PLYMOUTH, Mass. – Jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial announced Tuesday that they are deadlocked — but the judge sent them back to deliberate more.
The 12-person jury – made up of nine women and three men – told Judge William Sullivan that they could not agree on whether to convict Clancy, 36, of three counts of first-degree murder after almost 18 hours of deliberation.
“I’ve got your question and the question is: ‘After many hours of deliberation we are unable to come to a unanimous decision’,” the judge said.
“I brought you back out because I know that this was a long trial. I know there were over 80 witnesses, there were over 300 exhibits, but because of that I’m going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you, to go out and continue your deliberation at this time.
“So with that … I would ask you to resume your deliberations at this time,” he told jurors.
Two Massachusetts veteran criminal defense attorneys said if the jurors tell Sullivan again at some point that they still can’t reach an agreement, the judge would then give them a formal instruction called a “Tuey-Rodriguez” charge, telling them again to try to come to an agreement.
Boston attorney Peter Elikann said the Tuey-Rodriguez charge is “known colloquially as the dynamite charge… And it really pushes the jury and urges them to try to work out a unanimous decision. It’s almost equivalent to a pep talk by the judge encouraging them to go back and try harder.”
And if the panel still can’t reach a verdict after that, Sullivan could choose to declare a mistrial.
“It depends on who the judge is, but normally once Tuey has been given, if they come back again and say they are still deadlocked, the judge is constrained to grant them a mistrial,” Boston lawyer Brad Bailey told The Post.
“I’ve got your question and the question is after many hours of deliberation we are unable to come to a unanimous decision,” the judge said.
“I brought you back out because I know that this was a long trial. I know there were over 80 witnesses, there were over 300 exhibits, but because of that I’m going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you, to go out and continue your deliberation at this time.
“So with that I’m going to go back out like I said, keep in mind the instructions I gave you reviewing the evidence and I would ask you to resume your deliberations at this time,” he told jurors.
The note from the jury came after they heard dueling accounts of the mom’s state of mind when she fatally strangled Cora, 5; Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan using exercise bands before trying to take her own life on Jan. 24, 2023.
Defense lawyer Kevin Reddington argued that Clancy was in the throes of postpartum psychosis, worsened by a myriad of prescription medications, and had hallucinated a man’s voice inside her head instructing her to kill the children and herself.
Prosecutors countered that she was in her right mind and had carefully planned the killings, including getting her then-husband, Patrick, to pick up medication at CVS and take-out from a local restaurant so that she could be alone with the children in their Duxbury home.
Both sides rested their cases after a total of 21 days of testimony, which began with Lindsay Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, taking the stand as the first witness last month.