Just before a deadlocked Massachusetts jury of nine women and three men Thursday afternoon completed a sixth day of deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial with no verdict, there were fireworks in the Plymouth courtroom.
The prosecution and defense have agreed that Clancy — a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse — killed her three young children in 2023; the issue has been whether she is criminally responsible for their deaths due to her mental state, the Associated Press said.
‘If we come back here in a half-hour with a mistrial because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of this court, it’s a shame — it’s a real shame.’
The fireworks started with a lengthy and animated sidebar — a private discussion between the judge and attorneys on both sides. The AP in a separate story called the sidebar “impassioned,” with Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington pointing his finger and Judge William Sullivan handing him a document.
As the sidebar stretched past the 10-minute mark, two court officers joined the discussion, which featured Reddington sighing, speaking to the judge, and slicing the air with his hand, the AP reported.
Then jurors began entering the courtroom one by one and were sworn in, after which the judge spoke to each juror, and then they were taken back out of the courtroom, the outlet said, adding that it wasn’t clear what was said.
The jury then re-entered the courtroom, and the outlet said the Judge Sullivan told jurors, “I want to remind you that you are required to follow my instructions on the law as I gave you.”
Sullivan also said, “It is not enough for prosecutors to show a probability, or even a strong probability, of guilt,” the AP noted, adding that the judge also said proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt. He then sent the jury back to deliberate further — and the outlet said some in the audience gasped.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Reddington spoke in a microphone directly to Sullivan.
“The court has an instruction from the foreperson of that jury — that has been working for a week — now saying there is one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you have given him or her on reasonable doubt,” Reddington said, his voice rising, the AP reported. “I suggest respectfully that the soft instruction that you gave them, saying at the sidebar, can you listen to the law as I instruct you, does not focus on the issue.”
The outlet said Reddington asked the judge to remove the juror in question.
“If we come back here in a half-hour with a mistrial because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of this court, it’s a shame — it’s a real shame,” Reddington said, according to the AP.
RELATED: Woman charged with juror intimidation at Clancy trial tells different tale than images on her phone: Prosecutor
But Sullivan said removing a juror from a “deliberating jury is a sensitive undertaking,” the outlet reported.
“I don’t feel it is proper for me to side with one side or the other of the deliberations. I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to say I agree with one juror or 11,” Sullivan said, according to the AP. “At this point, I have asked if they are able to follow instructions. They swore earlier they could. They have said at this point they can.”
Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague said the judge’s instruction was appropriate and no further action was necessary, the outlet noted.
Soon Sullivan called the jury members back into the courtroom and dismissed them until 9 a.m. Friday, at which time they again will resume deliberations.
Outside the courthouse, Reddington expressed hope that the trial will be resolved after the judge questions a juror on Friday, the AP said: “There will be an inquiry by the judge tomorrow at 9 o’clock. There’s a person who has doubt but will not listen to the judge’s instructions.”
Reddington also told reporters outside the courthouse that the jury foreperson’s note identified the holdout juror to the judge, the outlet noted, adding that Reddington is hoping that before the judge questions that juror on Friday, attorneys on both sides will get to argue in the open over the specifics of that inquiry.
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the strangulation deaths of her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan — in their Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023, WBZ-TV reported.
Reddington said his client was not criminally responsible for killing her children because she was overmedicated and suffering from postpartum psychosis, the station reported, adding that prosecutors said Clancy planned the killings and knew right from wrong when she strangled the children.
If the jury convicts Clancy of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter, she will go to prison, WBZ said, adding that if jurors find her not guilty by reason of insanity, she will be required to continue her stay at Tewksbury State Hospital, where her case will be reviewed periodically.
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