Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Made an Emergency Appeal to Massachusetts’ Highest Court to Stop the Mistrial. It Was Denied. The Judge Also Refused the Defense’s Request to Dismiss the Lone Holdout Juror
· Thought Catalog
Updated 7 minutes ago, September 4, 2026
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington said 11 jurors were ready to acquit Clancy, arguing she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis. One man would not move. With a mistrial seconds away, her lawyer took the extraordinary step of asking a state Supreme Judicial Court justice for an emergency stay to keep the case alive. She said no.
Nine women and three men couldn’t agree on whether Lindsay Clancy should be held criminally responsible for strangling her three children in January 2023, and after roughly 38 hours of deliberation they told the judge, “with a heavy heart,” that they were deadlocked.
Her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, said the split was 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal. “They are basically 11 to one, and this person will not apply reasonable doubt to the evidence to return a not guilty verdict,” he said of the holdout. The judge, William Sullivan, said there was no sign the juror was doing anything wrong by sticking to his position.
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The defense argued Clancy killed her children in the throes of postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors had to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that she was responsible, the highest burden of proof in the U.S. legal system.
A mistrial is neither an acquittal nor a conviction. The murder charges stand, and Reddington said he expects prosecutors to try her for first-degree murder again. Clancy, who has been in a wheelchair through the proceedings, looked straight ahead without moving as the judge declared the mistrial. Her family sat still in the gallery.
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