By Nate Raymond and Maria Alejandra Cardona
PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Jurors in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial deliberated for a sixth day on Thursday after twice saying they were deadlocked on whether to convict the Massachusetts woman of killing her three young children, in what her lawyer says was a tragedy driven by postpartum psychosis.
The 12 jurors reconvened in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a day after Judge William Sullivan delivered special instructions, sometimes called a "dynamite
charge," to encourage them to re-examine their positions and try to reach a unanimous decision.
He did so after jurors sent him a note on Wednesday afternoon that said, "After much deliberation, we are still unable to come to a unanimous decision." They sent a similar note on Tuesday.
Sullivan asked jurors on Thursday morning a set of standard questions to ensure they had not read, seen or heard anything that would affect their ability to be fair or impartial jurors. He then sent them out to resume their deliberations.
If the jury does not reach a verdict and Sullivan declares a mistrial, prosecutors would need to decide whether to retry the case, which has included more than 80 witnesses and more than 300 exhibits.
Asked during a lunch break about his thoughts on the state of the deliberations, which have run for nearly 34 hours, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz told reporters outside the courthouse that "we'll hang on and find out."
On the question of whether prosecutors in his office would retry the case if it ended in a mistrial, Cruz said only: "I'll talk when this is all over."
MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES
Clancy, 36, faces life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. If found not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, or reason of insanity, she could be committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
She has admitted to strangling her three children to death on January 24, 2023, with exercise bands in the basement of their home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. She then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-story window in an attempt to take her own life that left her paralyzed.
During the six-week trial, defense attorney Kevin Reddington sought to convince jurors that Clancy was in the midst of a psychotic episode when she killed Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan.
Testimony from family members, including Clancy's now ex-husband, Patrick, showed how she had struggled with her mental health in the months after the birth of her third child, repeatedly seeking treatment from healthcare providers who prescribed her a myriad of drugs.
Prosecutors do not dispute that Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, had been dealing with mental health issues.
But they argued she was able to appreciate the wrongfulness of killing her children and intentionally chose to do so anyway, opting to kill them because she had decided to kill herself and was convinced they would suffer without her.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Maria Alejandra Cardona in Plymouth, Massachusetts; Editing by Rod Nickel and Hugh Lawson)
