Lindsay Clancy murder trial: Judge denies request to question holdout juror
A Massachusetts judge on Wednesday denied a request from Lindsay Clancy’s attorneys to question the holdout juror who forced a mistrial in her triple-murder case.
Clancy, who was charged with killing her three children, is still due to appear in court on Nov. 2 for the next hearing in the case, but Judge William Sullivan on Wednesday denied a request from defense lawyers to use the hearing to investigate the actions of the holdout juror.
“This Court concludes that any further judicial inquiry is inappropriate, given the mandate that the court must not delve into a juror's subjective reasoning, thought process, view of the case, or relationship to the other jurors, and must not inquire into the jury's deliberative content, collective thought process, or any disagreement among the jury,” Sullivan wrote.
After a seven-week trial this summer, Sullivan declared a mistrial after the jury -- split 11-1 in favor of finding her not guilty by reason of insanity -- failed to reach a unanimous verdict.
Clancy pleaded not guilty to three murder charges for the deaths of her 5-year-old daughter Cora, 3-year-old son Dawson and infant son Callan at the family's home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb, on Jan. 24, 2023.
The former nurse attempted suicide on the night of her children's deaths, leaving her paralyzed and in a wheelchair.
Throughout Clancy's trial, much of the testimony centered on whether or not she was suffering from postpartum psychosis -- considered a psychiatric emergency, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists -- when she allegedly strangled her children and attempted to take her own life, and whether she should be held criminally liable for the killings.
Following the high-profile trial, defense lawyers had argued last month that the indictment should be dismissed because the judge failed to properly inquire about the holdout juror before declaring the mistrial.
To argue that motion, defense lawyers requested that the judge hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the holdout allegedly lied on the jury questionnaire, used his phone during deliberations or failed to follow the judge’s instructions during the deliberations.
While Sullivan did not issue a ruling on those motions, he concluded that defense lawyers failed to prove they were entitled to the evidentiary hearing on the matter, writing that issues about the holdout juror that came to light after the mistrial was declared were irrelevant.
“It appears that Clancy seeks an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Juror Doe lied on the jury questionnaire about prior involvement with the criminal justice system,” Judge Sullivan wrote. “However, potential evidence of good cause to dismiss a deliberating juror that came to light only after a mistrial was declared simply is not relevant to whether there was a manifest necessity for a mistrial.”
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers declined to comment on the ruling.
