Lindsay Clancy Deadlock: Tuey-Rodriguez Charge Explained

The Massachusetts judge presiding over Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial issued a Tuey-Rodriguez charge to jurors Wednesday after they told the court for a second time that they could not reach a unanimous verdict.

The instruction is used when a jury appears deadlocked, urging panel members to continue deliberating while making clear that no juror should give up a sincerely held view simply for the sake of reaching a decision.

Judge William Sullivan had sent the jury back to continue deliberations Tuesday after jurors first signaled they were having difficulty agreeing. When they later reported another impasse, Sullivan read the formal charge.

Specific to Massachusetts, the Tuey-Rodriguez charge is sometimes referred to as a “dynamite charge” because it is designed to help move deliberations past a stalemate without pressuring jurors into a verdict.

The instruction takes its name from two Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions. In Commonwealth v. Tuey (1851), the court approved an instruction encouraging deadlocked jurors to re-examine their views with an open mind. More than a century later, in Commonwealth v. Rodriguez (1973), the state’s highest court revised that language to remove pressure on minority or holdout jurors, creating a neutral instruction that asks all jurors to carefully consider one another’s views while maintaining their own honestly held convictions.

Receiving a Tuey-Rodriguez charge does not mean a verdict is imminent. The instruction is generally considered a necessary step before a judge declares a mistrial because of a hung jury, although it often results in jurors reaching a unanimous verdict after further deliberations.

Retired Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Thomas Drechsler told News Media the instruction is typically given only after a judge determines jurors have fully deliberated but remain deadlocked.

“The charge encourages the jurors to rethink their own feelings in light of what other jurors feel” while reminding them that no one is in a better position to decide the case than the jurors who heard all of the evidence, Drechsler said.

If jurors report they remain deadlocked after receiving the instruction, “there’s a higher likelihood” the case could end in a mistrial, Drechsler said, though he noted he has seen juries return verdicts after receiving a Tuey-Rodriguez charge.

Clancy faces three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 deaths of her three children — Cora, Dawson and Callan — at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home.

She does not dispute killing the children but argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible at the time. Prosecutors contend Clancy was legally sane and intentionally planned the killings.

Jurors will continue deliberating after receiving the Tuey-Rodriguez charge. If they remain unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Sullivan could declare a mistrial, leaving prosecutors to decide whether to seek a new trial.