Lindsay Clancy Case: Retrial or Plea Deal After 3 Child Deaths

Prosecutors considering a second trial for Lindsay Clancy may confront the same challenge that led to a hung jury in the first proceeding: persuading all 12 Massachusetts jurors to reject her insanity defense.

Jonathan Turley, a Fox News contributor and professor at The George Washington University Law School, said prosecutors must balance the risk of another deadlocked jury against the political and emotional fallout of dropping the case.

“The question is whether they could ever get a jury, particularly in Massachusetts, that would unanimously vote against this defendant,” Turley told News Media. “For prosecutors, they have to weigh that, but they may find the alternative equally unappealing — to simply walk away and say, ‘There are three dead children here, but we just don’t think we could ever win this case.'”

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, said the district attorney’s office should seek a negotiated resolution, though he considers one unlikely given the nature of the case and the defense’s stance. Jurors reportedly split 11-1, with one juror favoring a murder conviction for Clancy in the strangling deaths of her three young children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.

WATCH: Lindsay Clancy plea deal appears unlikely, legal analyst says

“The reason I don’t think there’s any deal to be made here is Reddington has come out during his media tour and said that he’s not going to accept any deal that results in jail time,” he told News Media. “Even if you’re talking about first-degree or second-degree murder, in Massachusetts, first-degree, of course, has no possibility of parole. Second-degree has the possibility of a parole. That’s not something that Reddington and the defense are going to accept.”

Clancy’s defense does not dispute that the 36-year-old former delivery room nurse used exercise bands to choke her three children to death in January 2023. She then attempted to take her own life.

She survived after falling from a second-story window and is now paralyzed.

Her defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, has argued that she is not criminally responsible for the deaths due to mental illness or defect.

Still, he’s said in recent interviews that he is open to talking about a deal, and he told Fox News’ Bryan Llenas last week that if prosecutors reduced the top charge to second-degree murder, he would opt for a bench trial — one without jurors — in the hope that she receives probation as punishment.

“I would like to see [Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz] reduce it to a second-degree so we could possibly waive a jury and try the case before a judge,” he said. “I would see Tim determine that the case should not go forward and dismiss it, or in the alternative fashion, something where Lindsay gets the mental, physical help that she needs rather than criminal prosecution — because I would not ever, ever in a million years have that woman go to Framingham State Prison.”

As prosecutors weigh a potential retrial, Judge William Sullivan is protecting the names of jurors in her mistrial, ordering their identities to be impounded indefinitely and the confidential juror questionnaires to be impounded for at least the next 10 days.

He cited threats and concerns for their safety.

Clancy, who is charged with murder in the strangling deaths of her three children, is due back in court on Sept. 29.