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Jury's Final Stand: Holdout Juror's Stance Led to Mistrial in Lindsay Clancy Case
Confirmed
In Short: In a case that divided the community, a single holdout juror's refusal to acquit Lindsay Clancy led to a mistrial.
The jurors described explosive arguments during deliberations, with one holdout juror, a man, refusing to budge on the verdict.
According to the jurors, the holdout juror was described as 'very arrogant' and did not listen to the rest of the panel, despite repeated readings of the judge's definition of 'reasonable doubt'.
The group of jurors, including the foreperson, spoke with Boston’s NBC10 on Tuesday, four days after a judge declared a mistrial when jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children in 2023.
The holdout juror's stance was a turning point, as all but one juror was initially persuaded to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity.
The holdout juror's declaration that he would not say Clancy was not guilty by reason of insanity led to the explosive arguments and ultimately the mistrial.
The case has been a source of division, with the prosecution describing Clancy as 'harsh' and her defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, as more personable.
The judge in the case, Sullivan, declined to remove the holdout juror, stating that he would declare a mistrial after jurors sent a note that they had been unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
What's still developing
- Devlin said the jurors read the judge’s definition of “reasonable doubt” on numerous occasions — but the holdout juror didn’t seem to want to listen.
- They said the six alternate jurors could hear them and thought they were fighting a lot, but that they were determined to come to a verdict.
- They also noted that no one had anything bad to say about Clancy — which informed their decision.
- “We weren’t trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did, and she’s admitting that. We’re trying to figure out: Did she know right from wrong at that time. And with everybody saying she loved her children so much. Everything proved she loved her children,” Carlson said.
- Clancy, 36, a former nurse, does not deny killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan in the basement of her Massachusetts home before trying to take her own life.
- However, she said the holdout juror then told her, “But I’m still not going to say she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.” Two other jurors, Paula Devlin and Kellie Farina, also expressed their frustrations with the holdout juror.
- “In general, deciding whether to grant a mistrial is more art than science,” said Daniel Medwed, university distinguished professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern The judge in the Lindsay Clancy murder case said Friday that he will declare a mistrial, but gave the defense an hour to request a stay of the planned decision from a higher court, after the defense appeared to blame a lone juror for impeding the acquittal of the nurse and mother who strangled her three children in Jan. 2023.
- Approximately two hours earlier, Sullivan had declined to remove a juror who appears to be the lone voice against acquitting Clancy.