Clancy jury deadlocked a second time; returns Thursday for day 6

Associated Press, datelined PLYMOUTH, Mass.: “The deadlocked jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial was expected to keep trying to reach a verdict Thursday and avoid a mistrial after telling the judge twice that they can’t agree whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three children.”

AP wrote that Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, “doesn’t deny strangling her children in the basement of their home in 2023.” “Her attorney argues that postpartum psychosis led to her actions, while prosecutors say she knew what she was doing when she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.” Postpartum psychosis is not treated here as a medical finding of this desk.

AP said Clancy “stared at the jury with no expression on Wednesday as Judge William Sullivan explained to the courtroom that jurors were at an impasse — a sign there’s a growing chance of a hung jury and the trial ending without a resolution.” “Sullivan told the jurors not to abandon their own convictions just to reach a verdict, but urged them to seriously consider opposing views and reassess their positions if appropriate.” AP paraphrased him saying no one knows that another jury would be “more intelligent, more impartial or more competent to decide it than you are.” This file does not apply a Massachusetts instruction name that AP did not use.

AP: if the jury ultimately cannot agree, the judge could declare a mistrial; prosecutors would then decide whether to try the case again, drop the charges, or negotiate a plea. No official court PDF of a jury note or minute order was fetched. There is no verdict.