One juror, no verdict: What the Lindsay Clancy mistrial tells us about jury unanimity

After more than five weeks of testimony and seven days of deliberations, the Massachusetts murder trial of Lindsay Clancy ended without a verdict.

Clancy was charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the January 2023 deaths of her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. There was no dispute at trial that Clancy killed the children. The central question was instead one of criminal responsibility: Was Clancy legally responsible for her actions, or was she so profoundly mentally ill that Massachusetts law did not permit the jury to hold her criminally accountable?

Twelve jurors could not unanimously answer that question. On Sept. 4, Superior Court Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial.

A mistrial is neither an acquittal nor a conviction. In Clancy’s case, the unusual circumstances surrounding the jury’s deadlock raise important questions about jury unanimity, juror independence, and what happens next.

When a Jury Cannot Agree

Criminal jury verdicts must be unanimous. But disagreement does not automatically produce a mistrial. When jurors report that they have reached an impasse, judges generally have some discretion to send them back to continue deliberating. The challenge is encouraging meaningful deliberation without coercing a juror into abandoning a sincerely held view merely to produce a verdict.

Pennsylvania lawyers know the supplemental instruction commonly called a Spencer charge, after the case of Commonwealth v. Spencer. Jurors may be reminded to consult with one another, reconsider their views and attempt to reach agreement. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has also been explicit about the other half of that instruction: no juror should surrender an honestly held conviction merely because other jurors disagree or simply for the purpose of returning a verdict.

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Massachusetts follows the same basic principle through what is known as the Tuey-Rodriguez instruction. Its history is particularly instructive.

Older supplemental instructions to deadlocked juries were sometimes called “dynamite charges” because of their potential to blast a verdict out of a divided jury. Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court recognized the danger inherent in telling minority jurors, in effect, that if most of their fellow jurors saw the case differently, they should question whether their own judgment was correct. In Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, the court modified the traditional instruction to emphasize that both majority and minority jurors should reconsider their positions.

The distinction is critical: Deliberation is supposed to produce reflection, not capitulation.

Judge Sullivan delivered the Tuey-Rodriguez instruction after the Clancy jury reported that it was deadlocked. But after approximately 38 hours of deliberation, the jurors still could not agree.

Ordinarily, that would make this a relatively straightforward hung-jury mistrial. The final hours of the Clancy trial made it considerably more complicated.

A Holdout Juror? Or a Juror Refusing to Follow the Law?

Notes from the jury revealed an apparent 11-1 division. That fact alone would not be remarkable. A juror has every right to stand alone if, after considering the evidence, listening to fellow jurors and applying the law as instructed, that juror remains unconvinced (or convinced) beyond a reasonable doubt.

Unanimity means precisely that: Eleven votes are not enough.

But Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued that something different was occurring. According to the defense’s interpretation of notes from the jury foreperson, the holdout juror acknowledged having doubt about the case but nevertheless refused to apply that doubt according to the court’s legal instructions. The defense further argued that the juror’s position reflected bias against people suffering from serious mental illness.

If accurate, those allegations presented a fundamentally different problem. The jury system protects a juror’s independent judgment. It does not authorize a juror to disregard the law, refuse to deliberate in good faith or substitute personal beliefs for the legal standards the judge has instructed the jury to apply.

That placed Judge Sullivan in a difficult position. Investigating too aggressively risked intruding into the secrecy and independence of jury deliberations, or worse, placing judicial pressure on the lone dissenter. Doing too little risked allowing a verdict to be prevented by a juror who was not performing the role the law required.

Before Sullivan declared a mistrial, he gave Reddington one hour to seek emergency relief from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The defense asked the high court to require further individual questioning, or voir dire, concerning the juror’s ability to follow the law or to prevent that juror from continuing to deliberate unless the issue was resolved.

The Supreme Judicial Court declined to intervene. Sullivan then declared a mistrial.

Why Doesn’t Double Jeopardy Prevent Another Trial?

A mistrial resulting from a genuinely deadlocked jury is neither a conviction nor an acquittal.

Although the Fifth Amendment ordinarily prevents the government from trying someone again after an acquittal, American courts have long recognized a genuinely hung jury as the classic example of the “manifest necessity” that permits a trial to end without barring another prosecution.

The Commonwealth therefore generally remains free to try Clancy again.

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said Friday that his office had not yet decided whether to do so. Judge Sullivan scheduled a status and trial-assignment hearing for Sept. 29.

There is, however, another potential off-ramp before a second jury is ever seated. Reddington has indicated that he will renew a motion under Massachusetts Rule of Criminal Procedure 25(b)(2) for a required finding of not guilty. Unlike a motion asking a judge to reconsider the weight of the evidence, a Rule 25 motion asks whether the Commonwealth’s evidence was legally sufficient to permit a conviction at all. The judge considers whether the prosecution presented sufficient evidence from which a rational jury could find the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rule 25 expressly permits such a motion to be renewed within five days after a jury is discharged, including when the jury has been discharged without reaching a verdict. If Sullivan were to conclude that the Commonwealth’s proof was legally insufficient and enter a required finding of not guilty, Clancy would be acquitted rather than retried.

The defense could also conceivably challenge the mistrial itself. Ordinarily, a genuinely deadlocked jury supplies the “manifest necessity” that permits a mistrial without triggering the Double Jeopardy Clause. But because Clancy objected to ending the trial and unsuccessfully sought further judicial inquiry into the holdout juror before the mistrial was declared, her lawyers could argue that a mistrial was not actually necessary, that Sullivan should have pursued a reasonable alternative before discharging the jury, namely determining whether the holdout was a conscientious dissenter entitled to protection or a juror refusing to follow the law. If a reviewing court ultimately agreed that the mistrial was declared without manifest necessity, double jeopardy principles could bar a second trial.

For now, however, the mistrial leaves the charges unresolved, and unless the defense succeeds in obtaining an acquittal under Rule 25 or establishing that double jeopardy bars another prosecution, the Commonwealth retains the ability to try the case again. That leaves prosecutors with a different set of strategic questions: whether to retry Clancy, and, if so, on what charges.

Prosecutors would have several choices. They could retry Clancy on the three first-degree murder charges. They could also reconsider the appropriate degree of homicide to pursue. Significantly, the first jury was already instructed not only on first-degree murder but also on the lesser offenses of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

The sentencing differences are enormous: for an adult defendant, first-degree murder in Massachusetts carries mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Second-degree murder also carries a life sentence, but unlike first-degree murder, it permits parole eligibility after the statutory minimum period. Manslaughter carries a maximum state-prison sentence of 20 years.

That creates a substantial sentencing ladder: from life without parole, to life with the possibility of parole, to a maximum term of 20 years.

Those differences could become especially important if the parties consider resolving the case without a second trial. Massachusetts criminal procedure permits plea agreements involving reduced, amended or dismissed charges. The Commonwealth could therefore theoretically negotiate a plea to a lesser homicide offense rather than again asking 12 jurors to decide three counts of first-degree murder.

A lesser charge would also change what prosecutors must prove. First-degree murder requires the Commonwealth to establish certain elements, including the prosecution’s theories presented at Clancy’s trial of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. Second-degree murder eliminates those additional first-degree requirements; manslaughter reduces the offense still further.

But reducing the homicide charge would not necessarily solve the problem that divided this jury. The central dispute was criminal responsibility.

What Did “Insanity” Mean in This Case?

The most difficult question in Clancy’s trial was not whether she suffered from mental illness. It was whether that illness relieved her of criminal responsibility.

The doctrine has deep historical roots. The famous M’Naghten rule, developed in 19th-century England, focused principally on cognition: because of a “disease of the mind,” did the defendant understand the nature and quality of the act or know that it was wrong?

Massachusetts uses a broader test, known as the McHoul standard, after the Supreme Judicial Court’s 1967 decision in Commonwealth v. McHoul. The test incorporates M’Naghten’s traditional focus on whether a defendant could appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct, but adds a volitional component: whether she had the capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of law. Thus, a defendant is not criminally responsible if, because of a mental disease or defect, she lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of law.

In other words, Massachusetts law asks not only whether mental illness prevented a defendant from understanding that what she was doing was wrong, but also whether it left her unable to control her conduct even if she understood it was wrong.

In a majority of states (and in federal prosecutions), the burden shifts to the defense to show by clear and convincing evidence or by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was insane. Not so in Massachusetts. Once criminal responsibility is properly placed at issue in the Bay State, the defendant does not bear the ultimate burden of proving insanity. The Commonwealth must prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt.

That was the heart of the Clancy trial. Her defense attorney argued that postpartum psychosis rendered her legally incapable of criminal responsibility. Prosecutors maintained that although Clancy suffered from serious mental illness, she nevertheless understood what she was doing and retained the capacity necessary for criminal responsibility.

For now, Clancy will return to Tewksbury Hospital, the state-run psychiatric facility where she has received court-ordered inpatient care for more than three years. The lawyers will return to court on Sept. 29 for a hearing on Reddington’s Rule 25(b)(2) motion, the status of the case, and (if the prosecution elects to proceed) a potential trial assignment.

More Than One Unanswered Question

The mistrial leaves the ultimate question of Clancy’s criminal responsibility unanswered. But the circumstances that produced it illuminate an important tension built into the jury system itself.

A lone juror is not required to yield simply because eleven others disagree. Indeed, protecting a conscientious holdout from pressure is one reason courts carefully regulate what judges may say to deadlocked juries. At the same time, juror independence is not a license to disregard the law. Every juror takes on the obligation to consider the evidence, deliberate in good faith, and apply the legal rules given by the judge.

The difficult question in Clancy’s final hours was not whether one juror should be permitted to disagree with the other 11 jurors. Of course, that one juror should.

The harder question was whether this juror was disagreeing within the rules of the system … or refusing to follow them.

The mistrial may have resolved this proceeding for now. It did not, however, resolve that question.

Marian Grace Braccia has served as the Director of the LL.M. in Trial Advocacy and a Practice Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law since 2018. She also served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office from 2006 to 2018, handling Major Trials and cases in the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit. In 2024, she was appointed to a six-year term on the Pennsylvania Committee on Rules of Evidence.

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