a passenger, and the car was stopped.

She had the cup between her knees while removing the lid so she could add cream and sugar.

The cup tipped over and spilled on her inner thighs.

She suffered severe burns, was hospitalized for eight days, and underwent procedures including skin grafting and wound debridement.

Paul Adam — 24:29

And that’s another crucial element to a lawsuit: you have to have damages.

If you spill coffee on yourself and get a minor burn that heals, or you ruin a set of clothes, that is a very different damages case.

Here, there was significant injury and medical treatment.

Colin Gerstner — 25:04

Ms. Liebeck filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s.

Before trial, she had tried to resolve the matter for about $20,000, which was tied to medical and related expenses. McDonald’s offered $800.

The case went to trial, where the jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages.

That was then reduced to $160,000 because the jury found her 20% comparatively negligent.

Paul Adam — 25:50

Maybe because she was holding the coffee between her knees rather than somewhere else.

So the jury did consider her own responsibility.

Colin Gerstner — 25:57

Yep. The jury considered that.

Comparative negligence is a legal rule that reduces a plaintiff’s recovery based on the percentage of fault assigned to the plaintiff. Cornell LII: Comparative Negligence.

The jury also awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages.

Punitive damages aren’t primarily designed to compensate the plaintiff for the injury. They’re intended to punish especially harmful conduct and deter similar conduct in the future.

Learn more about punitive damages from Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

The judge later proposed reducing the punitive award to $480,000.

The case ultimately settled confidentially before final judgment, so the actual settlement amount isn’t public.

Paul Adam — 26:59

Sure.

Colin Gerstner — 27:01

And that’s the point.

Most people don’t hear those numbers or the surrounding facts.

They hear, “Woman spills coffee on herself and gets millions of dollars.”

Paul Adam — 27:14

What’s that other case?

This just reminded me of another example where there was a controversy around what a manufacturer allegedly knew about a safety issue.

Colin Gerstner — 27:31

Maybe the Pinto?

Paul Adam — 27:32

The Ford Pinto.

Colin Gerstner — 27:34

That would explode.

Paul Adam — 27:35

Right.

That was another case that became part of a broader conversation about what companies know about product safety and how they respond to risk.

Colin Gerstner — 28:04

And that’s the larger point.

When jurors hear evidence that a company knew about a safety problem and made choices about whether to address it, that context matters.

Paul Adam — 28:34

Yeah. That’s pretty cold.

Colin Gerstner — 28:36

And it’s important to remember that the decision in the McDonald’s coffee case was rendered by a jury—people from the community.

They heard all the evidence and reached a decision.

Afterward, the case became a symbol in debates over tort reform and the civil justice system.

A tort is generally a civil wrong for which an injured party may seek a legal remedy, often damages. Cornell LII: Tort.

And whether you agree with the jury or not, the point is that the viral shorthand—”someone spilled coffee and became a millionaire”—doesn’t tell you the whole case.

Paul Adam — 29:58

Exactly.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the hot coffee case.

Always an interesting topic, Colin. I’m glad we’re talking about it.

Colin Gerstner — 30:16

My takeaway is this:

Jurors hear the evidence.

They don’t watch social-media reels. They see witnesses testify live. They hear the entire testimony, not the 15 seconds somebody chose to put on Instagram.

You can disagree with a result. I’m not saying you have to agree with it.

I just want people to know that jurors heard the case and did far more work on it than somebody watching a short clip online.

At least respect the process.

Paul Adam — 30:51

And I’ll say this as a plug for civic service:

Serving on a jury is fascinating and eye-opening.

If you have misconceptions about the judicial system or wonder whether this is really the best way to decide things, sit on a jury.

People complain and moan about being called for jury service, but it can change how you view disputes, prosecution, defense, and the legal system.

Obviously we’re biased—we love this stuff. This is what we do for a living.

But I’d encourage anyone, if they get the chance, to sit on a jury.

Colin Gerstner — 31:43

Absolutely.

Don’t lie on your excusal forms when you get the jury summons. If you have a legitimate reason, sure.

But if you can serve, serve.

If it’s a criminal case, the jury is one of the checks on the government. You’re the one holding the government to the burden of proof.

It requires good people serving as jurors to do that.

Paul Adam — 32:06

And “good people” just means people willing to listen to the evidence and apply the law.

There’s no special qualification to be a juror, which is the beautiful thing about the system.

Colin Gerstner — 32:22

Another takeaway for the folks listening is that there are legal aspects of trials that don’t translate well to TikToks and Reels.

Things like burden of proof, admissible evidence, and pretrial stipulations aren’t juicy, but they’re immensely consequential to a trial.

Our justice system isn’t perfect. I’ll never come on here and say it’s perfect.

But it’s built on providing due process to litigants. That takes the form of live witness testimony and the full presentation of evidence—not just little segments somebody decides to put on your screen.

Lastly, people and entities providing commentary have an agenda.

It could be as simple as getting clicks.

A clip is not a shortened version of a trial. It’s a different product, created by somebody with a different motive.

It could be a business entity trying to shape a narrative to further its agenda. It could be an influencer trying to get followers, likes, and clicks.

When you see that, realize they may have a motive other than simply telling you the full story.

Paul Adam — 33:42

Exactly.

Well, Colin, thank you.

And listeners, thank you. This has been another episode of Off the Record with Gerstner Adam Law.

Until next time—

Colin Gerstner — 33:51

Stay blessed.