Today in court
• No verdict yet: Jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s trial went home today after they ended their fourth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict. Earlier today, they informed the judge they were unable to reach a unanimous decision, and the judge sent them back to keep deliberating.
• About the charges: The Massachusetts mother is accused of murder after strangling her three young children in 2023. The jury could consider charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter.
• What the sides have argued: Prosecutors have argued Clancy acted “intentionally, rationally, and swiftly” to kill her children. The defense, however, has argued Clancy should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Jurors appear stoic, with one panelist rubbing his eyes, at the end of the day
The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s trial said they wanted to go home early this afternoon, perhaps showing the toll deliberations are taking on some panelists after four days mulling the case.
All the jurors looked stoic in the courtroom when William F. Sullivan dismissed them for the evening and reminded them not to discuss or review any coverage of the case.
None of the jurors looked at either of the parties as they entered the courtroom. One glanced out at the gallery. They also didn’t talk amongst themselves on their way in or out, which they did occasionally earlier in the trial.
A few nodded slightly as the judge talked to them, but they seemed to lack some of the previous enthusiasm they showed earlier in the trial.
One juror was rubbing his eyes as Sullivan talked, and another was clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap. A female juror gave the judge a weak smile as he told them to return in the morning.
A timeline of jury deliberations so far
Here’s a timeline of how jury deliberations have gone so far in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial:
Thursday, August 27: The 12-person jury begins deliberations at about midday and deliberates for about 3.5 hours.
Friday, August 28: The jury asks the court to see the prescription pill bottles and the knife, key physical evidence in the case. The jury deliberates for just under 7 hours before leaving for the weekend.
Monday, August 31: The jury deliberates for about 7 more hours.
Tuesday, September 1: The jury sends a note to the court saying they “are unable to come to a unanimous decision.” The judge instructs the jury to go back and deliberate further. The jury deliberates for about 6 hours, pushing the total deliberations time to about 23 hours.
Jury ends deliberations for the day, will return Wednesday
The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial ended deliberations for the day Tuesday without reaching a verdict and will return to court Wednesday for further deliberations.
“My understanding is that you requested to be excused until tomorrow at 9 o’clock, so I’m going to excuse you ‘til then,” Judge William F. Sullivan said.
The 12-person jury, made up of 9 women and 3 men, deliberated for about 6 hours on Tuesday, pushing its total to about 23 hours over four days.
Earlier Tuesday, the jury sent a note to the court saying they were “unable to come to a unanimous decision.” The judge directed the jury to continue deliberating to try to reach a verdict.
If the jury remains deadlocked, the judge may eventually choose to declare a mistrial, ending the trial without a clear resolution and raising the possibility of another trial down the road.
Jury returning to courtroom as day nears end
The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is returning to the courtroom as the day nears its regular 4 p.m. ET end.
“The jury has asked to recess and return tomorrow,” Judge William F. Sullivan said.
The 12-person jury, made up of 9 women and 3 men, deliberated for about 6 hours on Tuesday, pushing its total to about 23 hours over four days.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare, severe mental health disorder
Lindsay Clancy’s triple-murder trial has centered on the mental health issues the 36-year-old faced after giving birth to her third child.
Defense attorneys do not deny that Clancy strangled her three children, but they contend that she is not criminally responsible because she was experiencing postpartum psychosis, one of the rarest and most severe mental health disorders associated with childbirth.
It affects up to 2 of every 1,000 women after childbirth. If a mother has postpartum psychosis, she needs treatment right away: Studies show that, untreated, it carries a 4% increased risk of infanticide and a 5% increased risk of suicide.
Symptoms typically emerge between two weeks and a year after birth, although about 90% of episodes happen within four weeks. They can include irritability, moodiness, restlessness, insomnia and delusional beliefs. The mother may also have auditory or visual hallucinations that drive her to harm herself or the infant.
Most women with postpartum psychosis develop manic and depressive symptoms that can come close together or overlap. They may have confusion; dysregulation, in which a person struggles to manage emotional or behavioral responses; or depersonalization, a dissociative state in which a person feels detached from their body or identity.
Jury may be "dug in" after hearing conflicting expert testimony, attorney says
We’re awaiting the next move by the jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial after a judge — upon hearing the panel was deadlocked – told them to keep deliberating.
One legal expert said credible, contradictory testimony given by experts on Clancy’s state of mind may have contributed to this morning’s jury impasse.
“It’s understandable that jurors just at this point seem like they’re dug in,” Alan Tuerkheimer, a jury consultant and attorney, told CNN. “They’ve seen all this testimony. They’ve heard the arguments. There were some exceptionally credible experts for both sides that said one thing, and then another said the other.”
The prosecution had an expert who said Clancy “knew right from wrong,” Tuerkeimer said. Separately, an expert called by the defense — a psychologist who met with Clancy 11 days after the killings — said “she didn’t know what she was doing,” and “she couldn’t have appreciated the wrongfulness of her conduct,” Tuerkeimer said.
“So, there’s a real disparity here in terms of what the case narrative is and what she knew and what she didn’t know,” Tuerkheimer told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown. “So that just couldn’t get resolved, apparently. At this point, the jurors, even though they’ve tried, just can’t get everybody on board with one verdict.”
Asked by Blitzer how can the jury separate “sympathy, anger and tragedy from the legal standards they’re required to apply” as instructed by the judge, Tuerkheimer said it’s a difficult task.
“Jurors are human. You can’t entirely do that,” he said. “Every time they saw photos of those three children, the autopsy reports, the whole trial is full of sympathy. You can’t just extricate it from your mindset and your outlook on things.”
What could happen if Clancy is found not guilty by reason of mental illness
If jurors find Lindsay Clancy not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility — known in some other states as the “insanity defense” — she would not be immediately released.
Instead, the court may begin the process to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital or mental health facility.
Per Massachusetts state law, when a person is found not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, a court can commit them after holding a hearing and determining if they are mentally ill and if their release would create a likelihood of serious harm to themself or others. An initial commitment lasts six months, and later commitments last one year.
There is no maximum number of re-commitments, and the patient could remain hospitalized for the rest of their life.
Clancy, who is partially paralyzed, has been held at Tewksbury Hospital since 2023. She continues to take psychotropic medicines for her mental health issues, according to Paul Zeizel, a clinical and forensic psychologist who has examined her.
Other cases: In previous high-profile cases, defendants who were found not guilty by reason of insanity ended up being committed for extended periods.
Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in their bathtub in 2001, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a 2006 retrial. She was then committed to a state hospital and remains there to this day. People magazine reported in 2022 she has waived her annual review of her commitment, instead choosing to continue treatment.
Or consider the case of John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot President Ronald Reagan and three others in 1981 in what he said was an attempt to impress the actress Jodie Foster. The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was committed to a hospital in Washington, DC, in 1982. Over the years, the court allowed him to leave the hospital for supervised family visits, and he was ultimately released in 2016. He was released from all court oversight in 2022, after 41 years.
Judge was relaxed while instructing jurors to continue deliberations
While the jurors in the Lindsay Clancy case have generally been responsive to the judge, they did not visibly react as Judge William Sullivan told them to keep deliberating.
Their “stoic-ness, the seriousness, the demeanor, the non-friendly nature,” CNN’s Jean Casarez said, mirrored how they faced Sullivan before being dismissed for the day yesterday.
The jurors normally smile at the judge, “because a judge is always so kind to the jury and they have, you know, banter back and forth,” Casarez said. “But yesterday, I watched — there were no smiles to the judge. They just watched him and looked at him.”
Sullivan, on the other hand, was “very relaxed” while telling them this morning to keep deliberating and opting not to read aloud special instructions known as a “dynamite charge,” Casarez said.
“By statute in Massachusetts, you cannot pressure a jury,” she said. “The judge cannot pressure a jury. He did not at all. He was very relaxed. So they’re trying again, and we’ll have to see what other communications come down.”
Court staff is taking a lunch break
The court staff is now on lunch break until 2 p.m. ET, a court official announced.
Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial were previously told they could deliberate through their lunch break.
What could happen if there's a mistrial
One key question will pressure prosecutors if the jury remains deadlocked and the judge declares a mistrial: Will you retry Lindsay Clancy?
Judge William Sullivan can still opt to charge jurors to continue deliberating if they again say they cannot reach a unanimous verdict.
If the panel reports it’s still deadlocked later in deliberations, the prosecution and the defense would likely make arguments to Sullivan about whether the jurors should keep trying. But at some point, the judge can declare a mistrial over a hung jury. Prosecutors would then have the right to bring the case to trial again with a new jury.
After a mistrial, one of the parties could make a strategic request to move the case to another jurisdiction in the state, arguing they can’t get a fair trial in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred.
Prosecutors could also decline to try the case a second time.
Oftentimes prosecutors will ask the victims’ family for their perspective. In this case, because the families of the victims and the defendant are intertwined, competing interests may interfere with consensus.
The parties could also come to a plea agreement to avoid a second trial.
A timeline of Lindsay Clancy's case
Here’s a look at some of the key events and dates in the Lindsay Clancy case:
May 2022: Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse, gives birth to her third child Callan. She lives in Duxbury with her husband Patrick and their two other young children Cora and Dawson.
September 2022: Clancy meets over telehealth with a psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Tufts, to address her anxiety, depression and insomnia. Clancy is prescribed about a dozen medications and meets with several other providers over the following four months as her mental health declines.
December 31, 2022: Clancy is admitted to McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, after reporting thoughts of suicide and intrusive thoughts of hurting the kids. She is released after five days to attend her daughter’s birthday party.
January 23, 2023: Clancy tells Dr. Tufts she is “doing all right,” denies any suicidal or homicidal ideation and shows no signs of psychosis, according to Tufts.
January 24: Clancy sends her husband Patrick out of the house on errands. While he is gone, she fatally strangles her three children with exercise bands, cuts her own wrists and neck and jumps out of a second-floor window, according to trial testimony. Patrick comes home to the scene and calls 911.
January 26: Clancy, partially paralyzed and unable to speak, writes on a piece of paper she is “horrified” and asks for an attorney, according to a hospital psychiatrist.
Late January and early February: Clancy tells her husband and a hospital chaplain she heard a persistent male voice directing her to kill her children and herself.
February 7, 2023: From her hospital bed, Clancy is arraigned on murder charges and pleads not guilty.
October 2024: Patrick Clancy opens up to The New Yorker about the killings and expresses empathy for his wife. “I wasn’t married to a monster – I was married to someone who got sick,” he said.
January 2026: Lindsay Clancy files a civil lawsuit against her medical providers in which she says she strangled her children after hearing a voice in her head. “I lost all control. My body started acting without any control on my part,” she wrote in the suit.
July 20, 2026: Clancy’s murder trial begins with jury selection in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
July 26: Prosecutors and the defense make their opening statements, and Patrick Clancy testifies as the trial’s first witness.
August 17: The prosecution rests its case after calling over 70 witnesses, including Clancy’s family and friends, first-responders, investigators and medical providers.
August 21: Clancy’s defense rests its case after calling 10 witnesses, including psychiatric experts who said Clancy suffered from postpartum psychosis.
August 26: The prosecution rests its rebuttal case after calling three mental health experts who said Clancy was not psychotic at the time of the killings.
August 27: Prosecutors and the defense present closing arguments, and the jury begins deliberations.
September 1: On its fourth day of deliberations, the jury reports it is “unable to come to a unanimous decision.” The judge directs the jury to continue deliberating.
Jurors have been working hard but they’re likely "fatigued," body language expert says
The jurors in the Lindsay Clancy case had been “hyper focused” but likely “fatigued” after several days of deliberations, a body language expert and jury consultant said Tuesday morning before the panel indicated it was deadlocked.
“They’re deconstructing and then reconstructing and rebuilding their own theory,” Susan Constantine told CNN’s Sara Sidner on “CNN News Central.” “They didn’t even ask any further questions. They didn’t ask about the verdict form. They didn’t ask about the instructions. So that’s telling me they’re really working hard rebuilding this case.”
But their efforts, Constantine said, may also be leaving them “fatigued.”
“Cognitive bias” is also a concern during deliberations, Constantine said. If there are jurors with already-formed opinions, other jurors will need to test those hypotheses.
Remember, here's what both sides said during their closing arguments in Clancy's trial
Both sides presented their final closing argument to the jury before it started deliberating on Thursday. Here’s a recap.
Defense:
- In his closing argument, defense attorney Kevin Reddington said evidence shows Clancy was “a darn good mother” and the killings happened “because of the damn medicine and the lousy medical care” Clancy received.
- Reddington said Clancy “lived for her kids” until doctors began overprescribing her medications. The evidence presented showed Clancy had raised concerns about the medications, he said, and her handwritten notes show how her mental state deteriorated.
- Clancy is not “criminally responsible” for the crime because of her psychological state, he said, citing the expert opinion of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick. The psychiatrist examined Clancy and testified she was not in control of her actions during the killings.
- Experts for both sides acknowledged during the trial that Clancy made a “serious suicide attempt,” Reddington said. The jury was also presented exhibits that support that, he said.
- The defense lawyer also accused police of not conducting a thorough investigation.
Prosecution:
- Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague told jurors that “there’s no dispute that Lindsay Clancy was suffering from a mental illness and that she tried to kill herself,” but the issue is if she “knew the difference between right and wrong” when she killed her three kids. Killing them “was a choice,” she said.
- Sprague argued Clancy interacted with the public and presented “herself as a functioning adult, a functioning mom.” She pointed out Clancy chose not to tell mandated reporters about thoughts of harming her kids and how she took her daughter to the doctor the day of the killings.
- Sprague also said Clancy did not immediately tell her husband that she heard a voice that directed her to kill the kids. Further, the failure of the suicide attempt shows that there was no voice in her head, Sprague argued, pointing out that the pills she took were not at a lethal level and cut wounds were “superficial.”
- Clancy had resources, support and access to great medical care but did not follow through on a plan, Sprague said. Medical providers aren’t at fault for Clancy’s depression because she wasn’t always being honest with her doctors about her condition, according to Sprague.
CNN’s Nicki Brown, Lauren del Valle, Eric Levenson, Maureen Chowdhury and Chelsea Bailey contributed reporting.
What is a “dynamite” charge from the judge
When a jury says it is hopelessly deadlocked, a judge may read aloud special instructions known as a “dynamite charge.” The orders ask jurors to consider the reasonableness of their own opinions and others’ and to continue deliberating toward a verdict.
The idea is to blow up any impasse to avoid a hung jury and mistrial. This is referred to in Massachusetts as the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions and is known nationally as an Allen Charge.
In Clancy’s trial, state Judge William F. Sullivan has not read the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions. He may choose to do so if the jury continues to report it is deadlocked and cannot reach a unanimous verdict.
Another case: In 2024, the judge overseeing Karen Read’s first murder trial read aloud the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions to a deadlocked jury. After deliberating further, that jury still could not come to a verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial.
Legal expert explains what happens when the jury is deadlocked
When a jury says it cannot come to a unanimous verdict, the trial does not immediately end, criminal defense attorney Elyse Hershon explained.
Instead, the judge will send jurors back to deliberate — potentially multiple times — and encourage them to continue deliberating toward a unanimous verdict. If the jury continues to report it is deadlocked, the judge will read special instructions known as a “dynamite charge” giving the jury a final chance to reach a verdict.
And if still the jurors cannot do so, the judge will declare a mistrial, ending the trial without a resolution and leaving open the possibility of another trial down the road.
“It will be at least one or two more notes from the jury, I would anticipate, that says they cannot agree (before a mistrial),” Hershon said.
Hershon said it is not clear if the jury is deadlocked on one or all of the charges, and whether there is a possibility of a partial verdict.
How the jury reacted to continuing deliberations
Lindsay Clancy sat in court Tuesday wearing a long-sleeved, tan sweater and a matching headband.
After a brief sidebar with state Judge William Sullivan, prosecutors and Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, returned their seats. Reddington then talked quietly to his client.
The jurors were all solemn and straight-faced when they entered the courtroom. One female juror glanced at the defense table, then at prosecutors as she walked in. The others kept their eyes straight ahead. One man rubbed his face before he took a seat.
There were a few gasps in the courtroom gallery as the judge read the jury’s note aloud: They couldn’t come to a unanimous decision.
Though these jurors generally have been responsive to the judge, they did not visibly react as he told them to keep deliberating. One female juror closed her eyes for a long time with her hands clasped in her lap as Sullivan directed them to continue.
What it's like around court as the jurors continue deliberations
About 15 people – most of them women – were seated in the public section of the gallery during the proceedings today. One of them sported a neon pink rain jacket, and another wore a pink bandana.
Since the jury began their deliberations, there have been significantly fewer members of the public in the gallery.
Journalists and the public are not allowed to remain inside the courtroom while the jury deliberates, so the hallway is now filled with people clustering near the courtroom doors.
The few benches in the hallway outside the courtroom are packed with people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, with several even sitting on the floor.
Clancy jury has deliberated for about 19 hours
Jurors weighing Lindsay Clancy’s fate deliberated for some 19 hours before saying they’ve failed to reach a unanimous decision.
State Judge William Sullivan of Plymouth County asked them to return to deliberations.
The panel of nine women and three men has been tasked with sifting through over 80 witnesses and 300 exhibits, the judge said.
In 2006, a Texas jury deliberated for about 13 hours before deciding Andrea Yates was insane when she drowned each of her five children in a bathtub. The panel of six men and six women deliberated for three days before issuing the not guilty verdict.
The outcome was a sharp turnaround for Yates, a former nurse originally sentenced in 2002 to life in prison after a jury found her guilty of capital murder. She was granted a new trial after an expert witness’s testimony was called into question.
Yates remains in a psychiatric hospital.
What we know about the jury deciding Clancy's case
The jury is made up of nine women and three men.
Many of the empaneled jurors were diligently taking notes during the testimony. The jury foreperson is a woman with gray hair and glasses.
The jury would need to make its decision unanimously.
Each verdict slip has several options: Not guilty, not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder and guilty of manslaughter.
Six alternates — three men and three women — were told last Thursday they would not be part of the deliberations.
An alternate could be asked to join the deliberating panel should a main juror need to be released.
NOW: Jury indicates they are deadlocked in Lindsay Clancy trial
The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial indicated it is deadlocked and cannot come to a unanimous verdict, a scenario that could lead to a mistrial.
“After many hours of deliberation, we are unable to come to a unanimous decision,” the note said, according to state Judge William Sullivan.
The judge sent the 12-person jury back to deliberate further and try to break the impasse.
If jurors still cannot come to a unanimous decision, the judge may declare a mistrial, ending the trial without a clear resolution.
Clancy, 36, pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder for the killings of her children Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan. Her defense attorney argues she is not criminally responsible because she was experiencing postpartum psychosis, a rare mental health condition.
Jurors are considering five verdicts: guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter, not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility or not guilty.
