PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial ended a fourth day of deliberations without a verdict Tuesday after earlier saying they couldn’t agree whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three young children.
Not long after arriving at the courthouse, the jury sent Judge William Sullivan a note saying they had been unable to reach a unanimous decision despite many hours of back and forth. He told them to keep trying.
It was the jury’s first indication of an impasse in the closely watched trial that has focused on maternal mental health after childbirth, and which has stirred deep divisions among the public.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, doesn’t deny strangling her children but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
Clancy stared straight ahead as the jury entered in the morning to say they were at a standstill, then looked toward them as the judge spoke.
Sullivan told the jurors that he recognized it had been a long trial with more than 80 witnesses and 300 exhibits. “But because of that, I’m going to ask you to go back out,” he said.
They’re expected to resume deliberations Thursday.
What happens if there’s a hung jury
The jury could convict her of murder or manslaughter or acquit her if jurors believe her deteriorating mental health was to blame. A conviction could lead to a life prison sentence. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines she is a danger to the public.
If jurors can’t reach a verdict and a mistrial is declared, the charges against Clancy would remain. Prosecutors would need to decide whether to try Clancy again before an entirely new group of jurors.
Prosecutors could offer a plea deal to Clancy, although her attorney is more likely to push for them to drop the charges, said Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case.
The jury began deliberating on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, they asked to look at a knife that Clancy used to cut herself shortly after the killings, and bags with empty prescription pill bottles found in her house.
Trial focused on Lindsay Clancy’s mental health
During more than four weeks of testimony, jurors heard differing views from medical experts.
Clancy’s lawyer argued she loved her children, but killed them because she lost her grip on reality — and on herself — due to bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that can follow childbirth.
Prosecutors said Clancy was depressed and tired of living, and made a conscious choice to kill the children. A forensic psychologist who testified for the prosecution said he concluded that Clancy killed the children because she wanted to end her life but didn’t want to leave them behind.
Clancy’s mother and sister testified that she became anxious, paranoid and suicidal after the birth of her third child. She sought treatment for her worsening mental health, including a stay in a psychiatric hospital, in the months before killing Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.
Less than three weeks after being discharged, she sent her husband on an errand and killed the children with exercise bands in the basement of their home south of Boston. She then jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down. Her lawyers say she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life.
Lindsay Clancy didn’t take the stand during her trial
Clancy chose not to testify. She watched the proceedings from the defense table, occasionally weeping, as when prosecutors showed autopsy photos of the children to the jury.
Jurors spent two days listening to testimony from her former husband, Patrick Clancy, and his anguished 911 call. He was on the phone when he discovered the children’s bodies, minutes after finding his wife.
Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil. The trial marks the first time he has seen Lindsay Clancy since the killings.
Postpartum psychosis, the condition that Clancy’s attorney says she had when she killed the children, is more serious and less common than postpartum depression. Researchers estimate that the condition afflicts 1 to 2 out of 1,000 women after delivery.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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