Lindsay Clancy murder trial jury deadlocked. What happens next?
USA TODAY’s Melina Khan broke down what happens if the jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial can’t come to a verdict.
As jury deliberations drag on in Lindsay Clancy’s triple murder trial, a key decision could rest with a longtime district attorney in the event of a mistrial.
After five days of deliberations, no verdict has been reached. If the deadlocked jury can’t come to a consensus, the judge will declare a mistrial and it will be up to Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s office to decide whether to retry the case.
Legal observers say the district attorney, who touts that he has “aggressively prosecuted crime,” almost certainly would retry the case.
“Absolutely,” said Rosemary Scapicchio, a defense attorney who has represented clients prosecuted by Cruz’s office. “I believe with every fiber of my being he would do it again. He is not deterred by anything that happened in that courtroom.”
Prosecutors allege Clancy, 36, planned the killings by sending her husband out on errands and then strangling her three children – Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months – with exercise bands in the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts home while he was gone. Clancy then cut her wrists and neck and jumped out of a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed.
While Clancy was still being treated for her injuries just days after the killings, Cruz pledged that Clancy would be charged with murder “as soon as she is able.”
Clancy pleaded not guilty. Her attorney Kevin Reddington has not denied that she strangled her children but said she can’t be held criminally responsible, Massachusetts’ version of the insanity defense, because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
Who is Timothy Cruz, the district attorney prosecuting Lindsay Clancy?
Cruz’s legal career has spanned four decades, beginning as assistant district attorney in Plymouth County in 1985, according to his website. Cruz prosecuted “thousands of criminal cases” during his time in the role before entering private practice, the site said.
He has served as the district attorney in Plymouth County since he was appointed in 2001. Since then, he has repeatedly won re-election, including fending off a challenge from a Democratic civil rights lawyer in 2022, and is currently running unopposed.
“You make sure you get justice for everybody. Every person,” Cruz said in a debate with Rahsaan Hall, prior to the 2022 election. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, we need to continue to work together. When you do that, you get good results like we’ve been getting here in Plymouth County.”
Cruz told the Enterprise, part of the USA TODAY Network, in 2022 that he takes pride in being DA for the county where he was born (Brockton) and grew up (West Bridgewater).
“I’m absolutely nothing special,” Cruz said. “I went to a public school. I was lucky that I had parents that directed me to do the right thing. And when I didn’t do the right thing, I heard about it and I learned about it.”
Cruz has been outspoken critic of progressive prosecutors. His website touts that he has “aggressively prosecuted crime” in the county, a sentiment echoed by some who have faced his team in court, including Scapicchio and Craig Tavares, a public defender who has worked in Plymouth County for more than a decade.
“His office takes a no-holds-barred approach in prosecuting cases,” Tavares told the Boston Globe. “They might have probable cause for one offense, but instead of charging that offense, they charge several offenses, or greater offenses so that, on paper, it’s a more serious case.”
Cruz’s office has also previously faced controversy, including over the use of confidential informants, the Globe reported in 2015.
Additionally, in 2017 the state agreed to pay $248,000 to settle a wrongful termination suit against Cruz by a former prosecutor. The settlement came after four years of contentious litigation and controversy, hours of depositions and two failed mediation attempts.
“The office has been plagued with problems but it doesn’t appear that any problem is insurmountable to the voters of Plymouth County,” said Scapicchio.
Will prosecutors retry Lindsay Clancy if trial ends in hung jury?
Though two assistant district attorneys in Cruz’s office handled the bulk of questioning during the trial, Cruz’s role has loomed large since the start of a closely-watched trial. Reddington called out Cruz, who was sitting in the front row of the courtroom, and told jurors the case against Clancy is “not a righteous prosecution.”
“He knew, as did his office, the facts of this case,” Reddington said in his opening statement. “And he knew when he brought this charge that it was going to kill the soul of this young woman.”
Since jurors began deliberating on Aug. 27, they have twice reported being deadlocked. Judge William Sullivan gave them what’s known as a Tuey-Rodriguez charge, a special set of instructions similar to an Allen charge, and instructed them to continue deliberations on Sept. 3.
If jurors can’t reach a consensus, Cruz’s office will have to decide whether to retry the case. Attorney Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor with expertise in criminal law, professional responsibility and mental disability law, told the Patriot Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network, that in cases such as Clancy’s, the prosecution almost certainly will pursue a second trial.
Reddington told reporters outside the courthouse he, too, expects Cruz will put Clancy on trial in front of a new jury if no verdict is reached.
“Tim Cruz will never drop it, that’s for sure,” Reddington said.
Contributing: Ben Berke and Chris Helms, the Enterprise; Erin Tiernan, the Patriot Ledger