JUST IN: Judge Issues ‘Last Resort’ Order As Lindsay Clancy Jury Remains Deadlocked For Second Consecutive Day

The jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial reported for a second consecutive day that it could not reach a unanimous verdict, prompting the judge to issue a special instruction and send the panel back to continue deliberations.

Shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the fifth day of deliberations, jurors in Plymouth Superior Court informed Judge William Sullivan that they remained at an impasse.

Sullivan then delivered a Tuey-Rodriguez charge, also known as a dynamite instruction, used in Massachusetts when a jury reports deadlock. The instruction tells jurors that they were selected in the same way any future jury would be, that there is no reason to expect a more capable panel or clearer evidence, and that they should reconsider their positions while not abandoning honestly held views.

The judge then directed them to resume deliberations.

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BREAKING: The judge in the Lindsay Clancy trial gives the desperately deadlocked jury a last resort "Tuey-Rodriguez" charge after five days of deliberation.

The "Tuey-Rodriguez" charge is an instruction urging the jury to try again and reach a unanimous verdict. pic.twitter.com/DlcBJOv5D0

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 2, 2026

The first deadlock note came Tuesday morning, about an hour into the fourth day of talks. Jurors wrote that after many hours they were “unable to come to a unanimous decision.” Sullivan sent them back, citing the length of the trial, more than 80 witnesses, and more than 300 exhibits. They continued until about 3:30 p.m., when they asked to leave early and return Wednesday.

Deliberations began on the afternoon of August 27 after a trial that lasted roughly six weeks. The jury of nine women and three men had logged more than 23 hours over four days by the end of Tuesday. Wednesday morning was delayed while the judge questioned each juror individually after a woman was arrested outside the courthouse and charged with witness intimidation for allegedly recording jurors, according to a report from CBS News.

There is no fixed time limit on deliberations. A judge may keep a jury working as long as a unanimous verdict still appears possible. Several legal observers, however, have described Wednesday’s instruction as a last substantial effort to produce a decision.

If the jury reports again that it cannot agree, Sullivan can declare a mistrial. In that event the case would return to its pretrial status, while Clancy would remain charged and held at a psychiatric hospital.

Prosecutors could retry the case before a new jury, negotiate a plea, or decline to proceed. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has said he expects prosecutors would seek another trial.

Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, has admitted to killing her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — on January 24, 2023, by strangling them with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s Duxbury home while her husband was out of the house. She then slashed her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window in a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed from the waist down.

Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and is asserting a lack of criminal responsibility, commonly known as an insanity defense, based on claims of postpartum psychosis and other mental health conditions.

A forensic psychologist called by the prosecution, Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, testified that Clancy was criminally responsible. He described her reported auditory hallucination — which Clancy described as a male voice that she claims instructed her to kill the children so she could kill herself — as an unusual pattern because she reported the voice only during the incident itself. Heilbrun concluded that Clancy understood the wrongfulness of her actions and retained the capacity to conform her conduct to the law.

Possible verdicts include first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

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