{"id":2050,"date":"2026-10-02T15:03:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T10:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2050"},"modified":"2026-10-02T15:03:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T10:03:46","slug":"us-judge-denies-request-to-find-lindsay-clancy-not-guilty-after-mistrial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2050","title":{"rendered":"US judge denies request to find Lindsay Clancy not guilty after mistrial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Massachusetts judge who oversaw Lindsay Clancy\u2019s \u200cmurder trial rejected a request on Thursday by her lawyers to declare her not guilty of murder, saying prosecutors presented sufficient evidence for a jury to find her responsible for killing her three young children in 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clancy\u2019s lawyers had urged Judge William Sullivan in Plymouth to conclude that \u200bprosecutors had failed to prove she could be held criminally responsible for her children\u2019s deaths despite suffering from \u200bwhat they said was mental illness. Sullivan declared a mistrial on September 4 after the jury \u2060deadlocked.<\/p>\n

No one at that trial disputed that Clancy strangled her three children with exercise bands on January 24, 2023, in \u200bthe basement of their home in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. She then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a \u200bsecond-story window in an attempt to end her own life, leaving her paralysed.<\/p>\n

But Clancy\u2019s lawyers contended at a post-trial hearing earlier this week that prosecutors had failed to present any evidence during the trial proving she had killed Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan.<\/p>\n

They also argued \u200bthe evidence showed Clancy was in the throes of postpartum psychosis at the time and should be found not guilty by \u200breason of insanity, known in Massachusetts as lack of criminal responsibility.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, though, said prosecutors had presented enough physical and circumstantial evidence to allow \u200ca jury \u2060to conclude that Clancy was the one who strangled the children and was criminally responsible for killing them.<\/p>\n

He cited testimony by the prosecution\u2019s expert witnesses who \u201ctestified that it was their opinion that the defendant did not lack substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality or wrongfulness of her conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the defendant also produced expert witnesses who disagreed with the Commonwealth\u2019s experts, it is within \u200bthe discretion of the fact \u200bfinder to place little \u2060or no weight on that evidence,\u201d Sullivan wrote.<\/p>\n

Defence attorney Kevin Reddington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz\u2019s office has yet to lay out its \u200bplans for a potential retrial of the 36-year-old. Sullivan at a hearing on Tuesday stressed \u200bthat he did \u2060not want the case to linger and told the parties to be ready to discuss a date for a retrial at a November 2 hearing.<\/p>\n

If convicted on first-degree murder charges, Clancy would face a sentence of life in prison.<\/p>\n

Several jurors in televised interviews after the \u2060initial \u200btrial said that but for the one holdout juror, they had been prepared \u200bto find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity.<\/p>\n

If found not guilty on those grounds, she would be committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation. \u200bHer commitment would then be subject to regular review by the court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Massachusetts judge who oversaw Lindsay Clancy\u2019s \u200cmurder trial rejected a request on Thursday by her lawyers to declare her not guilty of murder, saying prosecutors presented sufficient evidence for a jury to find her responsible for killing her three young children in 2023. Clancy\u2019s lawyers had urged Judge William Sullivan in Plymouth to conclude that \u200bprosecutors had failed to prove she could be held criminally responsible for her children\u2019s deaths despite suffering from \u200bwhat they said was mental illness. Sullivan declared a mistrial on September 4 after the jury…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}