FILE PHOTO: Lindsay Clancy.
Lawyers representing Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in 2023, have urged a judge to dismiss the murder charges against her, arguing that putting her through a second trial would violate her constitutional protection against double jeopardy. During a hearing in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Monday, defence attorney Martin Weinberg argued that Judge William Sullivan wrongly declared a mistrial on September 4 after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Clancy, 36, faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of her daughter Cora, 5, son Dawson, 3, and eight-month-old son Callan.
The defence said the judge should have taken further steps to determine whether the juror preventing a consensus was deliberating in good faith before ending the trial. Clancy’s defence has maintained that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her children and should be found not criminally responsible.
During the first trial, there was no dispute that Clancy strangled her three children with exercise bands on January 24, 2023, in the basement of their home in Duxbury, a suburb of Boston. She subsequently cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-floor window in an apparent suicide attempt, leaving her paralysed.
The jury’s foreperson had sent notes to the judge indicating that one juror was not following instructions requiring the prosecution to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before Clancy could be convicted, according to Reuters. However, several jurors told television networks after the mistrial that they had been prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, but for the disagreement with the holdout juror. “A citizen charged with a crime, particularly one carrying with it the gravity of the murder charge in this case, should not be subjected to the perils and burdens of a second trial unless there was manifest necessity that made the mistrial declaration an imperative,” Weinberg said. She said the juror had not refused to deliberate but had simply refused to agree with the other members. He refused to agree,” Sprague said.
Such a verdict would have led to her commitment to a state psychiatric hospital, subject to regular court reviews. Weinberg argued that declaring a mistrial without questioning the juror amounted to a premature decision and exposed Clancy to the possibility of being tried twice for the same crime, which is prohibited under the US Constitution. However, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague defended the judge’s decision, arguing that questioning the juror could have interfered with the jury’s deliberations. “It is clear from the record this juror did not refuse to deliberate. Judge Sullivan did not immediately rule on the defence’s request, saying he would issue a decision as soon as possible. The Plymouth County District Attorney’s office has not publicly outlined its plans for a possible retrial. Prosecutors could still pursue several options, including retrying Clancy on first-degree murder charges or seeking convictions on lesser second-degree murder charges. The latter would allow her to waive a jury trial and have the case decided by a judge. A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole in Massachusetts, while a second-degree murder conviction allows for the possibility of parole. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.