The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case announced a mistrial on Friday after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision even after a week of deliberations. The impasse led to the judge’s declaration of the mistrial. Interestingly, the defense was given the chance to request an emergency stay from the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which had just an hour to consider whether to remove the juror causing the holdout. Ultimately, the request was declined shortly afterward.
Before the mistrial was officially declared, the defense expressed concerns, suggesting that the judge had gone easy on the jury and urged him to compel them to keep deliberating. In response, the judge remarked, “What do you want me to do? Get a brass band? I’m reading the instruction as written.” He added, perhaps a bit defensively, “The fact I didn’t perhaps give it a full inflection, I’m sorry, I’m not an actor!”
This insistence from the defense seemed to imply that nearly all the jurors sided with them except for one. It’s worth noting that the jury was not sequestered during the trial.
The situation developed after the judge had delivered the so-called “Tuey-Rodriguez” charge on Wednesday, which is a last-ditch prompt for jurors to reconsider their positions and strive for a unanimous verdict.
Clancy faced three counts of first-degree murder for allegedly strangling her three young children—ages five, three, and eight months—in the basement of her Massachusetts residence. The defense argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, claiming she heard a male voice directing her to harm herself and her children—a hallucination she said she had never experienced before.
Contrarily, the prosecution pointed out that Clancy had planned the timeline and distance for her husband’s errands, highlighting that she waited until he left to carry out the act. This timing was presented as evidence of premeditation.
