A Massachusetts judge declared a mistrial in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy after the jury spent seven days deliberating and could not agree on a verdict. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied the defense’s request to stay the mistrial declaration.
What’s Happening: Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial after the jury deliberated for about 36 hours across seven days and reported it was hopelessly deadlocked. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied defense attorney Kevin Reddington’s request for a stay.
What’s Important: The jury was split 11-1, according to a note the foreperson sent to the judge Thursday. The defense accused the lone holdout of refusing to follow the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt — the legal standard jurors must apply when deciding guilt.
The Case: Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, was charged with first-degree murder in the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three children at the family’s home in Duxbury — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months old. After the killings, Clancy jumped from a window in an apparent suicide attempt and was left paralyzed from the waist down.
The Defense: Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, did not dispute that she killed her children. He argued she was not criminally responsible because she was severely overmedicated and in the grip of postpartum psychosis — a severe mental health condition that can follow childbirth — at the time of the killings.
The Prosecution: Prosecutors argued the killings were planned and that Clancy knew right from wrong when she killed her children.
The Deliberations: The nine-woman, three-man jury began deliberating August 27 and twice told Judge Sullivan they were stuck. Both times, the judge issued what is known as a Tuey-Rodriguez instruction — a legal directive that urges a deadlocked jury to keep trying to reach a unanimous verdict. On Thursday, Reddington filed an emergency motion asking the judge to remove the holdout juror. The judge denied it. Sullivan later declared a mistrial after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied the defense’s request for a stay.
With the mistrial declared, prosecutors must decide whether to retry the case. No announcement has been made.