Clancy jurors detail clash with holdout in mistrial aftermath

The jury had spent thirty-eight hours across seven days in a room together, reading evidence, debating the law, and trying to reach unanimity on whether Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children. By Friday afternoon at Plymouth Superior Court, eleven of them had decided she was not—that postpartum psychosis had rendered her unable to form the intent required for murder. One man disagreed. He admitted, according to jurors who later spoke to the press, that he harbored reasonable doubt. He simply would not say she was innocent.

The foreperson, a woman, described the moment to NBC10 Boston with a mix of disbelief and frustration. She had begun filling out the acquittal forms, three of them, her hand moving through the paperwork with what she called excitement. Then the holdout juror spoke. "But I'm still not going to say she's not guilty," he told the room. The foreperson had read him the judge's definition of reasonable doubt. She had watched as another juror, referred to later as "juror two," tried to engage him with the evidence. The man had retrieved exhibits from the cart only once during the entire deliberation period. When pressed to reconsider, he asked if the judge could read the definition of reasonable doubt aloud again. The answer came back quickly: No. The definition was in front of them. They had it.

On Friday, September 6th, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial. The jury had sent three notes over the course of the week—first reporting an impasse, then the foreperson writing separately that one juror was not following the law. In their final message, the panel wrote with what they described as a heavy heart that they could not reach unanimity and would not be able to.

Clancy's trial had consumed seven weeks. She did not dispute the facts of what happened in January 2023: she killed her five-year-old daughter Cora, her three-year-old son Dawson, and her eight-month-old son Callan by strangulation. After that, she jumped from a window in an attempt to end her own life, an act that left her paralyzed. Her defense rested entirely on the claim that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time—a severe mental illness that, under Massachusetts law, could render her not criminally responsible for her actions, even if she committed them.

Kevin Reddington, Clancy's attorney, had contested the mistrial declaration in real time, asking the state Supreme Judicial Court to question the holdout juror about his ability to apply the law as instructed. In a motion filed on Reddington's behalf, appellate attorney Dana Goldblatt accused the man of harboring "bias against those who suffer from debilitating mental illness, a protected category." The court denied the request that same afternoon. Reddington then spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, his frustration evident. The other jurors, he said, had been "so attentive, so beautiful, so wonderful." They had been robbed by one man, he added, "for whatever his agenda was."

On Tuesday morning, appearing on Good Morning America, Reddington returned to the same theme. He said he respects the judicial system and would defend the juror's right to disagree with a verdict. But he drew a sharp distinction between disagreement and refusal to follow the law. "According to the note from the forelady," Reddington said, "he had doubt, but he would not apply the law of reasonable doubt as presented by the judge. That's not right, and that's why I was upset." He spoke about his client's life before the tragedy—a family that had been "very, very, very happy" through the summer of 2022, before Lindsay began receiving medication for postpartum depression in the fall. Her medical providers, he said, had failed her. "This girl's life was ruined."

Meanwhile, Patrick Clancy's legal team moved in a different direction. Through attorney Howard Cooper, the ex-husband issued a statement threatening legal action against what he called a "destructive defamation campaign." Cooper described the campaign as being carried out by "minor celebrities, so-called influencers and outright conspiracy theorists" who were spreading "blatant and baseless falsehoods" about Patrick's involvement in the children's deaths. The statement said law enforcement had been notified and that "every appropriate measure will be pursued to hold them accountable, including legally." Cooper framed the threat as necessary to stop "injurious behavior" and allow Patrick to focus on "preserving the memory of Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy and supporting other women facing perinatal mental health challenges."

The mistrial leaves the case unresolved. Clancy remains in custody. A retrial is possible, though Reddington's motion suggests the defense will pursue appeals challenging the juror's fitness. The question of whether a jury can refuse to apply the law as given—even when a juror admits to reasonable doubt—now sits at the center of a case that has drawn national attention and, in the weeks since the mistrial, considerable online speculation about Patrick Clancy's role in events that remain, legally speaking, still undecided.