Judge William Sullivan officially declared a mistrial in the triple murder trial of Lindsay Clancy Friday, after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict following seven days of deliberations. The deadlock was attributed to a single holdout juror, with the rest of the 12-person jury prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity.
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Prior to the declaration, the defense filed a last-minute emergency appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court seeking to remove the holdout juror, but the request was denied. Clancy, a former nurse, is charged with the 2023 strangling deaths of her three young children and faces life in prison without parole if retried and convicted.
Judge Sullivan told the court earlier in the day he would declare a mistrial after the jury failed — for the third time — to reach a verdict in the case.
But instead of settling for a mistrial, Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington announced that he wanted to appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Court to remove a holdout juror from the panel for refusing to “follow what the law states.”
In most states, when an insanity defense is raised, the burden of proof in lies with the defendant to prove they were not of sound mind when the crime was committed.
Massachusetts law, however, puts the burden of proof on the prosecutor to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was of sound mind and thus criminally responsible.
Supreme Judicial Court associate justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt denied the stay and Judge Sullivan declared a mistrial.
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said he has not made a decision yet about re-trying this case.
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Clancy remains in custody and the next hearing is Sept. 29th.
In remarks outside the courtroom, Cruz thanked his staff—two female prosecutors who are also mothers, saying they worked on the disturbing case “with utmost professionalism and always with the thoughts of Cora, Dawson, and little Callan on their mind.”
“The way they were vilified and portrayed on social media is disgusting to me,” Cruz said. “Threats to them and their families, their addresses being doxed, being posted.”
He continued: “It’s unfortunate that in today’s society, potentially people placed at risk who are merely doing their jobs as prosecutors, professional women for the Commonwealth.”
Cruz said the case has always been about “getting justice for those three little babies.”
“The facts are, Lindsay Clancy killed her three children and the evidence suggested to us that she was in control of her actions when she committed those homicides,” the prosecutor stated.
While he was taking questions, a woman in the crowed yelled: “You only cared when the kids were dead! Why don’t you care about the mother?!”
“Amen” another woman shouted.
Cruz ignored the women, and in answer to a reporter’s question, said, “it’s been a long and difficult few weeks.”
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