A jury in Massachusetts remained deadlocked on Thursday over whether Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for the deaths of her three children, leaving the high-profile murder trial without a verdict after six days of deliberations.
The 12-member panel is due to return to Plymouth Superior Court on Friday, 4 September, after failing to agree on whether Clancy should be convicted, acquitted or found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former labour and delivery nurse, is accused of killing five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan at the family home in Duxbury on 24 January 2023. Both sides accept that she strangled the children, but her defence says she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible.
Prosecutors argue that Clancy planned the killings and understood the difference between right and wrong. The jury can consider charges including first-degree murder, second-degree murder and manslaughter, as well as not guilty by reason of insanity.
Tensions emerged in court on Thursday after the jury foreperson sent Judge William Sullivan a note claiming that one juror was refusing to follow the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt. The judge questioned jurors individually in private, reread his legal directions and declined a defence request to remove the juror.
Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, said the juror should have been dismissed, while prosecutor Jennifer Sprague argued that the judge’s response was appropriate. The jury was then sent home without reaching a decision.
The panel had already told the judge on Tuesday and Wednesday that it could not reach a unanimous verdict. Judge Sullivan urged the jurors to continue deliberating, including by giving them a special instruction intended to help break an impasse.
If the jury remains unable to agree, the judge could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to retry Clancy, seek a plea agreement or drop the case.
