Trial against Lindsay Clancy for murder of her children comes to a standstill after 35 hours of deliberation

The trial against Lindsay Clancy, accused of the murder of her three children in the courthouse in Plymouth (Massachusetts), is surrounded by a large dose of drama that has captured the United States. But this Thursday, a week after the deliberation began and after 35 hours of debate, the tension reached its peak after the jury once again communicated, for the third consecutive day, that there is no way to reach a unanimous decision.

This led to an angry discussion between the defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, and Judge William Sullivan, who presides over the oral hearing. For the third day, the magistrate again asked the members of the jury, nine women and three men, to try again, against the lawyer's opinion. The judge reminded them of their obligation to follow his instructions regarding “reasonable doubt,” which is why “high probability” is not valid, but rather “full conviction.”

However, at that moment it emerged that everything depends on one of the members, only one, who is the one who is blocking a possible verdict. It is not clear who the other eleven are in favor of, although both the prosecutor and the defender wanted to see the balance in their favor.

“The jury has been working for a week, saying that there is a member who refuses to follow the law that you have explained to him about reasonable doubt and, respectfully, I request that that jury be discharged,” Reddington asked the judge.

“I propose what the deliberations are, who is right, who is wrong and we should not try to find out either because that is part of the deliberations,” the prosecutor replied.

The judge noted that removing a juror while deliberating is “a delicate matter” and added that “I do not consider it appropriate to side with one side or the other, nor to agree with one juror or the other eleven.”

With that, he cleared the court, while the jurors had already returned to the deliberation room. Previously, the magistrate briefly questioned all the members of the jury under oath, one by one, who in all cases seemed to agree to his request. The prosecutor agreed with that initiative. The president of the courtroom also spoke separately with the accused herself.

The jury's deliberation continued, although for a short period of time before the judge sent them home and summoned them to continue their work this Friday under the insistence of that reasonable doubt, a concept that divides the country.

Numerous people have sided with Clancy, who accepted responsibility for the events although he pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder for the death of his three children —Cora, 5 years old; Dawson, 3 years old, and Callan, 8 months old—at her home in Duxbury on January 24, 2023. Everything happened while her husband was out picking up prepared food.

The accused, a nurse by profession, made this declaration of innocence due to suffering postpartum trauma, which she reported without receiving medical attention. After killing his children by strangulation with a gym rubber band, he took pills, cut himself with a knife and threw himself from the second floor of his house. She was paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.