Sullivan sets November 2 hearing on remaining defense motions in case
Lindsay Clancy returned to Plymouth superior court on Tuesday as her defense team moved to head off a retrial in the 2023 killings of her three young children, asking Judge William Sullivan to declare her not guilty and bar a second trial on double jeopardy grounds.
Sullivan took up the motions weeks after declaring a mistrial on September 4, when a single juror prevented the 12-member jury from reaching a unanimous verdict on whether to convict Clancy or find her not guilty by reason of insanity. The Plymouth county district attorney’s office, led by Timothy Cruz, has in the weeks since been silent on whether it plans to retry Clancy, 36, on first-degree murder charges, which carry a life sentence.
No one at Clancy’s first trial disputed that she strangled her three children with exercise bands on 24 January 2023 in the basement of the family’s home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb. She then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-story window in an attempt to end her own life, an act that left her paralyzed.
Defense lawyer Kevin Reddington sought during the first trial to convince jurors that Clancy did not understand what she was doing was wrong and that she had been in the throes of postpartum psychosis when she killed Cora, five; Dawson, three; and eight-month-old Callan. During Tuesday’s hearing, Reddington told Sullivan there was a “total and complete lack of evidence” at the trial to prove Clancy killed the children and knew her actions were wrong.
Reddington argued that non-lawyers had trouble understanding the concept of admitting culpability while maintaining a lack of criminal responsibility, a misunderstanding he said was leading many members of the public to call Clancy a “demon” and call for her execution. “This is coming from politicians, from President Trump all the way down,” Reddington said.
Several jurors have stated in televised interviews that but for the holdout, they had been prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, a Massachusetts finding known as lack of criminal responsibility. If found not guilty on those grounds, she would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation, with her commitment then subject to regular court review.
Prosecutors have several options, including seeking a plea deal or retrying Clancy on lesser second-degree murder charges, which would give her the option to waive a jury trial and proceed before a judge.
Clancy’s lawyers filed a series of motions aimed at preventing a retrial, urging Sullivan to declare her not guilty and bar a second prosecution. They argued that jurors delivered notes to the judge making clear the holdout had been refusing to apply the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt, and that the juror should have been dismissed rather than allowing the case to be retried. Her attorneys also asked Sullivan to allow them to review normally confidential records about the jury and the holdout and to question the holdout about his truthfulness during jury selection and his cellphone use.
Sullivan said he would take up those issues and other pending motions at a 2 November hearing. The holdout’s lawyer, Edward Paltzik, told Fox News in an interview that aired Monday that his client Michael Desronvil “had zero doubt” and “rigidly applied the reasonable doubt standard.”