Lindsay Clancy can be tried a second time for the deaths of her three children, a Plymouth Superior Court judge ruled on Monday, rejecting her argument that the mistrial in September was unnecessary and that the Constitution bars the state from trying again.
Judge William Sullivan's decision, issued Monday afternoon, held that the deadlocked jury justified the mistrial he declared on September 4, Boston.com reported. Sullivan wrote that the court's "primary concern must be protecting the fairness of the proceedings." He also denied a defense request for records and an inquiry into the lone holdout juror, and turned down the prosecution's request for a gag order on defense lawyer Kevin Reddington.
Clancy, who is charged with three counts of first degree murder in the January 2023 deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at the family's Duxbury home, does not deny killing them. Her defense is that postpartum psychosis left her not criminally responsible. Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz has not said whether a second trial would be on first degree murder or a lesser charge, and his office declined to comment on the ruling.
What the defense argued, and why it lost
The defense case rested on a jury note. The jury told the court that a holdout was refusing to apply reasonable doubt, and Clancy's lawyers argued that Sullivan erred by declaring a mistrial without first looking into that juror.
Sullivan read the note differently. According to Boston.com, he found that it described disagreement among jurors, not a juror who refused to deliberate, and he wrote that it would be improper to probe how the jury reached its positions. He also said a mistrial decision can rest only on what the judge knew at the time, so information that surfaced later cannot "undermine" it.
That last point repeats his October 21 ruling denying an evidentiary hearing on the juror. In that order, Boston.com reported, Sullivan wrote that "post-trial information potentially affecting Juror Doe's impartiality cannot be used to attack the determination that a mistrial was manifestly necessary." He cited the Supreme Judicial Court's February 2025 decision in Karen Read's double jeopardy appeal.
The governing federal standard is old and favors the judge. When a mistrial is declared over a defendant's objection, the prosecution must show "manifest necessity," the U.S. Supreme Court said in Arizona v. Washington in 1978. But a deadlocked jury is "long considered the classic basis for a proper mistrial," and a judge's call that a jury is hung is "accorded great deference by a reviewing court." Massachusetts law also builds in a check before a judge can send a split jury home. Under Chapter 234A, Section 68C, a jury that returns twice "after due and thorough deliberation" without a verdict cannot be sent back out again without its consent. The Clancy jury deliberated for seven days.
Our count of the rulings since the mistrial
By our tally from Boston.com's reporting, Sullivan has issued five rulings on post-mistrial motions in the 66 days since September 4. On October 1 he denied a defense motion for a not guilty finding based on insufficient evidence. On October 21 he denied the evidentiary hearing on the holdout. On November 9 he denied the double jeopardy motion, denied the juror records request and denied the prosecution's gag order.
That is four rulings against the defense and one against the prosecution. None of them sets a trial date.
The Read clock
Clancy's team says it will not stop here. Martin G. Weinberg, the appellate lawyer on the defense team, told Boston.com he expects to go to the Supreme Judicial Court in the "very near future," writing that "interlocutory pre-retrial appeals to the state's highly respected supreme judicial court are possible."
The closest precedent for how long that might take is the Read case in Norfolk County, which went down the same road. Using dates from published accounts of that case, here is our timeline.
July 1, 2024: Judge Beverly Cannone declares a mistrial in Read's first trial. Day 0.
August 23, 2024: Cannone denies Read's motion to dismiss two charges based on what jurors said after the mistrial. Day 53.
February 11, 2025: The SJC rules that Read can be retried. Day 225, or 172 days after the trial judge's ruling.
April 1, 2025: Read's retrial opens. Day 274, and 49 days after the SJC decision. Read's emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court that day was denied.
Now set Clancy's dates beside it. Her mistrial was September 4, 2026, and Sullivan's denial came on day 66, thirteen days later in the process than Cannone's ruling. If an SJC appeal took the same 172 days from the trial court's ruling, a decision would land around April 30, 2027. That is after the March trial date Sullivan has floated and after the April window Reddington has mentioned, by our arithmetic.
The comparison has limits. It is one case, and nothing requires the SJC to take as long again. Weinberg himself described a pretrial appeal only as possible. But in Read's case the double jeopardy question was settled before the retrial opened, not during it.
What to watch
A conference hearing is expected about a week after the ruling, where prosecutors may say whether they will retry Clancy on first degree murder. The court had earlier set the next hearing for November 16. Watch for a defense filing at the SJC and whether Sullivan sets a trial date anyway.
Our earlier coverage traces the case from the 11 to 1 hung jury to the November 2 hearing where prosecutors said a retrial was likely. For the general rules, see what happens after a hung jury.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
