AN IMPASSE IN PLYMOUTH: JUDGE ISSUES ‘DYNAMITE CHARGE’ AS CLANCY JURY DEADLOCKS AGAIN
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — For the second time in twenty-four hours, deliberations in the trial of Lindsay Clancy have ground to a halt. After six weeks of grueling testimony, the nine-woman, three-man jury notified Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan on Wednesday afternoon that they remain hopelessly split, pushing the high-profile triple-murder case to the brink of a mistrial.
Rather than granting a discharge, Judge Sullivan deployed Massachusetts’ formal legal mechanism for breaking an impasse: a Tuey-Rodriguez instruction—often referred to in trial practice as a "dynamite charge."
The high-stakes instruction urges deadlocked jurors to re-examine their positions and listen to fellow panel members without surrendering their conscientiously held beliefs, reminding them that no future jury would be more qualified to decide the case.
A Trial Anchored in Tragedy
The fundamental question before the panel has never been whether Clancy, 36, committed the acts. The former nurse has admitted to strangling her three young children—Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months—inside the family's Duxbury home in January 2023 before jumping from a second-story window in a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed.
Instead, the trial has hinged entirely on her legal sanity and mental state at the moment of the killings.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has argued that Clancy was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis, experiencing profound hallucinations and lacking the criminal responsibility to comprehend or control her actions. Prosecutors, supported by expert testimony from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, contend that Clancy rationally planned the murders, understood the moral wrongfulness of her conduct, and retained the legal capacity to conform her behavior to the law.
Rising Deliberation Tensions
By Wednesday afternoon, the jury had logged over twenty-three hours of intense debate across five days, sifting through testimony from more than eighty witnesses and reviewing over 300 exhibits.
Outside the courtroom, the atmosphere remained equally charged. Deliberations were briefly halted Wednesday morning while Judge Sullivan individually polled jurors following the arrest of a woman outside the Plymouth courthouse accused of illegally recording panel members—a breach that resulted in criminal witness intimidation charges.
The jury’s initial deadlock note arrived Tuesday morning after just four hours of active deliberation. Sullivan instructed them to continue, citing the vast volume of scientific and medical evidence presented. But Wednesday’s second note forced the court’s hand, triggering the mandatory Tuey-Rodriguez charge as a final effort to salvage a verdict.
The Spectre of a Retrial
Under Massachusetts law, a judge may keep a jury deliberating as long as reasonable progress remains possible. However, once a Tuey-Rodriguez charge is issued, a subsequent report of an irreconcilable deadlock typically leaves the court with little choice but to declare a mistrial.
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A mistrial would not constitute an acquittal. Rather, it would return the indictment to a pretrial status, forcing Plymouth County prosecutors to decide whether to undergo the emotional and financial strain of trying Clancy a second time before a new panel. Reddington has already indicated he is prepared to retry the case immediately if necessary.
For now, the twelve jurors have returned to the jury room for a sixth day of deliberations. With the judge's formal charge delivered, the margin for agreement has narrowed to its absolute limit—leaving the court, the legal teams, and a watching public waiting to see whether consensus can be forged or if the proceedings will end in an irreconcilable standoff.
