A Massachusetts judge on Monday declined to rule right away on Lindsay Clancy's request to throw out first-degree murder charges in the deaths of her three young children, keeping alive the prospect of a second trial.
Clancy's lawyers argue that putting her on trial again after September's deadlocked jury would amount to double jeopardy and violate her constitutional rights.
Judge William Sullivan set another hearing for Nov. 16 and said a trial in March was probably realistic. Prosecutors say they plan to try Clancy again if the case proceeds, but they have not settled on whether she would again face first-degree murder charges.
The fight over the holdout juror
Defense attorney Martin G. Weinberg told the court Sullivan should have dug deeper after the jury foreperson sent two notes signaling that a juror was breaking the rules. More questioning, he argued, might have justified removing the lone holdout, Michael Desronvil, and allowed deliberations to continue without a mistrial.
Sullivan had responded to the notes by meeting with every juror, going over their obligations and the meaning of reasonable doubt; each said they could apply the law. Weinberg countered that a juror could have answered falsely, and that the foreperson should have been questioned on her own.
A second defense lawyer, Kevin Reddington, alleged that Desronvil was dishonest on his juror questionnaire and said he had evidence the juror used his phone during deliberations, allegedly to research altruistic filicide. When Reddington named Desronvil, Sullivan cut in to say there was no need to use the juror's name in the courtroom.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague of Plymouth County said nothing suggested the holdout was biased or unable to deliberate; he simply weighed the evidence differently. She argued the judge, having questioned jurors face to face, was best placed to assess their credibility, and that scrutinizing one juror would open the door to examining all of them.
It is clear from the record that this juror did not refuse to deliberate
Jennifer Sprague, Plymouth County assistant district attorney
Desronvil has said since the trial that he was certain Clancy was guilty. The foreperson, Roni Carlson, said in September that he would not agree to a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Gag order and timing
Sprague also asked for a gag order barring out-of-court statements, faulting Reddington for media remarks she called inappropriate and calculated to shape public opinion, among them his hope that the holdout juror could sleep well at night. Sullivan took that request under advisement.
Reddington pressed against further delay, noting that Sullivan faces mandatory retirement in June next year and a new judge could inherit the case. He told the court he wants a trial this spring, before Sullivan.
I am not going to have this woman sit incarcerated for the next year or two or three
Kevin Reddington, defense attorney for Lindsay Clancy
The 2023 killings
Clancy, 36, used exercise bands to strangle her three children in 2023 in Duxbury, a Boston suburb. She then cut herself in a suicide attempt and was left paralyzed after leaping from a second-floor window.
She has never denied killing the children. Her defense contends she suffered postpartum psychosis and could not control her actions, while prosecutors, who acknowledge her mental health problems, say she acted deliberately and knew it was wrong.
