The case dividing the United States is stuck in court. The jurors in the trial against Lindsay Clancy, the mother accused of killing her three children, informed the judge this Wednesday that they had reached a deadlock for the second time, a day after sending the judge a first note stating they could not reach an agreement.
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And the story repeated itself. Judge William Sullivan, from the Plymouth (Massachusetts) court, sent the jury back to deliberate for the fifth consecutive day, after already accumulating 30 hours of debate on a case that has become the conscience of the United States.
While some call for punishment for the atrocity of strangling her children with a gym elastic band, many others, especially women, show their support for the accused, who has admitted to the act but pleaded not guilty because she was not aware of what she was doing due to suffering postpartum trauma.
When the jury returned from lunch at two in the afternoon this Wednesday, they handed Sullivan a note indicating that they still could not reach an agreement and did not see a way out.
After the second deadlock note, the judge, in a much more formal manner than the previous day, read the jury the instructions called Tuey-Rodriguez, which basically ask them to give deliberations one last chance and remind them that it is desirable to reach a verdict.
“You should consider that it is desirable for the case to be resolved,” the instructions state. “You should consider that you have been selected in the same way and from the same source as any future jury,” they add.
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According to Massachusetts law, a judge can only ask a jury to continue deliberating twice, unless the jury itself consents to continue deliberating. If, after the third deadlock, the jury still cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the judge can declare a mistrial.
Tuesday was the first time the public could learn something about the jury’s deliberations. After barely an hour of deliberations that day, the group, composed of nine women and three men, returned to the courtroom to inform the magistrate that up to that moment they had not reached a unanimous decision.
Sullivan sent the jury back to the deliberation room and encouraged them to reach a verdict. The jury deliberated for another seven hours until this Wednesday, before reporting again that they remained at a deadlock.
Clancy, a nurse by profession, is accused of the murders of her three children (Cora, 5 years old; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months), which occurred at her home in Duxbury on January 24, 2023. She took advantage of her husband going to pick up prepared food. Then she overdosed on pills, cut herself with a knife, and threw herself from the second floor of her home. She was left paralyzed, which is why she uses a wheelchair.
The jurors can vote unanimously for one of five options: not guilty by reason of insanity, not guilty, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or involuntary manslaughter. A jury that fails to reach an agreement could eventually lead to the trial being declared a mistrial.
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