Prosecutors Say They Will Retry Lindsay Clancy After Hung Jury in Massachusetts

Prosecutors told a Massachusetts judge on Monday that they intend to retry Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother charged with murder in the deaths of her three young children, nearly two months after her first trial ended with a hung jury.

Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague made the announcement at a hearing in Plymouth Superior Court on November 2. She said prosecutors want a retrial but will decide what charges Clancy faces after Judge William Sullivan rules on three pending motions, including a defense motion to dismiss the murder charges. "Your honor, this would be a retrial. As to what that looks like will depend," Sprague said. "We're not at that point yet."

Clancy, 36, is charged with killing her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, on January 24, 2023, by strangling them with exercise bands in the basement of the family home in Duxbury. Her attorney Kevin Reddington argued at trial that she could not be held criminally responsible, the Massachusetts version of an insanity defense, because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.

The fight over the mistrial

The first trial ended on September 4, when Sullivan declared a mistrial after jurors reported three times that they were deadlocked. Deliberations had begun on August 27. Some jurors said in televised interviews after the mistrial that, but for one holdout juror, they had been prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, Reuters reported.

Defense attorney Martin Weinberg argued on Monday that a retrial would violate Clancy's constitutional protection against double jeopardy. He said Sullivan declared the mistrial too quickly and should have questioned the jurors more thoroughly after the foreperson reported that one juror was refusing to follow the court's instructions on reasonable doubt. Sullivan interjected that he did question the jurors individually before declaring the mistrial.

Sprague argued the mistrial was properly declared after the jury repeatedly reported deadlock, and that Sullivan could not have questioned jurors further without probing the substance of their deliberations. "It's not for the trial judge to choose sides in a deadlocked jury and decide," she said.

The holdout juror and a gag order

Reddington also asked the court to let the defense examine the holdout juror's phone, phone records and jury questionnaire. He said he has evidence the juror used a cellphone and researched altruistic filicide during deliberations, and that the juror was dishonest about his criminal history on his questionnaire. Heather O'Connor, an attorney for the juror, said the allegations surfaced only after the jury was dismissed and that the juror concedes none of them.

Prosecutors also asked Sullivan to bar both sides from media statements that would have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the case. Sprague said Reddington has made statements calculated to affect public perception. A defense attorney opposed the request as a prior restraint on speech protected by the First Amendment.

What happens next

Sullivan took all three matters under advisement and set the next hearing for November 16. If the motion to dismiss fails, the parties are expected to pick a trial date, and Sullivan said he hopes to schedule the trial in March. Reddington said he wants Sullivan, who reaches mandatory retirement in June, to preside over the trial in the spring. Prosecutors could retry Clancy on the first-degree murder charges or pursue lesser second-degree murder charges, which would give her the option of a trial before a judge instead of a jury.