Does Lindsay Clancy get to go free now that her trial ended in a mistrial? No, that’s not how it works.
Judge William Sullivan formally declared a mistrial in Clancy’s murder trial on Friday (September 4) after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The decision came after the jury spent more than seven days in deliberations.
“With a heavy heart, we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision. We will not be able to,” the jury wrote in a note to the judge on Friday.
One juror was holding out on the unanimous verdict
The jury was deadlocked as just one juror was holding out. Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington (pictured above), asked the judge to dismiss the juror, but he refused.
“The note indicates that the juror has acknowledged doubt but refuses to apply it. That note does not indicate that the juror refuses to follow the law,” the judge said.
What does a mistrial mean?
Cornell Law School says that a mistrial “occurs when a jury is unable to reach a verdict and there must be a new trial with a new jury; or there is a serious procedural error or misconduct that would result in an unfair trial, and the judge adjourns the case without a decision on the merits and awards a new trial.”
Clancy‘s case is therefore still active and a new trial will happen.
What happens to Lindsay Clancy next?
Clancy is set to remain in custody until another trial is set. People reports that she’s being held “without bail at Tewksbury State Hospital” and she has been receiving treatment there. She’ll stay at that facility.
The next trial won’t happen for a little bit.
“Depending on the judge’s schedule, in the next few months, late 2026 or early 2027, we start [the proceedings] all over,” legal expert Neama Rahmani told the outlet.
Why is Lindsay Clancy on trial?
If you were unaware, back in January 2023, Clancy killed her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan — by strangling them with exercise bands in their Duxbury, Mass., home. She then attempted suicide by cutting her wrists and neck before jumping from a second-story window, sustaining injuries that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
She has pleaded not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility. Clancy doesn’t dispute that she killed her children, but her attorney has argued that his client was in a state of psychosis and suffering from overmedication, which the defense claims makes her not criminally responsible.
While Reddington has claimed that Clancy was over-medicated and in a state of psychosis, prosecutors have argued that she deliberately killed her children and that she was not in a psychotic state when she did so.
In addition to first-degree murder, jurors were also allowed to consider lesser charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Posted To:Lindsay Clancy
