Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Asks Judge to Find Her Not Guilty After Mistrial

Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer on Thursday asked the judge who oversaw the Massachusetts woman’s murder trial to find her not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing that prosecutors had failed to prove that, despite being mentally ill, she knew killing her three young children was wrong.

 

Defence attorney Kevin Reddington made the request to Judge William Sullivan six days after the trial ended in a deadlock, as a fourth member of the 12-person jury went public to describe how a single juror had prevented the panel from reaching a unanimous verdict.

 

The jury in Plymouth, Massachusetts, deliberated for seven days before Sullivan declared a mistrial on Friday, following repeated reports that it was deadlocked.

 

Prosecutors have yet to say whether they plan to retry Clancy. Reddington, however, argued that Sullivan should decide the matter himself, saying prosecutors had failed during the six-week trial to present evidence that would allow a jury to find her guilty of the first-degree murder charges she faces.

 

Reddington argued that even the prosecution’s expert witnesses agreed Clancy was suffering from a serious mental illness at the time of the killings. He said the evidence showed, at most, that she retained the ability to perform familiar tasks, rather than that she was capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of her actions.

 

“No rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that she had no mental disease or defence when the Commonwealth’s own proof established that she did,” Reddington wrote in the motion, referring to the prosecution.

 

He asked the judge to hear arguments on the motion during a hearing scheduled for September 29. A spokesperson for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Clancy, 36, has admitted to strangling her three children with exercise bands on January 24, 2023, in the basement of their home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. She then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-storey window in an attempt to end her own life, leaving her paralysed.

 

At trial, Reddington sought to persuade jurors that Clancy should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, a defence known in Massachusetts as lack of criminal responsibility. He argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and eight-month-old Callan.

 

In his motion, Reddington said 11 of the 12 jurors had been prepared to find her not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility but could not return a verdict because of a holdout juror who, despite acknowledging having reasonable doubt, would not agree to a not-guilty verdict.

 

One of the jurors, Nick Dargie, said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” that aired on Thursday that the holdout juror, who has not been publicly identified, often “wouldn’t engage” with other members of the jury.

 

“I think if they tried the trial again the way they did, I think nine times out of 10, I think a jury would come back with not guilty by reason of insanity,” he said. “No doubt in my mind.”