After seven days of deliberation, the judge in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial has declared a mistrial, with one holdout refusing to join the eleven other jurors.
The decision came after a back and forth between defense attorney Kevin Reddington, who made several last-minute efforts to move the jury toward a unanimous decision. Judge William Sullivan granted Reddington an hour to seek an emergency stay from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court before the mistrial took effect.
The court denied the request.
Reddington also asked Sullivan to remove the holdout juror from the jury. His request, as obtained by the New York Times, claimed that the juror should be removed because his reasoning for disagreement “reflects a bias against those who suffer from debilitating mental illness, a protected category.”
Following Sullivan’s declaration of a mistrial, Reddington again asked him to remove the juror.
Sullivan denied the request to remove the juror.
Addressing the jury following his declaration, Sullivan said, “On behalf of myself, I just want to thank you so much. You should be proud for what you did. You braced for that duty; you performed that duty.” He proceeded to discharge them.
Clancy’s case will likely be retried with a new jury; until then, she will remain in a psychiatric facility in northeastern Massachusetts.
Clancy does not dispute that on January 24, 2023, she strangled her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and eight-month-old Callan — with exercise bands while her husband Patrick was out running errands. Afterward, she attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window of her home in Massachusetts.
While her defense admits she killed her children, Clancy has pleaded not guilty, arguing that she was not criminally responsible. Reddington, her attorney, has argued that Clancy was in a state of psychosis when she killed her children and has cast blame on the twelve drugs she was prescribed, which he said “turn[ed] her into a zombie” and caused her to experience homicidal and suicidal ideation.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, have argued that Clancy “deliberately and meticulously” strangled her children and “acted intentionally, rationally, and swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal.”