A Massachusetts judge has denied a motion to dismiss the murder case against Lindsay Clancy, the US woman accused of killing her three children.
The judge’s ruling follows her defence team’s request to dismiss the case after the 12-person jury in her September trial failed to reach a verdict.
Clancy has not denied killing her children in 2023, but her defence team argues she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis at the time. Prosecutors say the killings were intentional.
The ruling clears the way for prosecutors to pursue the case. They could reduce the charges in a potential second trial or dismiss them altogether.
Clancy’s defence team argued to dismiss the case against her due to double jeopardy – a legal standard that prevents a person from being tried for the same crime twice.
Her lawyers argued that Judge William Sullivan, who presided over the 26-day jury trial last summer, acted prematurely when he declared a mistrial on 4 September, saying that he should have sought a viable alternative.
The five-week trial, its lead-up and aftermath gripped Americans, and put postpartum mental health issues such as psychosis in the spotlight.
In his ruling on Monday, Sullivan said that a retrial would not unconstitutionally subject Clancy to double jeopardy, according to court documents obtained by the BBC.
The possibility that “an unreasonably stubborn or eccentric juror” could be seated is “an unavoidable risk of the jury system”, he said.
“Because the court concludes that there was manifest necessity for a mistrial based on the jury’s deadlock, a retrial on the murder indictments does not violate Clancy’s right not to be placed in double jeopardy.”
Sullivan also denied a defence motion to see records of the lone holdout juror in the case and to question the juror under oath.
He said the defence failed to demonstrate that the records were needed for Clancy’s defence at any retrial, and that questioning the juror “would have been impermissibly coercive”.
The judge has marked 16 November to discuss scheduling a potential second trial. He previously suggested it could begin in March.
Prosecutors in the closely watched case alleged that on 24 January 2023, Clancy intentionally strangled all of her children – Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, eight months – in their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home.
After weeks of emotional testimony, the jury took a week to deliberate, repeatedly telling the judge that they could not reach a verdict.
The deadlock stemmed from a lone juror who voted to convict Clancy of first-degree murder, while the 11 other jurors intended to acquit Clancy by reason of insanity.
In Massachusetts, as well as in all US criminal murder trials, juries must reach a unanimous decision to convict or acquit a defendant.
Because the jurors failed to unanimously agree on whether the prosecution had proved Clancy was guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” as required by US law, the judge declared a mistrial on 4 September, which means that she was neither found guilty nor not guilty.
Clancy is currently being housed in a state-run psychiatric hospital and medical facility in Massachusetts.
By BBC News
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