Avram Mack

Avram Mack testified for the Commonwealth on Day 18 and Day 19 that Lindsay Clancy had a mental disease or defect but retained substantial capacity to appreciate wrongfulness and conform her conduct to law. The psychiatrist based his opinions on records review and interviews with Clancy on April 10 and 12, 2026. He diagnosed a major depressive episode and found no supporting indication of mania or hypomania, citing her earlier thinking, everyday interactions, and organized actions in explaining his capacity opinions.

Mack distinguished several proposed psychotic features from fixed false beliefs, interpreting some statements as concerns or reality testing. He also recounted Clancy's report of a loud male voice. Under questioning about postpartum illness, he distinguished the DSM's four-week peripartum-onset specifier from the seriousness of symptoms occurring later. He acknowledged serious psychiatric suffering without adopting Reddington's characterization of the findings as psychosis.

Cross-examination tested both his diagnosis and the basis for his evaluation. Mack acknowledged conducting no direct collateral interviews, including with Patrick Clancy, but considered existing information sufficient. He defended his interpretation of medication reluctance and described maternity-unit experience. He agreed that the MMPI was valid and showed no indication of malingering or exaggeration, while emphasizing that it was not a lie detector. Reddington also challenged his qualifications, compensation, prior testimony, and independence; Mack denied confirmatory bias and maintained his depression diagnosis and wrongfulness opinion.

On redirect, Mack explained the joint examination arrangements with Kirk Heilbrun, said payment did not depend on his opinion, and reaffirmed his major depressive episode diagnosis. He acknowledged a prior adverse expert-qualification determination while qualifying its basis. The recorded interview was admitted without objection as exhibit 292. On recross, he said he did not know whether Reddington's office had arranged the hospital visit or controlled its timing.