Lindsay Clancy back in court as prosecutors weigh retrial after hung jury

Lindsay Clancy appeared in Plymouth County Superior Court on 29 September as prosecutors weighed whether to retry her for killing her three children.

Lindsay Clancy faces possible retrial after murder case ends in deadlock

Lindsay Clancy returned to Plymouth County Superior Court on Tuesday, 29 September, for the first time since her murder trial collapsed with a hung jury earlier that month, people.com reports.

During the status conference, prosecutors were expected to decide whether to retry Clancy on three counts of murder in connection with the deaths of her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — killed on 24 January 2023 in the basement of the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Should they choose to proceed, Judge William F. Sullivan may set a date for the retrial.

Clancy's attorneys, Kevin Reddington and Martin Weinberg, filed a motion last week seeking to bar a second trial on double jeopardy grounds, the Associated Press and ABC News report. They are expected to argue against a retrial at the hearing.

The former labour and delivery nurse stood accused of strangling her three young children. Her defence maintained she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, brought on or worsened by overmedication and inadequate mental health care. Clancy attempted suicide by jumping from a second-storey window and has been left paralysed from the waist down.

Prosecutors argued she acted willfully and knowingly.

After five weeks of trial and subsequent deliberations, eleven of the twelve jurors were prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. One juror, Michael Desronvil, refused to join them, resulting in the deadlock.

Fellow jurors later said Desronvil acknowledged having reasonable doubt but still declined to vote for acquittal. They accused him of disengaging from deliberations.

"There was times he wouldn't engage, like he'd be scrolling on his phone while people are talking to him, things like that, where he's just not paying attention," juror Nick Dargie told ABC News.

Desronvil, through his attorney, has maintained he believed Clancy was guilty, The New York Times reports.

Clancy remains held at Tewksbury Hospital, a state psychiatric facility.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)