The judge who presided over Lindsay Clancy’s mistrial has ordered the jurors’ names sealed indefinitely, extending a previous order that had temporarily kept their identities confidential.
In a brief order in Plymouth Superior Court, Judge William Sullivan Monday said the names of the jurors would remain impounded “until and unless otherwise ordered by the Court.”
His previous order, issued Sept. 4, had kept their names sealed for a two-week period that had been set to expire Friday.
In issuing the extension order, Sullivan acknowledged that some of the empaneled jurors “have come forward and spoken to the media after the declaration of a mistrial” on Sept. 4.
However, he continued, most jurors “have maintained their anonymity, despite multiple requests to give statements. The Court concludes that there is a risk of immediate and irreparable injury should the list be made available to the public at this time.”
In a separate order Monday, Sullivan also sealed the names of everyone who showed up to the courthouse for jury selection during the week of July 20, when the jurors were empaneled, for 10 days.
“Based upon threats and concerns over juror safety, the Court concludes that immediate and irreparable injury and danger to jurors and to the administration of justice is real and present,” Sullivan wrote in the order.
The case “has garnered and continues to garner significant and divisive attention in Massachusetts, nationally and internationally,” he added. “Based on the circumstances of this trial and the fact that the case continues to receive daily, divisive attention in Massachusetts and beyond, the Court concludes that there is a real and present ‘risk of [personal] harm to the jurors [and] to the integrity of their service.’”
Neither order bars “any juror from identifying himself or herself and/or from speaking to the public about his or her jury service,” he said.
Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder for strangling her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan in the basement of the family’s Duxbury home after sending her husband out to get takeout and a children’s medication on Jan. 24, 2023.
She cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window in an effort to end her own life after the slayings and is now paralyzed from the waist down.
At trial, Clancy admitted she killed her children but argued through counsel that she wasn’t criminally responsible because she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis, a strategy commonly known as the insanity defense.
Jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal for lack of criminal responsibility, some have said in interviews. Sullivan declared a mistrial Sept. 4 when jurors said they remained deadlocked after some 38 hours of deliberations over multiple days.
The holdout juror has his own history with the justice system, including a previous charge for domestic violence, the Globe reported Tuesday.
Prosecutors haven’t said whether they intend to retry Clancy, who remains hospitalized at the state-run Tewksbury Hospital.
Should she be acquitted for lack of criminal responsibility at a possible retrial, Clancy would not go free but would instead be sent to a state psychiatric hospital where she would come up for periodic reviews to determine whether she can safely live in the community.
The next hearing in the high-profile case is scheduled for Sept. 29, records show.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.