The closely watched case of the Massachusetts mother who killed her three young children was on the verge of being declared a mistrial Friday — but there was still one more dramatic moment to come.
After weeks of grueling testimony, the jury could not get beyond an impasse on the seventh day of deliberations on murder charges against Lindsay Clancy. An audible gasp was heard in the courtroom as Judge William F. Sullivan said he was going to to end their deliberations without reaching a verdict.
But just as the jurors were about to come back to the courtroom, Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer asked to make a last-minute request for a higher court to stave off the mistrial. That kicked off a tense wait while a judge on the state’s top court considered the ask.
The whiplash moment was one last piece of courtroom drama in a livestreamed trial that captivated and divided many across the nation. And now prosecutors must decide whether to do it all over again with a second trial.
Ultimately on Friday, the high court denied the defense attorney’s appeal and the judge formally declared a mistrial later in the afternoon. Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, blamed a lone juror for the impasse. Defense attorneys argued in their written petition that the person had revealed a possible bias against those dealing with mental illness.
Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, never disputed that she killed her children, but her attorney said she was experiencing a rare condition called postpartum psychosis when she strangled her kids, the youngest just 8 months old, and then tried to take her own life in 2023. Prosecutors said Clancy knew what she was doing and should be held criminally responsible.
The jury foreperson had previously told Sullivan that a single juror wouldn’t follow the court’s instruction about reasonable doubt, according to Reddington.
In their last-minute appeal, Clancy’s lawyers had argued the juror should, at minimum, be questioned more thoroughly by the judge, or even dismissed outright before a mistrial was declared. Prosecutors responded that there was nothing in the jury’s notes indicating the juror in question had “a lack of impartiality, bias, extraneous influence, or inability to deliberate.”
Jurors had heard competing expert testimony about Clancy’s mental health.
Massachusetts defense attorney Joseph Perullo, who was not involved in the case, said it was “clear cut” for him, but he acknowledged that jurors could have difficulties.
“It’s clear that Lindsay had a psychotic break, and the psychotic break led her to kill her children,” he said. “But the prosecution can tell you that she sent her husband off for errands and therefore she is criminally responsible.”
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said after the mistrial was declared there would not be an immediate decision on whether to go forward with a second trial.
Perullo said he is hopeful prosecutors will speak to Patrick Clancy, the children’s father, and other family.
“It is a tremendous stress on them to do it again, and it’s going to be an even bigger circus,” he said.
But Crystal Lyons, a former prosecutor in Massachusetts, believes prosecutors don’t have the option not to retry Lindsay Clancy.
“At the end of the day, it was a tragedy where there were three young children who lost their lives,” she said.
