A Massachusetts judge said Friday he will declare a mistrial in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy after a jury spent seven days deliberating and could not agree on a verdict. The judge delayed doing so for one hour to allow the defense to ask the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for a stay.
What’s Happening: Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan said he would declare a mistrial after the jury deliberated for about 36 hours across seven days and reported it was hopelessly deadlocked. Before the mistrial was formally declared, defense attorney Kevin Reddington said he would appeal, and Sullivan gave him one hour to ask the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 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. Friday morning, Sullivan said he would declare a mistrial but gave Reddington one hour to ask the state’s highest court to stay that decision.
If the mistrial is declared, prosecutors will have to decide whether to retry the case. No announcement has been made.