A Massachusetts jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a mother accused of murdering her three children, and a mistrial has been declared by Judge William Sullivan. The 12-person jury was made up of nine women and three men and, according to the notes given to the court, was split 11 to one. Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her children at their home near Boston, but says she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and that led to her actions.
After the killings, her husband found her injured in the yard, where she landed after jumping from a second-story window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down. Prosecutors argued she knew what she was doing in a deliberate act of murder.
A mistrial means the case essentially goes back to the same status as before the trial began, with the 36-year-old former nurse charged with murder and held at a psychiatric hospital awaiting a resolution of the criminal case. Prosecutors have to decide whether to try again with a new jury for the case. If they do attempt a second trial, the jury selection process would begin again and a new trial would be scheduled.
However, the exact type of charges could potentially be different. Prosecutors could also offer a plea deal to Clancy, said Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and legal expert. The district attorney’s office could also decide to not retry the case out of a sense that another mistrial is likely in the complex and emotional case.
Bailey expected her defense attorney to aggressively lobby against another trial if a mistrial is declared, making a case to the district attorney’s office along the lines of: “‘Why are you doing this to this poor woman? She’s still clearly obviously suffering. She’s been punished with her paralysis and, worse than that, the loss of her three children.’” The court has set a status conference for 9am ET on 29 September.
In the US, the national maternal mental health hotline is 1-833-852-6262. In the UK, the Pandas foundation offers support via WhatsApp on 07903 508334. In Australia, the national maternal and perinatal mental health hotline is 1300 726 306.
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