Lindsay Clancy murder trial hits huge speed bump

The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has just hit a huge speed bump.The deadlocked Massachusetts jury of nine women and three men on Friday morning — its seventh day of deliberations — delivered a note to Judge William Sullivan in the Plymouth courtroom.’I would go so far as to reluctantly say that the individual has made a false statement under oath to this court.’Sullivan read the note aloud, which said, “It is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to.”The jury has twice before indicated that it was deadlocked regarding the fate of Clancy — a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse — whom the prosecution and defense agreed killed her three young children in 2023. The issue has been whether she is criminally responsible for their deaths due to her mental state, the Associated Press said.Sullivan asked the prosecution and defense for their thoughts. The prosecution said the jury note would “require a mistrial at this point.” The defense disagreed and said the judge should send the jury back to deliberate further.The judge then stated, “Over the defendant’s objection, I’m going to declare a mistrial at this point.”But before the jury could be brought back in, Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked Judge Sullivan for a chance to file an emergency appeal to the state supreme court.Sullivan told Reddington that he’d give him an hour to file a stay for the declaration of the mistrial before the jury is brought back in. The AP said the clock began ticking at 11:30 a.m.A major issue that surfaced amid Thursday’s deliberations was, according to Reddington, that the jury foreperson said, “There is one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you have given him or her on reasonable doubt.” Reddington then told the judge he wanted that juror removed.The AP in an earlier story reported that Reddington, after the jury was dismissed Thursday, indicated that Judge Sullivan would question that juror on Friday morning. However, Sullivan on Friday morning first asked the prosecution and defense how they wanted him to deal with the juror issue.While the prosecution told Sullivan it doesn’t want him to question the juror, Reddington pushed back hard.”This person will not apply reasonable doubt to the evidence to return a not-guilty verdict. He is not being honest with you at the sidebar. I would go so far as to reluctantly say that the individual has made a false statement under oath to this court,” Reddington told the judge before adding that “the individual is refusing to apply your instructions on proof beyond a reasonable doubt to allow that jury a verdict of not-guilty.”With that, the prosecution maintained that “we’re in no position to judge whether the 11 are right or the one is right.”Sullivan then ruled that he won’t question the juror, telling both attorneys there’s “no need for inquiry.”That’s when things got heated between the defense attorney and the judge.Reddington told Sullivan, “I would ask that you not just give them, as I described it yesterday, a soft inquiry, will you listen to my instruction. I would ask that you specifically direct their attention to proof beyond a reasonable doubt and reinstruct them on that forcefully.”The judge replied, “I did that yesterday, didn’t I?”Reddington, in a clipped tone, told Sullivan that “you did it yesterday, you did it soft, you didn’t do it forcefully.”The now-annoyed judge shot back, “What do you want me to do, get a brass band? I read the instruction as written by the [Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court]. The fact that I perhaps didn’t give it my full inflection, I’m sorry about that, but I’m not an actor. I’ve just given the instructions.”Reddington argued back: “My point, judge, simply is that you’re kind of glossing over the issue. The issue is this juror will not, according to that note, apply the law of reasonable doubt.”Sullivan, more annoyed, replied that “I am specifically not glossing over this issue. I have thought about this issue long and hard. I know the defendant objects, but the characterization that I’m glossing over it … trust me, that’s not the situation. I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while. I’m going to just give that instruction that they have to follow my instructions. I’m not going to reiterate the reasonable doubt at this point. It may come to that again as we go through it.”The judge concluded his remarks to Reddington with some more humor: “And I’ll try and give this with more pizzazz than I gave yesterday, I suppose.”With that, the judge brought the deadlocked jury back into the courtroom and told them no future notes to the court should indicate how the panel stands numerically. In addition, Sullivan told the jury, “I wanted to remind you, as I instructed you earlier, it’s you’re duty as jurors to accept the law as I stated to you … you must follow the law as I give it to you, whether you agree with it or not.”He then sent the jury back to further deliberate.The jury twice told Judge William Sullivan that it couldn’t reach a verdict, but Sullivan in both instances told the jury to go back and keep deliberating.Sullivan told the jurors not to abandon their own convictions just to reach a verdict but also to seriously consider opposing views and reassess their positions if appropriate, the AP said.The jury was brought back into the courtroom Thursday afternoon, and the judge told the jurors, “I want to remind you that you are required to follow my instructions on the law as I gave you,” the AP noted.The outlet said the judge added that “it is not enough for prosecutors to show a probability, or even a strong probability, of guilt.” The judge also told the jury that proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt, according to the AP.The judge then sent the jury back to continue deliberations — and some in the audience gasped, the outlet said.RELATED: Lindsay Clancy murder trial fireworks: Defense attorney wants 1 juror kicked out, tells judge his jury instruction is ‘soft’ The attorney for Clancy argued that postpartum psychosis led to his client’s actions; prosecutors said Clancy knew what she was doing when she strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy in the basement of their home, the AP said.After Clancy strangled the children with exercise bands, she jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down, the outlet said. Her lawyers said Clancy heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life and also had bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness, the AP added. Postpartum psychosis is linked to the stress, sleep deprivation, and hormonal changes that follow childbirth, the outlet noted.Jurors have heard testimony from relatives and doctors about how Clancy’s mental health declined in the months before the killings and how her treatment included several medications and a short stay in a psychiatric hospital, the AP said, adding that the prosecution’s and defense’s medical experts reached sharply different conclusions regarding Clancy’s psychiatric state.The prosecution argued that Clancy deliberately sent her then-husband on errands to get him out of the house on the day of the killings, and prosecutors also have questioned the seriousness of her suicide attempt, the AP reported. Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he views as ill rather than evil, the outlet also said.However, prosecutor Jennifer Sprague emphasized to the jury how horrific and cruel the killings were, the AP said: “She left them discarded on the basement floor like broken toys because she was done playing the game. You know to a moral certainty she is guilty.”A number of sideshows also have captured the spotlight amid the courtroom proceedings.A 56-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday afternoon outside Plymouth Superior Court and charged with one count of intimidation of a witness, jurors, or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings.Assistant District Attorney Nicole Piacentini stated at Dawn Light’s arraignment Wednesday that it was confirmed she recorded videos that included Clancy jurors exiting the courthouse.Light, a retired nurse and Clancy supporter, told reporters she was there “to see Lindsay. And I did see her. She was getting picked up by the van,” the AP reported, adding that Light’s lawyer Jennifer White called it a “misunderstanding.” A not-guilty plea was entered on Light’s behalf, the outlet said.Light was ordered to stay away from the courthouse grounds, avoid contact with jurors or potential witnesses in the Clancy trial, and refrain from disseminating any photos related to the incident.The arrest prompted the judge to ask each juror Wednesday if they saw anything that would affect their impartiality, Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington told the AP. The judge also opened the day’s proceedings with a warning not to film, follow, contact, or tamper with jurors, the outlet said.What’s more, hundreds of women rallied outside the courthouse earlier in the trial in support of Clancy. Many of her supporters were dressed in pink and lifted up their hands in the shape of hearts.”I think that every one of us women believe that it could be any one of us,” said Renee Kimball, who organized the event. “Any one of us who have dealt with mental health, anxiety, depression, postpartum — I think we just know that any one of us could be sitting in her chair.”Even one of the jurors donned a pink dress, according to a Friday story by Mama the Magazine.If a mistrial is declared, prosecutors would then have to decide whether to put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges, or try to negotiate a plea deal with her lawyer, the outlet said.If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter, the AP said. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines that she poses a danger to the public.Like Blaze News? 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