Legal proceedings resumed Tuesday for Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who killed her three children by strangulation in 2023.
Clancy’s trial ended without a verdict in early September after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision about whether she should be held criminally responsible for the killings. The judge eventually declared a mistrial.
Prosecutors, Clancy and her legal team are appearing before Judge William Sullivan in Massachusetts state court to determine how the case will move forward.
The most pressing question is whether the prosecution will seek to retry Clancy. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said Sept. 4 that he would make that decision “shortly.” But more than three weeks later, the DA’s office has yet to announce a decision.
Cruz could choose to retry Clancy on the same charges. But Margaret McLean, a former Massachusetts prosecutor, said it’s possible Cruz could opt to try Clancy again under a different charge.
“There’s two things: He wants to seek justice for those three kids, but he also doesn’t want to see another mistrial,” McLean said Monday. “So maybe what he can do is drop the first-degree murder charges down to possibly manslaughter, and then maybe Lindsay Clancy will elect to have a trial before a judge.”
The district attorney’s office could also decide against trying the case again, though legal experts previously told The Washington Post they view this as unlikely.
Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, has filed several motions since the mistrial, including a request for dismissal of the case and another asking for further examination of the lone holdout juror who triggered the mistral.
Clancy has been in custody at Tewksbury State Hospital since that mistrial.
In the three weeks since the mistrial, the case has been fraught with drama, largely centering on the holdout juror.
Despite court orders to keep jurors’ identities sealed, Michael P. Desronvil, 48, was identified as the holdout. He has retained Edward Paltzik, a defamation lawyer who has represented President Donald Trump in legal disputes, to represent him.
Reddington filed a motion Sept. 18 to conduct a “limited inquiry” into Desronvil and to preserve all juror records. After the jury was dismissed, the Boston Globe first reported that Desronvil had an active civil restraining order for allegedly assaulting his nephew. Part of Reddington’s requested inquiry is to determine whether this information was disclosed during voir dire, the legal process where prospective jurors are questioned to check for bias.
Paltzik called the motion “a full-frontal attack on the U.S. Constitution.”
“This is certainly not the final word from us on this subject, but merely our first words,” he said Sept. 22 in a social media post.
After a trial that stretched for more than six weeks, jurors were asked to decide whether to accept Clancy’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Clancy has admitted to killing her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. But Clancy, who has a history of mental health problems, said after the killings that she had heard voices telling her to kill the children and herself.
Her lawyers attributed her actions to postpartum-induced psychosis, which is the basis of her insanity plea.
Eleven of the 12 jurors were prepared to find Clancy not guilty. During jury deliberations, the lead juror, who has since identified herself as Roni Carlson, sent a note to the judge indicating there was a lone juror who had expressed doubt about Clancy’s guilt but refused to return a verdict of not guilty.
On the final day of deliberations, Reddington unsuccessfully sought to have Desronvil removed. Desronvil has since said through his attorney, Paltzik, that he had no doubts about Clancy’s guilt.
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