Prosecutors have asked a judge to reject Lindsey Clancy’s motion to dismiss the charges against her, arguing in a motion that they have the right to seek justice on behalf of her three young children even after a mistrial was declared.
“Because a mistrial was properly declared due to the manifest necessity of a deadlocked jury, the defendant’s motion to dismiss should be denied, and the Commonwealth should be permitted to continue to pursue justice for Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy,” prosecutors wrote in the motion filed Monday.
Clancy was indicted on three counts of murder and strangulation in the 2023 deaths of her three young children and her trial took place in a Massachusetts courtroom over the summer. A mistrial was declared in September when the jury told the judge it was deadlocked after seven days of deliberation — with one juror as the holdout.
Clancy is accused of strangling her three children,
Clancy is accused of strangling her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan in their Duxbury home. Her lawyers argued that she suffered from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible for her actions.
Her defense team moved to dismiss the charges against Clancy on the grounds of double jeopardy — a law that prevents defendants from being prosecuted more than once for the same crime.
Prosecutors say the standard does not apply in the Clancy case because a verdict was not reached. The remedy to the jurors’ stalemate should not be to dismiss the charges against Clancy, but to hold a new trial, according to the prosecution’s motion.
The escalating legal battle centers on the holdout
The escalating legal battle centers on the holdout juror, who said he’s been harassed since the trial ended but continues to stand by his position that Clancy premeditated the murders of her children. The other 11 jurors were prepared to acquit Clancy by the insanity standard, they have said. They have claimed the holdout juror failed to follow the standard of reasonable doubt throughout deliberations.
Clancy’s attorney,Kevin Reddington, argued throughout the trial that she was in the throes ofpostpartum psychosis at the time of the killings and was therefore unaware of her actions and unable to control herself.
The prosecution, however, argued that Clancy was not in psychosis when she killed her children, and that she planned the strangulations ahead of time.
In his response Wednesday to the prosecution’s opposition
In his response Wednesday to the prosecution’s opposition to dismiss charges against Clancy, Reddington argued that a new trial without the investigation of jury misconduct would subject his client to “successive prosecution with all of the concomitant burdens and dangers that the Supreme Judicial Court has repeatedly warned against.”
“This is not the law,” Reddington’s motion reads. “To the contrary, it flies in the face of centuries of Double Jeopardy jurisprudence.”
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