Jurors are expected to move into a fifth day of deliberations on Wednesday in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, after remaining deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
The jurors have now debated the case for nearly 24 hours over four days in the courthouse in Plymouth, Mass. They sent the judge a message on Tuesday morning saying that they could not come to decision, but they were ordered to keep trying.
The jury of nine women and three men — several looking grim as they entered the jury box — asked to be sent home about 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Judge William Sullivan agreed, but told them to come back on Wednesday.
“You’ve come this far,” he told them, thanking them for their work. On Tuesday morning, he noted the scope of witnesses and evidence they had reviewed over the monthlong trial, encouraging them to keep seeking unanimous agreement.
Failure to reach a verdict would result in a hung jury, with neither a conviction nor an acquittal. The judge could then declare a mistrial, giving prosecutors the opportunity to retry Ms. Clancy for first-degree murder or less serious charges, said Daniel Medwed, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law.
“I’m not surprised that the jury is struggling with this,” he said, adding, “I think that a lot of even laypeople are struggling with how to think about this case.”
The jurors started deliberations on Thursday afternoon, and so far have asked only one question of the court, requesting to view evidence.
Ms. Clancy, 36, does not deny strangling her children with exercise bands in 2023. Her lawyers have argued that she should not be held legally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Kevin Reddington, Ms. Clancy’s defense lawyer, said the jury had asked on Friday to look at a knife and prescription pill bottles that are thought to be connected to Ms. Clancy’s suicide attempt. The jurors do not appear to have made any other requests.
Mr. Reddington argued that Ms. Clancy had been overmedicated for severe postpartum mental illness and had hallucinated a male voice commanding her to kill her children and then herself.
Jennifer Sprague, a prosecutor, told jurors that Ms. Clancy made a series of premeditated choices before killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. Those included asking her husband to leave the house and strangling the older children first because they were more likely to resist.
“You know, to a moral certainty, she is guilty,” Ms. Sprague said.
For a guilty verdict, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Clancy both committed the crime and was criminally responsible for it. If jurors find Ms. Clancy guilty, they must choose among first-degree murder, second-degree murder and manslaughter.
The option of a manslaughter verdict could potentially help jurors reach consensus, and make the prospect of a hung jury less likely.
But if there is a hung jury, “prosecutors need to decide whether to seek a retrial or to make some deal” with Ms. Clancy and her lawyers, said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor. She added that it could take a week or more for them to consider their options.
At that point, Mr. Medwed said, the prosecution may consider a series of questions: “Do we go for it again? If so, what do we change, and is this a wise use of our resources?”
Judge Sullivan instructed jurors that Ms. Clancy would not be criminally responsible if she had a mental disease or defect that prevented her from controlling her actions or from understanding that they were legally or morally wrong.
In the months before the killings, Ms. Clancy was reporting persistent, disturbing and intrusive thoughts. She was prescribed a plethora of psychiatric medications. At the beginning of January 2023, she self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where she stayed for five days.
On the night the children were strangled, Ms. Clancy’s husband at the time, Patrick Clancy, said he found her lying injured in the backyard. Ms. Clancy had cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window of their home, leaving her partially paralyzed.
The last week of trial testimony came from rebuttal witnesses brought by the prosecution to respond to claims made by the defense.
The expert witnesses provided their assessments about Ms. Clancy’s state of mind at the time of the killings. They said the killings were not necessarily the result of psychosis.
Mr. Reddington, however, said during closing arguments that Ms. Clancy had repeatedly sought help for her deteriorating mental illness but that doctors had failed her.
Ms. Sprague countered, saying that the case was “not about our mental health system, or how it treats women.”
Jenna Russell and Mark Arsenault contributed reporting from Plymouth, Mass.
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