Lindsay Clancy in court to drop child murder charges after mistrial

Lindsay Clancy, the American mother facing murder charges for killing her three young children, has returned to court in a bid to get the charges dropped.

Clancy’s lawyers urged Judge William Sullivan on Monday to dismiss the first-degree murder charges against her in the state of Massachusetts in the United States, saying retrying her for killing her three young children would violate ⁠⁠her constitutional rights. Prosecutors said they intend to retry Clancy if the case moves forward but have not decided if she would face the same first-degree murder charges.

Monday’s hearing was her second time in court since September, when jurors were unable to reach a verdict at her trial.

Clancy strangled her three children with exercise bands in 2023 at her home in Duxbury, a suburb of Boston in Massachusetts. Clancy then attempted to take her own life by cutting herself with a knife and was paralysed after jumping from a second-floor window.

At Monday’s hearing, defence lawyer Martin G Weinberg argued that the judge should have investigated further after the jury foreperson sent two notes indicating that a juror was not following the rules. Further questioning could have revealed grounds to remove the juror, identified as Michael Desronvil, and continue deliberations, he said.

After receiving the notes, Sullivan spoke with each juror, reminding them of their duties and explaining what constitutes reasonable doubt in a court case. He asked whether they could apply the law to the case, and all said yes.

But Weinberg argued that Sullivan had not gone far enough. A juror who said he could follow the law could have been lying, Weinberg said, and the situation warranted questioning the foreperson separately to learn more about what was happening during deliberations.

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague argued there was no indication the holdout juror’s disagreement stemmed from personal bias or an inability to deliberate, rather than a different assessment of the evidence.

Sprague said the judge handled the ⁠⁠jury impasse appropriately, saying the fact that one juror dug in his heels did not mean Sullivan should risk interfering with the deliberations by questioning him.

“It is clear from the record this ⁠⁠juror did not refuse to deliberate,” Sprague said. “He refused to agree.”

Defence lawyer Kevin Reddington accused the lone holdout juror of using a mobile phone to research terms related to the case and questioned whether he had been truthful during jury selection.

Clancy has never disputed killing her three young children in 2023, but her lawyer has argued she had postpartum psychosis and was unable to control her behaviour. Prosecutors have acknowledged that Clancy, now 36, had mental health problems but said she acted deliberately and understood her actions were wrong.

Sullivan did not immediately rule on the motion to dismiss. He scheduled another hearing for November 16 and suggested a retrial could begin in March.

Another motion expected to be discussed is the state of Massachusetts’s request for a gag order barring lawyers and their supporters “from making extrajudicial statements to the media that would have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the criminal proceeding”.