I think this is the holdout.
Posted on 09/04/2026 4:25:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
A jury room fight has burst into the open in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial — and one holdout may now stand between the case and a final verdict.
After six days of deliberations, Clancy’s defense attorney asked the judge to remove a juror accused by the foreperson of refusing to follow the law on reasonable doubt.
The judge said no.
That leaves a panel that appears to be split 11-1 headed back for yet another day of deliberations, with a mistrial now looming over one of the most closely watched trials in the country.
The court has not published a formal ballot count. Sullivan’s own reference to one juror and the other 11 nevertheless made the basic divide unusually plain.
Defense Makes a Direct Move Against the Holdout
According to the Associated Press, the jury foreperson sent Judge William Sullivan a note saying one juror would not follow the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt. It was the panel’s third signal of serious trouble after two earlier notes said the jury could not agree.
Sullivan then called jurors up one at a time and questioned them privately about whether they could follow his legal instructions. Afterward, he brought the panel back together, reread the reasonable-doubt standard and the prosecution’s burden of proof, and ordered the jurors to resume deliberating.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington objected after jurors were sent out again. He asked Sullivan to remove the juror, arguing that a panel that had already worked for nearly a week could be pushed into a mistrial because one member had rejected the court’s instruction.
Sullivan refused the motion and kept all 12 jurors on the case. He said removing a juror during deliberations is an extraordinarily sensitive step and that he would not take sides between one member and the other 11 based on a dispute inside the jury room.
That statement strongly suggests an 11-1 divide. It does not, however, establish a publicly confirmed ballot count or tell the public exactly how every juror voted on each possible verdict.
The panel had already told Sullivan twice that it could not reach a unanimous decision. Thursday’s note was different because it raised an accusation about one juror’s willingness to apply the law, turning a private disagreement into an issue the attorneys had to address in open court.
Reddington warned that the unresolved dispute could produce a mistrial. The judge sent the jurors home shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern and ordered them back Friday morning.
Why the Judge Would Not Remove the Juror
CBS News Boston reported that prosecutor Jennifer Sprague backed the judge’s approach, arguing that the private nature of deliberations makes it impossible to determine which jurors are right about the dispute. She said individual assurances from the jurors and a renewed instruction to the full panel were enough.
Local legal analyst Jennifer Roman called it a rare and difficult situation for the court. A judge must make sure jurors follow the law, but singling out one member after complaints from the rest of the panel can look like pressure to abandon a sincerely held vote.
The jury had already declared itself deadlocked twice after beginning deliberations the previous Thursday. Sullivan responded Wednesday with Massachusetts’ last-resort instruction for divided juries, urging jurors to reconsider opposing views without surrendering honest convictions merely to reach a verdict.
They deliberated through Thursday and still came back empty-handed. Court ended shortly after 4 p.m., with a seventh day of deliberations ordered for Friday morning.
The panel includes nine women and three men. Jurors are weighing five possible outcomes: not guilty by reason of insanity, not guilty, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter.
Every route requires unanimity.
Reddington said after court that he does not want a mistrial and expects the juror dispute to be argued again Friday. If no agreement is possible, prosecutors could eventually face a choice among retrying Clancy, dropping the charges, or pursuing a negotiated resolution.
The Case Behind the Deadlock
At the center of the trial are the deaths of three children: 5-year-old Cora Clancy, 3-year-old Dawson Clancy, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy.
The children were killed in the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on January 24, 2023. Their mother, Lindsay Clancy, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her.
The defense does not dispute that Clancy killed the children. Instead, Reddington argues that postpartum psychosis and the effects of medication left her unable to understand the wrongfulness of her actions.
Prosecutors have taken the opposite position. They contend that Clancy planned the killings, sent her husband out of the house, and knew right from wrong.
The deadlock is not over whether the children died at their mother’s hands. It is over whether Clancy was criminally responsible at the time and, if so, which offense the evidence proves.
One More Day — Then What?
The jury is scheduled to return Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern for a seventh day of deliberations.
If the split holds, Sullivan could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to retry Clancy, drop the charges, or seek another resolution.
For now, the case remains exactly where it has been for nearly a week: 12 jurors in a room, an unresolved dispute over criminal responsibility, and one vote that could determine whether this trial ends with a verdict at all.
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Could be the defense attorney is just that arrogant to think he has won this case and is pissed it will go for naught if the jury is hung and a mistrial declared (which I suspect will be the outcome). If it turns out he knew this all for a fact, I agree - how did he know it is 11-1 and the 1 is trying to convict her. This case sure does smell a great deal. There is true evil in the world - we don’t have to make excuses for it.
Because one juror believes reasonable doubt has not been established does not mean that juror is wrong. Nor does it mean that the foreman’s contention that one juror is not following the law is correct.
I know of times when a jury will deliver a verdict that disregards the facts just because they want to be finished and go home.
Apparently, one man is all that is stopping this evil bitch from getting off.
Women should not be allowed on juries either. Remove the 19th Amendment.
The thinking is the holdout is a leaning guilty because he/she hasn’t met reasonable doubt in their thinking of how all this transpired. He/she hasn’t been swayed by the 18-minute psychotic episode defense. That’s why the Defense Attorney wants that juror gone.
No, as an Amendment, it is considered as part of the constitution. It would have to be repealed with another Amendment.
That’s the way I read it also.
Karen Read was framed by dirty cops and her bf was not hit by a car. None the less, Mass is a f*ed up state, owned by the ccp.
Just to put it in perspective, a man strangled his 5 children in the basement in 2014 (what is it about basements?). It took the jury 2 hours to convict and he received the death penalty. No men stood outside the courtroom and bawled their eye out for him.
I think this is the holdout.
I have to wonder of what charges the jury shares the most agreement with.I doubt they all just want to let her walk but i’ll bet it’s the mental impairment verdict which will send her to a mental hospital for a long time.
Meanwhile i just read a verdict against a Scizo man who was found guilty killing all 5 of his kids and it’s possibly the death penalty for him. Now i don’t know if the death penalty still has to be voted or if final sentencing by the judge will lead to death, but the jury found him guilty(in just 2 hours) in the case where the dealth penalty was not taken off the table.
I was reading something about that. 2014? Has the sentence been carried out or is he still languishing on death row somewhere awaiting his appeals?
This woman should get the chair.
For a woman who lost her children, she doesn’t seem all that sad about it.
It might be 11 members leaning too much into reasonable doubt on certain counts and one member saying...”I have no doubts, the defendent is guilty and should not even be breathing!”
Agreed. She needs to be put down, she has forfeited her right to exist.
“””This raises the question: How does this defense attorney know how that one juror is voting.”””
Apparently, the note from the Jury Forewoman to the Judge indicated that one juror was not agreeing with the rest.
“Big Red” (as his fans in pink call him) THE BABY KILLER is trying to take control of the court. I hate friggin’ lawyers more than I do Feral “judges”.
yes and it will set a precedent for every murderer to argue diminished capacity because ...”well I gotta be nuts if I is killing someone...so gibs me dat govmint disabily check now!”
“Karen Read was framed by dirty cops”
Ok....why?
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