Lindsay Clancy's murder trial ends in a hung jury after seven days of talks

Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Friday, 4 September, in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy after a Plymouth County jury said it could not reach a unanimous verdict.

The jurors had sat through a five-week trial and then deliberated for seven days, about 38 to 40 hours. Their note on Friday said, "It is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to." Sullivan told the room he would declare the jury deadlocked. Defence lawyer Kevin Reddington asked for an emergency stay so he could run to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The higher court heard the request and denied it. Sullivan then discharged the panel.

The verdict slip had five choices: not guilty; not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility; guilty of first-degree murder; guilty of second-degree murder; and manslaughter. Reporting after the trial said a single juror appeared to be holding out from an acquittal. That split is not a finding. It is a description of a room that could not close.

What the jury was asked to decide

Clancy, 36, a former labour-and-delivery nurse, has not denied that she strangled her children (Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months) in the basement of the family's Duxbury house on 24 January 2023 while her husband Patrick was out on errands. She then jumped from a second-storey window and was paralysed. The legal question was whether postpartum psychosis left her without criminal responsibility under Massachusetts law.

That is a different question from whether the children died at her hands. The defence put her mental state at the centre. The state put intent and knowledge. Twelve people could not all sign the same line.

What happens next

Clancy remains held without bail at Tewksbury State Hospital on the same murder charges. Sullivan scheduled a status conference for 29 September. He told the parties he would like to retry the case later in the autumn, "sooner rather than later, but I'm not sure that sooner." Reddington said he wanted a second trial as early as the week after next. The lead prosecutor said she would be out of the state for two weeks and did not offer a date.

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz told reporters that no decision on a retrial would be made on Friday. That choice is his. Cruz's office also runs an advocacy centre for child-abuse victims. A second trial would mean another five weeks of testimony about three dead children and a psychiatric defence that already failed to produce twelve votes either way.

A hung jury is not an acquittal and not a conviction. It leaves the record open. The facts of 24 January 2023 are not in serious dispute. The law's test for responsibility is. Friday's panel could not apply that test with one voice. The next panel, if there is one, will be asked to do the same work with the same file.