Lindsay Clancy’s lawyers renewed their claim Thursday that the trial judge incorrectly believed he “had no choice but to declare a mistrial” after jurors reported they were deadlocked, with 11 to 1 voting to find her not guilty of killing her three children based on insanity.
The defense argued in court filings that first-degree murder charges against Clancy should be dismissed on double jeopardy grounds because Superior Court Judge William F. Sullivan failed to conduct an adequate inquiry after the jury foreperson sent a note claiming that a lone juror was failing to follow the law on reasonable doubt.
At the time, Sullivan questioned each juror at sidebar about whether they were able to follow his instructions on the law, but denied a defense request to delve deeper, saying it wouldn’t be proper to intrude on jury deliberations. He also repeated his instructions on reasonable doubt.
Sullivan denied a defense request to excuse the holdout juror and replace him with one of the alternates. And a single justice of the state’s highest court denied an emergency appeal by Reddington to intervene.
“There are a number of ways in which this Court could have conducted further inquiry without impermissible coercion,” Clancy’s lawyers, Kevin Reddington and Martin G. Weinberg, wrote Thursday in response to a prosecution filing. The defense team argued that the judge could have asked the foreperson what made her believe the holdout was not following the law regarding reasonable doubt, without disclosing the substance of deliberations.
In a filing Wednesday opposing Clancy’s motion to dismiss the charges, prosecutors wrote that the judge “took every possible tack to address the foreperson’s notes while avoiding the risk of pressuring the dissenting juror or exposing the jury’s private deliberations.”
On Monday morning, Clancy is scheduled to be back in Plymouth Superior Court as Sullivan holds a hearing on a flurry of motions, including the defense’s bid to dismiss all charges and the prosecution’s request for a gag order to prevent Clancy’s lawyers from speaking about the high-profile case.
Clancy, 36, admitted to strangling 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan with exercise bands in the basement of their Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023, after sending her husband, Patrick, out to pick up medication and takeout for dinner. However, she asserted she suffered a postpartum psychotic episode and couldn’t resist a man’s voice she hallucinated commanding her to kill them and herself. Afterward, she slashed her neck and wrists and jumped out of a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Prosecutors allege the murders were premeditated by Clancy, who was deeply depressed and wanted to kill herself and take her children with her.
On Sept. 4, Sullivan declared a mistrial following a six-week trial and about 39 hours of deliberations over seven days.
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz has yet to announce whether he will retry Clancy on first-degree murder charges, which would require the empanelment of another jury. If he reduces the charges to second-degree murder, Clancy could waive her right to a jury trial and let a judge decide her fate.
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her @shelleymurph.