Lindsay Clancy‘s attorney has made a desperate Hail Mary attempt to stop a mistrial being declared in her murder trial.
Kevin Reddington appeared before a Massachusetts Supreme Court associate justice Friday afternoon to say that a single hold-out juror should not be able to collapse the trial, with Reddington accusing that juror of bias towards mentally-ill people.
Reddington filed an emergency motion after Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial in the case after more than 37 hours of juror deliberations.
Jurors sent four notes – one on Tuesday, another Wednesday, a third on Thursday and a fourth and seemingly final one on Friday saying they were deadlocked in deciding whether Clancy was guilty of the murders of her three young children in December 2023.
The final note read: ”It is with a heavy heart that we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to.’
Friday’s Hail Mary motion was put before Associate Justice Dalia Argaez Wendlandt around 2pm ET. She has now retired to consider the arguments put before her and said she would issue a ruling as quickly as she could.
The brief hearing took place over Zoom shortly before 2pm ET, with Associate Justice Dalia Argaez Wendlandt presiding. She has now retired to consider the arguments put before her and is expected to issue a ruling in the next two hours.
In his appeal, Reddington requested the Supreme Court to ‘inquire into the ability of the identified juror to apply the law’, and to then ‘prohibit the further deliberations’ involving that juror.
If Reddington is successful, the juror will be removed and an alternate will be introduced for further deliberations. If the appeal fails, Clancy faces a grueling retrial.
She is on trial for killing her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023.
Lindsay Clancy is seen on Zoom during Friday afternoon’s emergency hearing to try and avoid her murder trial being declared a mistrial
Lindsay Clancy, 36, admitted to killing her children but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity. Above, in court on Friday morning
Clancy with her attorney, Kevin Reddington, on Friday morning. He was staunchly opposed to Judge William Sullivan’s decision to declare a mistrial
She admitted to killing her children but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis as a result of overmedication.
A few moments before the mistrial was declared, Reddington suggested to Judge Sullivan that he still had the power to send the jury back out to deliberate again, one final time.
The panel could not agree on whether Clancy, 36, is guilty of murder, manslaughter, or not criminally responsible for her actions by Friday morning.
Prosecutors pushed for a mistrial and will likely want to retry Clancy, but have yet to offer further insight into possible future plans.
During the sensational five weeks of testimony, prosecutors argued the killings were intentional and well planned, not the work of someone who had lost control.
The mistrial was declared hours after tensions between Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington and Judge Sullivan boiled over. That came after Reddington accused Sullivan of giving a ‘soft’ instruction to jurors about how to interpret the concept of reasonable doubt.
In 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled that jurors must reach a unanimous verdict in serious criminal cases – like Clancy’s alleged murder of her three young children – or a mistrial will automatically be declared.
Judge William Sullivan initially declared a mistrial, then shocked the courtroom by giving Reddington the chance to appeal his decision
The first time the jury announced they were deadlocked on Tuesday, the judge ordered them to continue deliberations.
On Wednesday, the jury came back after lunch and told the judge they were still unable to come to a decision.
Judge Sullivan then read the panel the Tuey-Rodriguez instruction, also known as the ‘dynamite charge’ – which guides them that they are in the best position to reach a verdict and that a future jury would not be better equipped than them.
It is a final instruction read to a jury in Massachusetts before a mistrial can be declared. A judge can give the instruction a maximum of two times.
On Thursday around 3pm, the jury sent the judge a note, which prompted fierce discussion in the courtroom between the defense and prosecuting attorneys.
In a sensational move that has not happened in the trial so far, defense attorney Reddington unclasped Clancy’s wheelchair brakes and pushed her to the judge’s bench.
She spoke with the judge before being wheeled back to her bench.
The judge then brought each of the 12 jurors in to speak to him, one by one.
It is unclear what formed their discussion, but the mood inside the courtroom was tense as each juror spoke briefly for a minute before leaving again.
The judge then brought the entire jury back inside and resumed, where he reiterated the jury’s job to find Clancy guilty or not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Then, for the third time during the blockbuster deliberations, he sent the jury out again.
Before the court adjourned, Reddington spoke to the judge and demanded that ‘one juror’ who is ‘refusing to listen to the law’ be removed from the panel.
The prosecutors argued against this – and the judge did not make a ruling.
The mid-afternoon saga inside the courtroom does not count as the judge inacting a second Tuey-Rodriguez instruction, because the break in deliberations was caused by the foreperson submitting a note.
On Thursday, in a sensational move that has not happened in the trial so far, Clancy was wheeled up to the judge’s table to speak with him directly
The defense looked defeated on Thursday, after the foreperson on the jury sent a note to the judge
Reddington spoke to the judge and demanded that ‘one juror’ who is ‘refusing to listen to the law’ be removed from the panel
The law requires the jury to come to a unanimous decision, and if they are unable to, the judge is forced to declare a mistrial.
A mistrial means the prosecution will have the opportunity to try Clancy again. The trial will have to start over from jury selection.
A second trial would not violate Clancy’s Fifth Amendment right against double jeopardy, which protects citizens from being punished for the same crime twice.
The Constitution of the United States prevents the government from trying a person again for the same crime after they have already been found innocent or guilty.
But because Clancy’s first trial has resulted in a deadlock, the prosecution is allowed to charge her a second time.
It is unclear whether the prosecution will move forward with a second trial.
Clancy is likely going to be kept institutionalized in the interim while a decision is made.
Clancy was charged with murder after strangling her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan in 2023
Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case, said the prosecutors could also offer Clancy a plea deal instead of a new trial.
Bailey said: ‘Any time the threat of a retrial with murder one hanging over the client is re-interjected, defense lawyers will, at the very least, explore whether or not there’s any interest in a resolution.’
The district attorney’s office could also decide not to retry the case.
Bailey explained: ‘Sometimes they decide not to, because of the sense that there may be the same result each time they try it, and because of the expenditures involved in trying the case to begin with, particularly when you have expert witnesses.
‘Those are going to be expensive cases.’
These decisions will dictate what will happen to Clancy now that her first jury could not decide on her fate.
For the past three years, Clancy has been held at Tewksbury Hospital, where she has been on suicide watch as she awaited trial.
A retrial would also force her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, to testify again, and would create the opportunity for both the defense and the prosecution to call new witnesses to the stand.
Clancy would also likely have to sit through the same evidence that caused her to frequently break down during her initial trial, as well as brace for new gruesome details.
On the day of the killings, Clancy asked Patrick to leave their home to get takeout food and to pick up something at a pharmacy.
She strangled her children with exercise bands and then allegedly attempted to kill herself, but her efforts failed and left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life.
Patrick, who has since remarried, has publicly forgiven his ex-wife and come out in her defense, describing her as a good mother who became ill.
Both Patrick and Clancy have filed separate lawsuits against several of her medical providers, alleging that they overmedicated Clancy while treating her for postpartum mental health issues.
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