Lindsay Clancy will return to a Massachusetts courtroom on Tuesday as her lawyers ask a judge to dismiss her murder charges for killing her young children, several weeks after a jury deadlocked in the case.
Ms. Clancy’s lawyers have also made several other requests of the judge, William Sullivan, including asking him to step in and find her not guilty, saying that prosecutors had not presented sufficient evidence for any rational juror to find her guilty. They are also asking the judge to investigate the lone juror who voted to convict Ms. Clancy, noting that other jurors accused him of not following the law.
The Plymouth County district attorney has not said whether prosecutors plan to retry Ms. Clancy, 36, who remains in custody at a psychiatric hospital. At trial, her lawyers did not dispute that she killed her three children, who ranged in age from 8 months to 5 years old, in January 2023. But they argued that her postpartum mental illness was so severe that she should not be held criminally responsible.
The deadlock resulted in a mistrial in the high-profile case, which riveted many across the country. The trial highlighted the mental health struggles that mothers can face after giving birth and laid bare the high burden of proof that prosecutors in Massachusetts have when defendants argue that they were not in their right mind.
The holdout juror, identified by his lawyer as Michael Desronvil, was vilified by some of Ms. Clancy’s sympathizers and celebrated by others who thought she should be found guilty. He said in a recent statement that he “didn’t have any doubts” about Ms. Clancy’s guilt.
His lawyer, Edward Paltzik, who specializes in defamation law and has represented President Trump against The New York Times and other media outlets, has accused Ms. Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, of unfairly attacking the holdout juror.
On Monday night, Mr. Desronvil said in a video statement to Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he was grateful for those who have prayed for and supported him, and that he wanted to “reel everything back” and put the focus on the “three angels” who had been killed.
Several motions from Ms. Clancy’s lawyers are pending before Judge Sullivan, though it is unclear which, if any, he will rule on at Tuesday’s hearing. It is set to begin at 9 a.m. at the courthouse in Plymouth.
Among the motions before Judge Sullivan is one suggesting that he is required to issue a not-guilty finding, because of what the defense describes as insufficient evidence presented at trial. Another motion asks the judge to dismiss the case because of what the defense argues were his missteps at trial, including not inquiring further into the holdout juror when other jurors first complained about his conduct.
The defense has also asked Judge Sullivan to question Mr. Desronvil, and to have him turn over his cellphone, presumably to see if he was using it during jury deliberations. Ms. Clancy’s lawyers are also requesting court documents from a criminal charge against Mr. Desronvil in 2021, which was later dismissed, in which his wife at the time told the police that he had grabbed her by the throat and thrown her against a dresser.
In the period before the killings of the three children, Ms. Clancy was severely depressed and prescribed many medications, according to testimony and court documents.
On Jan. 24, 2023, she strangled her children with exercise bands while her husband at the time, Patrick Clancy, was out of the house, the authorities have said. Mr. Clancy returned to the home to find the children mortally wounded and his wife on the ground outside, having cut herself and jumped from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt that left her partially paralyzed.
Twice in the month preceding the killings, Ms. Clancy had told her husband that she had thoughts of harming the children and was worried that something could happen to them. But she also told him she did not have plans to hurt them, Mr. Clancy testified at trial. Earlier in January 2023, she had admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital and stayed for five days.
At trial, prosecutors had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that, although Ms. Clancy was ill, she still had the capacity to understand that her conduct was wrong.
Madaleine Rubin contributed reporting.
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