The deadlocked jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial has been sent home without a verdict once again after a dramatic sixth day of deliberations. Clancy’s defense lawyer got into a clash with the judge, stating that the panel’s foreperson said in a note that a single juror won’t follow the court's instructions about reasonable doubt and was holding up a verdict. The jury will return Friday to see if they can reach a decision on whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three children.
Before sending the jury home Thursday, the judge refused the defense’s request to remove one of the jurors following heated discussions among the parties. Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children in the basement of their home in 2023 before trying to take her own life. Her attorney argues that postpartum psychosis led to her actions, while prosecutors say she knew what she was doing when she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.
Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense interest, with reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also sparked deep public divisions over her culpability and the issues around maternal mental health after childbirth. Judge William Sullivan, after receiving the jury's note, brought in each juror individually and questioned them in private.
The judge then reread his instructions on reasonable doubt before sending them back to continue deliberating on a verdict. That prompted an angry objection from Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, who demanded that one juror be removed. This was the first time the jury indicated possible tension or acrimony in the deliberation room.
Throughout the trial, Clancy has received letters of support “from all over the world,” defense attorney Kevin Reddington said Thursday. She reads them all.” Sullivan explained to the courtroom on Wednesday that jurors were again at an impasse — a sign there’s a growing chance of a hung jury and the trial ending without a resolution. Sullivan told the jurors not to abandon their own convictions just to reach a verdict, but urged them to seriously consider opposing views and reassess their positions if appropriate.
No one knows, he said, that another jury would be “more intelligent, more impartial or more competent to decide it than you are.” If the jury ultimately can’t agree on a verdict, the judge could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges or try to negotiate a plea deal with her lawyer. If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter.
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