Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy murder case after jury cannot reach a verdict
Lindsay Clancy’s high-profile murder trial came to an end Friday when, after more than a week of deliberations, the jury reported they were deadlocked, and the judge declared a mistrial. The Massachusetts mother was accused of strangling her three children in the family’s Duxbury home in 2023.
This is a breaking news story. The previous story follows below.
Jurors began their deliberations on the afternoon of Aug. 27. They sent one question to the judge the next day, sent a note reporting an impasse on Tuesday and sent another note that they were deadlocked on Wednesday.
After the second time, Judge William Sullivan delivered a special instruction that urged them to keep working and suggested there is no reason to believe a different jury would have an easier time reaching consensus.
On Thursday afternoon, the jury sent a note that prompted Sullivan to call each of them up to the sidebar individually. After questioning each member, the judge reiterated his instructions about the meaning of reasonable doubt to the entire jury and sent them to continue working.
Before deliberations resumed Friday, Sullivan addressed the note, which indicated that a juror has “made statements acknowledging doubt, but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states.”
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague argued that the juror should not be questioned, while defense attorney Kevin Reddington suggested that the juror lied under oath and asked for the juror to be removed from the panel.
Sullivan ruled the juror would remain on the panel, and deliberations resumed after the group was again told to follow the law — “whether they agree with it or not.”
The jurors were tasked with deciding if Clancy, 36, was criminally responsible for killing 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. Choices on the verdict slip were first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Jurors could have also decided that she is not guilty or not guilty because she was not criminally responsible due to her mental health.
Clancy’s defense argued that she was not criminally responsible for the killings because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. It is the burden of the prosecution to overcome the lack of criminal responsibility defense, also known as the insanity defense.
According to Massachusetts guidance, the defendant must have “retained the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness or criminality of their conduct and to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law” in order to be found guilty.
