The judge has declared a mistrial in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts woman charged with murdering her three young children in 2023. This came after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied the request of Clancy's defense attorney for an emergency appeal Friday.
After deliberating for six days, the jury told the judge they could not reach a verdict because one juror did not agree with the 11 others.
The judge said the jury's note read, as WBUR reported, "It is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision, and we will not be able to."
Read WBUR's coverage of this case here.
Clancy, 36, was charged with strangling 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan, in the family's home in Duxbury, Mass. Her defense argued she should not be held criminally liable because she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis at the time, an approach often called the insanity defense. The prosecution argued Clancy was well enough to plan and act with intention.
After declaring the mistrial, Judge William Sullivan thanked the jury for how hard they worked on the case. "Each one of you knew how long the case was going to go. You knew how difficult the case was going to be to listen to, facts wise. But still, you braced for that duty."
The district attorney will now decide whether to re-try the case. Clancy will remain in custody in a state hospital where she has been held for more than three years.
In a press conference after the mistrial was declared, Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz declined to say whether his office would pursue a retrial. He noted it had been an "emotional trial for everybody."
"But in the end, I bring it all back to the child victims in this case, Cora, Dawson, and Callen. This was, and has always been, about getting justice for those three little babies," he said.
Speaking outside the court Friday, defense attorney Kevin Reddington praised Clancy for enduring in such a difficult situation. "It's not right what she had to go through because she grieves the loss of those three children," he told reporters. "Every time somebody had something to say about those young kids, Lindsey would smile and say, 'I'm glad.' She wants them to be remembered."
Reddington also said the jury's 11-1 split should make the prosecution rethink re-trying the case.
"If I was Tim Cruz, I would probably say I don't think I want to do a retrial because he's going to lose," Reddington said.
Last-minute legal maneuvers
The Supreme Judicial Court heard an emergency appeal from Reddington in the case early Friday afternoon. The appeal asked that the court either excuse the juror who was allegedly refusing to follow instructions or inquire further to determine whether the juror could in fact follow the judge's instructions to correctly apply the law.
Clancy's lawyers wrote in the appeal that the holdout juror's "reasoning reflects a bias against those who suffer from debilitating mental illness."
Reddington had asked Judge Sullivan to dismiss the holdout juror on Thursday. Reddington referenced two notes the jury foreperson sent the court about the juror, who, according to Reddington, admitted doubt but refused to join the other 11 jurors in finding Clancy not guilty.
However, Judge Sullivan denied that request. He did however give the jury new instructions on the meaning of "reasonable doubt."
When asking the judge to give him time for an appeal on Friday, Reddington said of the holdout juror, "I believe that this is a situation where there is a clear and present danger that this individual, for some reason — what it is we don't know — but is taking a position that's intractable, regardless of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
Reddington also asked the judge to survey the jury to see if they could reach an agreement on a lesser charge, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter, before declaring a mistrial, so that Clancy couldn't be tried again for first-degree murder. The judge denied that request as well.
Grueling weeks of testimony
In a trial that stretched over five weeks, included more than 80 witnesses and attracted international attention to the issue of postpartum mental health, jurors heard competing theories about Clancy's mental condition. While both sides agreed she was struggling, the key question under Massachusetts law was whether her mental state made her unable to tell right from wrong, or to follow the law, as WBUR reported.
Clancy's attorneys said she was in the grips of mental illness at the time of the killings.
The defense called forensic psychologist Paul Zeizel, who testified that Clancy was experiencing postpartum psychosis, as NPR reported, noting that she said she heard a male voice ordering her to kill her children and herself. She attempted suicide shortly after killing the children.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or be in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
They also noted that she sought medical help repeatedly, but they said she didn't receive effective care and was overmedicated. (Clancy and her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, have filed separate medical malpractice suits against some of her health care providers.)
"I'm appalled and disgusted," Reddington, Clancy's defense attorney, said of her medical care. "It's repulsive what happened here."
The prosecution argued Clancy was well enough to plan and act intentionally and tried to keep the jury's attention focused on the horrifying nature of the killings.
They called another forensic psychologist, Kirk Heilbrun, who said it would be "very, very unusual" for someone with psychosis to hear a voice only once.
But in closing statements, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said mental health issues are irrelevant.
"This case is not about our mental health system or how it treats women," she said. "That's a distraction to get you angry and passionate about an important issue, but an issue that's not on trial here."
The jury, made up of nine women and three men, had to assess hundreds of pieces of evidence and weeks of disturbing testimony.
Clancy did not testify during the trial. Two nurses accompanied her to the court proceedings and Clancy engaged with her attorney throughout. She is paralyzed from the waist down after a suicide attempt following killing her children. She became emotional several times during the trial and at one point when a doctor was detailing the injuries to her children, Clancy sobbed so loudly that the Judge Sullivan temporarily stopped the trial.
Patrick Clancy testified that after the birth of their third child, his ex-wife was under the care of several mental health clinicians, but continued to deteriorate. Although she had expressed thoughts of harming herself and the children, he said he never thought she would hurt the kids.
"Her parents came up and I think I asked her at some point, you know, 'Do you feel like you need to be kept away from them [the children]?' And she said no," Patrick Clancy testified.
Attention on maternal mental health
The trial, which was livestreamed, magnetized attention to the issue of maternal mental health. In numerous articles and op-eds, medical experts and women's health advocates said Clancy's case highlights the need for changes in medical care to prevent tragedies like this.
Postpartum psychosis is temporary and treatable, but patients often have trouble getting a diagnosis and proper care, Veerle Bergink, a psychiatrist and director of the Women's Mental Health Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told NPR. "We know that we don't train our doctors in it, that it's massively missed," she said.
Hundreds of people showed up at the courthouse to show support for Clancy, who many see as a victim of a health care system that doesn't provide effective support for new mothers.
