Lindsay Clancy Jury Deadlocks Again as Judge Issues New Instruction as Mistrial Risk Grows
The jury weighing the fate of Lindsay Clancy has reached another impasse, pushing the closely watched Massachusetts murder trial into an increasingly uncertain phase.
For the second consecutive day, jurors told Judge William Sullivan they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The development prompted Sullivan to issue a special instruction Wednesday afternoon aimed at encouraging the jurors to reconsider their positions and continue working toward a unanimous decision.
On Thursday morning, the judge sent them back into deliberations.
Now, the central question is no longer simply whether the jury can reach a verdict — but how long the court will continue giving them a chance to do so.
A mistrial could become a possibility as soon as Thursday afternoon or Friday if jurors once again report that they remain deadlocked.
Jury Reports Second Deadlock
The 12-member jury, made up of nine women and three men, first reported an impasse Tuesday morning.
That note came roughly one hour into the jury’s fourth day of deliberations.
Jurors told Sullivan that despite spending many hours discussing the evidence, they were “unable to come to a unanimous decision.”
Rather than immediately ending the trial, Sullivan instructed them to continue deliberating, citing the extraordinary volume of evidence presented during the six-week proceeding.
The jury returned to work.
But by Wednesday, the disagreement remained unresolved.
Shortly before 3 p.m., jurors again informed the judge that they could not agree.
This time, Sullivan responded with a Tuey-Rodriguez charge, an instruction used in Massachusetts when jurors report that they are unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
What Is a Tuey-Rodriguez Charge?
The instruction is sometimes referred to as a “dynamite charge” because it is designed to break a jury deadlock.
But it does not tell jurors which side should prevail.
Instead, jurors are reminded that they were selected through essentially the same process that would be used to select another jury and that there is no reason to assume a replacement panel would be better equipped to resolve the case.
They are encouraged to carefully reconsider their positions and listen to the reasoning of their fellow jurors.
At the same time, the instruction makes clear that jurors should not abandon sincerely held beliefs simply to force a verdict.
After delivering the instruction, Sullivan ordered the jury to resume deliberations.
That makes Thursday’s proceedings particularly important.
If the jury remains divided after another round of deliberations, the judge could face a decision over whether further deliberations are likely to produce a unanimous verdict.
More Than 80 Witnesses and 300 Exhibits
The deadlock comes after an unusually extensive trial.
More than 80 witnesses testified during approximately six weeks of proceedings in Plymouth Superior Court.
Jurors were also given more than 300 exhibits before beginning deliberations on the afternoon of Aug. 27.
By the end of Tuesday, they had already spent more than 23 hours deliberating over four days.
The amount of evidence has been one reason Sullivan has allowed the jury additional time rather than immediately declaring it hopelessly deadlocked.
Massachusetts law does not establish a fixed number of hours or days that a jury must deliberate before a judge can declare a mistrial based on a deadlock.
Instead, the judge can continue sending jurors back to deliberate as long as the court believes there remains a reasonable possibility that they can reach unanimity.
The Tuey-Rodriguez instruction signals that the court has now taken a more formal step in addressing the impasse.
Courthouse Incident Delayed Proceedings
Wednesday’s proceedings were also delayed after a woman was arrested outside the courthouse.
According to CBS News, the woman was charged with witness intimidation after she was accused of recording members of the jury.
The incident added another unusual development to an already closely watched trial.
Sullivan individually questioned jurors following the arrest before proceedings continued.
The court has not indicated that the incident itself caused the jury’s inability to reach a verdict.
What Happens If There Is a Mistrial?
If jurors once again tell Sullivan that they cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the possibility of a mistrial becomes increasingly significant.
But a mistrial would not mean Clancy had been acquitted.
It also would not automatically eliminate the criminal charges.
Instead, the case would generally return to a pretrial posture, giving prosecutors several potential options.
They could seek to retry Clancy before a new jury. They could negotiate a plea agreement. Or they could ultimately decide not to pursue another trial.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has said he expects prosecutors would retry the case if the current proceedings end without a verdict.
That means a mistrial could mark the end of this jury’s role without necessarily bringing the larger case to a close.
The Case Against Lindsay Clancy
Clancy, 36, has admitted killing her three children inside the family’s Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023.
The children were Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months old.
After the killings, Clancy attempted suicide and suffered injuries that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder.
Her defense is based on a lack-of-criminal-responsibility argument. Her attorneys have argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and other mental-health conditions at the time of the killings.
The prosecution has challenged that defense.
Prosecution expert Dr. Kirk Heilbrun testified that he concluded Clancy remained criminally responsible for her actions.
According to his testimony, she understood that her conduct was wrong and retained the ability to conform her behavior to the law.
Those competing arguments over Clancy’s mental state have been central to the trial.
The Decision Now Rests With the Jury
After weeks of testimony and thousands of pages of evidence and exhibits, the case has reached a point where the jury itself has become the story.
Two deadlock reports in roughly 24 hours have raised the possibility that the 12 jurors may be unable to reach the unanimous verdict required in the case.
Yet the judge has not declared the jury hopelessly deadlocked.
Instead, they have been given another opportunity to work through their differences.
The coming hours could therefore be decisive.
If the jurors reach agreement, the trial will move toward a verdict after one of the most closely watched criminal proceedings in Massachusetts.
If they remain divided, Sullivan could be forced to consider whether continued deliberations have a realistic chance of producing unanimity.
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For now, the jury is back in the deliberation room.
And after six weeks of testimony, the fate of the case may ultimately come down to whether 12 jurors can agree on what the evidence means.
