By Nate Raymond
Sept 2 (Reuters) - Jurors weighing whether to convict Lindsay Clancy of murder for killing her three young children at her Massachusetts home in 2023 were dismissed for the evening on Wednesday after telling the judge for a second time that they were deadlocked.
Deliberations were set to resume on Thursday.
Judge William Sullivan in Plymouth, Massachusetts, earlier on Wednesday delivered special instructions, sometimes referred to as a "dynamite charge," to encourage the 12 jurors to re-examine
their positions and try to reach a unanimous decision. The trial is in its sixth week and ended its fifth day of deliberations.
"After much deliberation, we are still unable to come to a unanimous decision," the jury said in a note that Sullivan read in court.
The jury sent a similar note on Tuesday. Just as on Tuesday, the judge instructed them to continue deliberating, but this time by delivering a last-resort instruction known in Massachusetts as a "Tuey-Rodriguez charge."
"Our constitution and laws provide that in a criminal case the principal way for deciding questions of fact is the verdict of a jury," Sullivan told the jurors.
Despite those instructions, jurors ended Wednesday without reaching a verdict. 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 featured over 80 witnesses and over 300 exhibits.
No one disputes that Clancy, 36, strangled her three children to death in 2023 with exercise bands in the basement of her 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 end her own life that left her paralyzed.
Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, sought to convince jurors throughout the trial that she should be found not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, or reason of insanity. He argued she was a loving mother who had been in the midst of a psychotic episode when she killed Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan on January 24, 2023.
POSTPARTUM MENTAL HEALTH IN FOCUS
The televised trial has revived long-simmering debates about how postpartum mental health in women is treated in the U.S. and how the country's legal system addresses cases when mothers kill their children.
On Wednesday, before bringing in the jury, Sullivan warned everyone watching the trial that statutes and a court order forbid people from interfering with witnesses or jurors.
He issued the warning after Dawn Light of Sutton, Massachusetts, was arrested outside the courthouse on Tuesday following the jurors' dismissal and accused of trying to record a video of jury members. A lawyer for Light during her arraignment on Wednesday said she had only been seeking to take a picture of Clancy.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, faces life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, she could be committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by David Bario and Rod Nickel)
