There's one thing legal experts can agree on after a wild development in the high-profile murder trial of Lindsay Clancy: prosecutors' burden of proof just got much heavier.
Jurors have been deadlocked for days as they weigh the evidence against Clancy, a Massachusetts mother who strangled her three children in 2023. The jury must decide whether Clancy is criminally responsible for their deaths or whether she is not guilty because she was suffering from mental illness at the time.
The week's tensions came to a head on Sept. 3, when the jury foreperson complained to the judge in the case that one of the 12 jurors was refusing to consider reasonable doubt as required by law, according to Clancy's defense attorney, Kevin Reddington.
Tensions rose
when Reddington then asked Judge William Sullivan to remove the holdout juror.
“The court has an instruction from the foreperson of that jury that has been working for a week, now saying there is one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you have given him or her on reasonable doubt,” Reddington said. "If we come back here in a half an hour with a mistrial because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of the court, it's a shame, it's a real shame."
Though Sullivan re-instructed each juror about their duties when it comes to considering reasonable doubt, he declined to remove the juror in question, saying that it wasn't appropriate for him to "agree with one juror or 11."
Three legal experts interviewed by USA TODAY after the drama unfolded say that it was a highly unusual day and that the developments do not bode well for the prosecution's case.
"I think that hanging juror is voting guilty in the face of 11 jurors voting either not guilty or not criminally liable," said Alan Jackson, the high-profile Los Angeles-based attorney who spent about two years in Massachusetts representing the since-acquitted Karen Read in a murder case that gripped the nation, including her mistrial in 2024, when the jury could not reach a verdict.
"I think there's going to be more fireworks tomorrow (Sept. 4) if, in fact ,they don’t come to a verdict very, very quickly," Jackson added.
Mark Bederow, a New York City defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor, agreed that all indications are that the jury is 11-1 in favor of Clancy.
"When you break it all down this is a complete disaster for the prosecution," he said. "They're in serious trouble and at this point, the best thing they can hope for is a mistrial, and that’s if they're lucky. ... They had a very bad day."
From here, a few things can happen in court on Sept. 4.
The holdout juror could change their mind, the jury could fail to reach a consensus and the judge can declare a mistrial, or the judge can decide that the holdout juror should be removed from the case and an alternate put in their place. If it's the latter, deliberations will start all over again, and it's incredibly unlikely that 11 jurors will change their minds, Bederow said.
If deliberations start again, it will be tough on jurors who have already been discussing the case for more than 30 hours this week, said Jennifer Roman, a Massachussets-based legal analyst closely following the trial.
"This jury is very frustrated and they want to be done," she said. "The fact that the jury is calling out this person and saying, 'They're not following your instructions, judge,' ... This jury is exasperated."
Jackson and Bederow agreed that the singling out of one juror to the judge was a remarkable development.
"It is extraordinary for a foreperson to snitch, for lack of a better word, on a juror and say, 'That person is not doing their job,'" Jackson said. "The foreperson would never ever ever send out that note unless the other jurors supported sending out that note. My gut says there's 11 people who said, 'Enough is enough."
He believes that Reddington will continue to press the judge to dismiss the juror, which he said is appropriate.
"Lindsay Clancy is entitled to all of the jurors being willing and able to understand and actually follow the judge's instructions, especially on reasonable doubt," he said. "And if the foreperson is saying, 'This jury is not conceiving of and not applying that instruction because they won't or they can't, that's a big deal ... If one of them is not following the law, that person has to go."
The way Massachusetts defines reasonable doubt is somewhat unique. Jurors in the state are instructed that to find a defendant guilty, they must have a "moral certainty" that the charge is true.
The "moral certainty" requirement heavily favors defense attorneys, Jackson said.
"It's the only reason I won a trial in Massachusetts is because of that damn jury instruction," he said. "It is the single most powerful part of the jury instructions in Massachusetts ... When I defended Karen Read I relied very heavily on the concept of a moral certainty and I think that weighs heavy on jurors' minds when they hear it. It touches you in a place in your heart that you can't quite define."
He added: "You have a moral certainty, not just, 'Yeah, I think I'm sure.' It's a high bar."
Roman said the judge in Clancy's case may drill down on the "moral certainty" concept with jurors and make it clear that "it does not mean 100% certainty."
Clancy, 36, strangled her three children – Cora, 5; Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months – at the family's home in January 2023. She then slashed her wrists and neck and jumped out of a second-floor window, leaving her paralyzed.
Her defense team does not dispute the facts of the children's deaths but argue that she's not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time. Reddington painted Clancy as a doting mother who "tried very hard to get the help she needed."
Prosecutors Shanan Buckingham and Jennifer Sprague have painted Clancy as a "controlling, meticulous and manipulative" mother who killed her children because she could no longer control "every little detail" of her and her family's life.
They argued that Clancy methodically planned the killings by sending her husband to pick up medicine and takeout food, researching the route he would have to take beforehand.
Come back to USA TODAY to find out what unfolds in the courtroom on Friday.
Contributing: Christopher Cann and Melina Khan, USA TODAY
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime and courts reporter who covers the death penalty, cold case investigations, and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fireworks in the Lindsay Clancy murder case: What experts have to say
