BREAKING: Mistrial declared in Lindsay Clancy trial, killer mom to remain in custody

The judge in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with killing her three children, has officially declared a mistrial after seven days of deliberations, with the jury returning notes that they were deadlocked multiple times. One of the final notes issued by the foreperson stated that one male juror was the holdout against 11 who were for a not guilty verdict.

Clancy will remain in custody as next steps in the case, including a possible retrial, are weighed. Sullivan told the jury in declaring a mistrial, quoting UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, “Let us brace for our duties.” He added, “I thought of that phrase when all of you were agreeing to be on this jury. You agreed to brace for that duty, and 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.”

After a weeks-long trial, the jury began deliberating on August 27 afternoon. Judge William Sullivan instructed jurors ahead of deliberations that they could consider charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter for the 2023 killings of Clancy’s children.

The jury had requested to see the knife and pill bottles that had been entered into evidence in the case on the day after they started deliberating. Jurors had been shown the bloody knife that Clancy had used in an attempt on her life before she jumped out of a window of the home, leaving herself paralyzed. Reddington had held up a bag of empty pill bottles during his closing arguments on Thursday, saying he found them in Clancy’s nightstand.

Just an hour after returning to deliberations on Tuesday morning, the jury came back into the courtroom and said that they were unable to come to a unanimous decision. Sullivan ordered them to continue deliberating.

Sullivan said, "I brought you back out because I know that this was a long trial. All right, I know there were over 80 witnesses, there were over 300 exhibits, and but because of that, I'm going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you, to go out and to continue your deliberations at this time."

The jury once again came back and said they were still deadlocked on Wednesday. Judge Sullivan read out the Tuey-Rodriguez charge and ordered the jury to go back into the deliberating room one more time. "Jurors for acquittal should consider whether a doubt in their own minds is a reasonable one if it makes no impression on the minds of others who are equally honest, equally intelligent, and who have heard the same evidence with the same attention, with an equal desire to arrive at the truth, and who have taken the same oath as jurors."

"On the other hand, jurors for conviction ought seriously to ask themselves whether they may not reasonably doubt the correctness of a judgment that is not concurred in by other members of the jury, and whether they should distrust the weight or adequacy of the evidence that fails to convince the minds of fellow jurors. With that, I now ask you to return to your deliberations with these thoughts in mind."

Another note was returned to the judge on Thursday afternoon, after which Sullivan instructed the jury to “follow my instructions on the law as I gave them to you,” and further explained his instructions regarding reasonable doubt. Reddington said after the jury was ordered to continue deliberating that the foreperson of the jury had written that “there's one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you've given him or her on reasonable doubt.”

Before deliberations began Friday morning, the parties and the judge addressed the note regarding the one juror. The prosecution said that jurors should be instructed to return to their deliberations without any further instruction or questioning. Reddington suggested that the one juror be dismissed, adding that the note "clearly and unequivocally indicates that they are basically 11 to one, and this person will not apply reasonable doubt to the evidence to return a not guilty verdict.” The judge sent the jury back in its existing makeup to continue deliberating.

The jury came back later Friday morning, saying that “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 was prepared to declare a mistrial at that point, however, he granted Reddington time to file an emergency request for a stay with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The filing requested that the high court be ordered “to fulfil its nondiscretionary duty to preserve the integrity of the criminal petit jury.” Justice Dalila A. Wendlandt held an emergency hearing on the matter Friday afternoon. The request was denied.

During the trial, the defense made the case that Clancy had been suffering from postpartum mental illness, and that she had been improperly medicated by doctors. The prosecution argued that Clancy had carried out the killings with premeditation, and that her children were “keeping her from ending her misery, and so she had to remove the protective factor.”