Lindsay Clancy trial jury set to deliberate for fifth day after telling judge they were deadlocked

PLYMOUTH — Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial will resume deliberations Wednesday morning after discussing the case for about 23 hours over four days. (AP) — A Massachusetts jury plans to deliberate a fifth day Wednesday on whether Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible when she strangled her three children in 2023, amid conflicting testimony about her postpregnancy mental health. What happens if they can’t reach a verdict?

A mistrial will be declared and the case essentially goes back to the same status as before the trial, with the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse charged with murder and held at a psychiatric hospital awaiting resolution of the criminal case. Clancy will likely go back on trial, but prosecutors have options Prosecutors will decide whether to try again with a new jury. If they do, the jury selection process will begin again and a new trial will be scheduled.

Prosecutors could also offer a plea deal to Clancy, said Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case. “Any time the threat of a retrial with murder one hanging over the client is re-interjected, defense lawyers will, at the very least, explore whether or not there’s any interest in a resolution,” Bailey said. Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her children at their home south of Boston, but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions.

After the killings, her husband found her badly injured in the yard, where she landed after jumping from a second-story window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down. Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing.

Though less likely, the district attorney’s office could decide to not retry the case. “Sometimes they decide not to, because of the sense that there may be the same result each time they try it, and because of the expenditures involved in trying the case to begin with, particularly when you have expert witnesses,” he said. “Those are going to be expensive cases.” Clancy’s defense will likely push to drop the charges Bailey expects her defense attorney to aggressively lobby against another trial, making a case to the district attorney’s office along the lines of: “‘Why are you doing this to this poor woman?

She’s still clearly obviously suffering. She’s been punished with her paralysis and, worse than that, the loss of her three children.’” A conviction could mean life in prison for Clancy, while an acquittal might lead to confinement in a mental health facility. Karen Read was another high-profile mistrial in Mas…