By Nate Raymond
Nov 2 (Reuters) – Lindsay Clancy is due back in court on Monday for a hearing that could determine whether she will be retried for killing her three young children at her Massachusetts home in 2023 after a jury deadlocked at her first trial.
Judge William Sullivan is scheduled to hear arguments in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Clancy’s bid to dismiss the murder charges and to discuss a timetable for a potential new trial if he allows the case to proceed.
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s office has yet to publicly detail its plans for a retrial of Clancy, 36. She faces first-degree murder charges over the deaths of her daughter Cora, 5; son Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old son Callan.
In a filing last week, prosecutors urged Sullivan to reject a defense bid to have the case thrown out, saying they “should be permitted to continue to pursue justice for Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy.”
Sullivan at a September 29 hearing said the parties should be prepared on Monday to discuss a date for a retrial.
No one at Clancy’s initial trial disputed that she strangled her three children with exercise bands on January 24, 2023, in the basement of their home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. She then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-story window in an attempt to end her own life, leaving her paralyzed.
Her lawyers, though, have argued the evidence showed Clancy was in the throes of postpartum psychosis at the time and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, known in Massachusetts as lack of criminal responsibility.
Some of the jurors in televised interviews later said that but for one holdout juror, they had been prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity. Such a verdict would have resulted in her commitment to a state psychiatric hospital, subject to regular court review.
Prosecutors have several options before them, including retrying Clancy on the first-degree murder charges or seeking her conviction on lesser second-degree murder charges, which would give her the option to waive a jury trial and proceed before a judge.
A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole. Second-degree murder allows for the possibility of parole.
Defense lawyers are expected on Monday to argue that a retrial would violate Clancy’s constitutional protection against being tried twice for the same crime, known as double jeopardy.
They contend the mistrial declared on September 4 was unnecessary. Citing jury notes that stated the holdout juror was not following the law on reasonable doubt despite the judge’s instructions, defense lawyers say Sullivan should have instead questioned the holdout and potentially removed the juror.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham)
