PLYMOUTH, Mass. – A choose is ready to declare a mistrial in Lindsay Clancy’s homicide trial Friday on the seventh day of deliberations — however gave her defiant lawyer only one hour to file an emergency enchantment in opposition to the ruling.
The 12-person jury – made up of 9 girls and three males – advised Choose William Sullivan that they might not agree on whether or not to convict Clancy, 36, of three counts of first-degree homicide.
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“It’s with a heavy coronary heart that we will be unable to come back to unanimous resolution,” Sullivan mentioned, studying the panel’s third word indicating their deadlock Friday morning.
With out a verdict — and regardless of an almost five-week-long trial that noticed testimony from roughly 85 witnesses — Sullivan mentioned he doesn’t have “any selection however to declare a mistrial.”
The choose then requested for the jury to be introduced in so he might name it — however Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, requested him to carry off so he might get an Eleventh-hour emergency keep blocking the mistrial.
Sullivan reluctantly granted Reddington only one hour to hurry to an appeals court docket and make his Hail Mary bid.
The jury first indicated they had been at an deadlock on the fourth day of deliberations after practically 18 hours. However the choose advised them to maintain at it.
The following day, after nearly 28 whole hours of deliberations, the jury issued one other word, telling Sullivan a unanimous resolution couldn’t be reached. The choose then learn the Tuey-Rodriguez cost, instructing them to deliberate some extra.
Someday later, on Thursday, jurors despatched one other word to the choose.
Reddington revealed that the mysterious jury word that prompted the choose to query the jurors one after the other at sidebar was from the foreperson, claiming a single juror “refuses to comply with the legislation” on the choose’s instruction about cheap doubt. The protection lawyer misplaced his bid to have the panelist tossed from the jury.
Friday morning, Reddington argued for the holdout juror to be questioned individually by the choose, revealed the person was a person and accused him of mendacity. However Sullivan shot down the request and despatched the jurors again for extra deliberations.
If declared, the mistrial resolution doesn’t grant the previous nurse automated freedom — as an alternative, she’s going to stay in custody at Tewksbury Hospital whereas the Plymouth County District Lawyer’s Workplace decides the place to take the carefully watched case subsequent.
Prosecutors’ choices embrace placing Clancy on trial a second time, making an attempt to barter a plea deal or dropping the fees altogether.
Reddington beforehand indicated if the case had been retried, Plymouth District Lawyer Timothy Cruz might choose to downgrade the fees to second-degree homicide.
The hypothetical state of affairs would enable Clancy to decide on a choose somewhat than a jury to supervise her retrial — an choice not afforded to her with first-degree homicide expenses, Reddington mentioned.
Reddington has repeatedly opined that Cruz would insist the case be tried a second time.
The choice comes after jurors heard dueling accounts of the mother’s way of thinking when she fatally strangled Cora, 5; Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan utilizing train bands earlier than making an attempt to take her personal life on Jan. 24, 2023.
Reddington argued that Clancy was within the throes of postpartum psychosis, worsened by a myriad of prescription medicines, and had hallucinated a person’s voice inside her head instructing her to kill the kids and herself.
Prosecutors countered that she was in her proper thoughts and had fastidiously deliberate the killings, together with getting her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, to select up treatment at CVS and takeout from an area restaurant in order that she may very well be alone with the kids of their Duxbury residence.
The jury made its solely request for proof on Aug. 28, asking to see the knife Lindsay Clancy utilized in her suicide try and her prescription tablet bottles.
If the jury unanimously agreed with Lindsay Clancy’s madness protection, the previous nurse would stay dedicated at a state psychiatric facility indefinitely – and solely ever be freed if docs decide she was not a hazard to herself or others.
Right here’s the newest on Lindsay Clancy’s trial for allegedly murdering her three youngsters:
But when they facet with the prosecution and convict Lindsay Clancy of first-degree homicide, she would face a compulsory life sentence behind bars with no probability of parole underneath Massachusetts legislation.
Each side rested their circumstances after a complete of 21 days of testimony, which started with Patrick Clancy taking the stand as the primary witness final month.
Patrick Clancy — who has since moved to New York Metropolis and remarried infertility specialist Rachel Danis — advised jurors that Lindsay Clancy repeatedly sought assist for her worsening psychological state within the months resulting in the killings.
She started seeing a psychiatrist, known as a suicide hotline twice, checked herself right into a psychological establishment for 5 days and sought assist from two perinatal clinics – however nonetheless, she “saved getting worse and worse,” Patrick Clancy testified, and mentioned Lindsay Clancy had even opened as much as him about having ideas of harming the children.
Lindsay Clancy’s “massive spiral” was additional fueled, in line with Patrick Clancy and Reddington, by a minimum of 13 psychiatric medicines prescribed to her by 5 separate suppliers from November 2022 up till a day earlier than the murders, together with medicine for nervousness, melancholy, sleep problems and anti-psychotic meds.
Patrick Clancy hauntingly recalled returning to the household’s residence to seek out Lindsay Clancy within the yard with slits on her wrists and throat after plunging from a second-story window — earlier than racing inside and discovering his three youngsters lifeless within the basement.
“She killed the children,” the daddy may very well be heard screaming through the 911 name performed for jurors.
Lindsay Clancy, who attended the trial in a wheelchair after turning into paralyzed from the waist down, repeatedly broke down in tears throughout harrowing testimony.
She was seen sobbing because the 911 name performed, jurors had been proven household pictures and video from happier instances, whereas the kids’s pajamas and the train bands she used to strangle them had been introduced in court docket, and whereas a medical expert testified in regards to the post-mortem she carried out on child Callan.
Different relations, together with Lindsay Clancy’s ex-mother-in-law, mom and sister, testified about her traditionally joyful and succesful character devolving after Callan’s delivery, when she was fighting crippling insomnia, melancholy and nervousness about going again to work after her maternity go away ended.
However prosecutors maintained that Lindsay Clancy’s habits confirmed planning somewhat than psychosis, and claimed that she “manipulated” the healthcare suppliers who handled her.
“Lindsay made a calculated resolution. She was a lady who not preferred the life she thought she wished. It was getting more durable and more durable for her to regulate and when she noticed the chance to flee, she made the egocentric option to take it,” Plymouth County prosecutor Shanan Buckingham mentioned throughout opening statements.
“She selected to govern her suppliers, in search of out a fast and simple repair when she was feeling depressed and anxious. And when she didn’t get what she anticipated, she selected the alternate route.”
Ultimately, “She made a selection, a deliberate and intentional resolution, that she didn’t need to attempt anymore. And since nobody might deal with her children the way in which she wished them to, she needed to take them along with her too,” Buckingham advised jurors.
Testimony additionally revealed that the mother had made a collection of disturbing Google searches – together with “How you can slit throat to die” — within the days and weeks main as much as the killings.
Psychologists known as to testify, in the meantime, shared contradicting evaluations about Lindsay Clancy’s psychological state and hallucinations.
Famend psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick — a protection witness — claimed the command voice pressured Lindsay Clancy into the killings and that she couldn’t be held criminally chargeable for what she did that day.
“It was nearly like she was a puppet and somebody was pulling the strings,” he mentioned.
He claimed she had a “distorted” perception that she was doing the children “a favor” by taking them along with her when she killed herself.
However three rebuttal prosecution consultants all mentioned Lindsay Clancy’s habits demonstrated she knew what she was doing was unsuitable.
Dr. Gregory Saathoff, a prosecution knowledgeable and forensic psychiatrist, testified there have been “inconsistencies” in Lindsay Clancy’s account of when the voice kicked in and variations between her and Patrick Clancy’s accounts of the sequence of occasions that day – elevating questions on whether or not she was telling the reality.
The physician claimed Lindsay Clancy was “methodical, fairly managed and arranged” through the crimes.
The case put a nationwide highlight on points surrounding psychological sickness and postpartum experiences amongst moms, with many Lindsay Clancy supporters – nearly all of whom are girls – even displaying as much as court docket carrying pink T-shirts and arguing that she shouldn’t be discovered criminally chargeable for the murders.
Different demonstrators advocated for Lindsay Clancy to be discovered responsible, and confirmed as much as court docket with indicators demanding justice for “the one innocents: Cora, Dawson and Callan.”
