What happens if Lindsay Clancy jury fails to reach verdict: Killer mom could face ANOTHER trial with new witnesses

The Lindsay Clancy jury have told the judge that they are unable to reach a verdict after 18 hours of deliberations at her murder trial.

Clancy, 36, was accused of murdering her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 2023.  

However, on Tuesday morning, the panel of 12 jurors, nine women and three men, told Judge William Sullivan that they cannot reach a unanimous decision. 

‘Members of the jury I’ve got your question and the question is, “After many hours of deliberation we are unable to come to a unanimous decision,”‘ he said.

The judge acknowledged the length of the trial, but ordered the jury to continue deliberations and sent them back.

If their stalemate continues, the judge may be forced to declare a mistrial.

The jury, who has not been sequestered while they attempted to decide Clancy’s fate, have to find her guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter.

So far, they have expressed that they cannot reach an agreement on whether they all find her not criminally responsible, or ‘not guilty by reason of insanity.’ 

If a mistrial is called, the prosecution will have the opportunity to try Clancy again and the trial will start over from jury selection. 

While it is unclear if the prosecution will move forward with a second trial and on what charges, it is likely they have prepared to file court documents to keep her institutionalized in the interim.

‘There is going to be some type of hospitalization to assess her current mental health and her current demeanor,’ Attorney Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor, told The Patriot Ledger. 

A second trial would not violate any double jeopardy laws because no verdict was formally reached.

A retrial would force Patrick Clancy to testify again, and would create the opportunity from 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 evidence. 

She admitted to killing her children but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis as a result of over medication. 

During the five-week long trial, prosecutors argued the killings were intentional and well planned, not the work of someone who had lost control. 

On the day of the killings, Clancy asked her husband Patrick Clancy 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 Lindsay Clancy have filed separate lawsuits against several of her medical providers alleging that they overmedicated Clancy while treating her for postpartum mental health issues.

During the trial, jurors heard at length from medical professionals who treated her, as well as from friends and relatives she had told about her mental health problems.

They also heard from medical experts called by prosecutors and the defense who disagreed about her likely state of mind when she killed the children.

The killings happened less than three weeks after Clancy was discharged from a psychiatric hospital. 

During deliberations, the jury asked to see the bloody knife that Clancy used in an attempt to take her life, along with bags containing empty prescription pill bottles that were found in her house.

Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, held up a bag of empty pill bottles that he said he found in Clancy’s nightstand during his closing argument.

He argued it showed the police did not thoroughly investigate and questioned why they did not seize it as evidence.