After 17 Grueling Hours, Still No Verdict — Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Reveals If He’d Defend the K.i.l.l.e.r Mom All Over Again If the Jury Deadlocks
A Massachusetts jury entered a fourth day of deliberations Tuesday without a verdict in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the former labor-and-delivery nurse who admits she killed her three young children but says she was not criminally responsible. Outside court, her veteran defense lawyer addressed the question hanging over the case: what happens if the panel cannot agree — and whether he would stay with her if the trial collapsed.
Clancy, 36, of Duxbury, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, then 8 months. On the evening of January 24, 2023, after sending her husband, Patrick, out for takeout and medication, she strangled the children with exercise bands in the family home, then cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window. She survived, paralyzed from the waist down, and appears each day in a wheelchair.
The 12 jurors — nine women and three men — began deliberating Thursday afternoon after closing arguments. They sat through Friday and all of Monday. By Tuesday morning they had spent more than 17 hours behind closed doors. Their only request so far came Friday: they wanted to examine the knife used in the suicide attempt and several of Clancy’s prescription pill bottles. They asked no questions Monday and left early, which her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, attributed to exhaustion. “It’s emotionally draining and very, very taxing,” he said.
That length of time has fueled talk of a hung jury. In Massachusetts, a deadlock would force the judge to declare a mistrial. The case would not end. Prosecutors could retry it from the beginning with a new jury. Clancy would remain confined pending any second trial. A first-degree murder conviction carries life without parole. A finding that she lacked criminal responsibility would send her to a state psychiatric hospital with periodic reviews, not to freedom.
Reddington has built the defense around postpartum psychosis and a heavy mix of psychiatric medications he says worsened her condition rather than treating it. Prosecutors argue she planned the killings: she waited until her husband was gone, acted quickly, and understood right from wrong. The judge also gave jurors the option of second-degree murder or manslaughter.
The lawyer’s loyalty question is not abstract. Mid-trial he already moved for a mistrial after a prosecution expert mentioned Clancy’s Catholic faith and ideas about sin — the second time religion entered the record. Judge William Sullivan denied that motion, struck the testimony, and told jurors to ignore it. Reddington has previously made clear he does not want to start over. Restarting would mean another multi-week trial, new experts, and another round of graphic evidence for a client already described as struggling through deliberations.
Tuesday’s scene outside the courthouse showed how split the public remains. Reporters crowded Reddington as he arrived. A small group of supporters in pink waited to enter. Clancy’s parents and sister sat in the gallery. The children cannot be brought back. The legal question is narrower and still unanswered: whether this mother, at the moment she killed them, could appreciate the wrongfulness of what she was doing or control her conduct.
Until the jury speaks — or tells the judge it cannot — that question stays locked in the deliberation room. If they deadlock, the next decision will belong to prosecutors. Reddington’s answer about staying on would then become more than a hallway comment. It would become the first move of a second trial.
