Lindsay Clancy returns to court as the prospect of a retrial remains unclear

By Eric Levenson, Nicki Brown, CNN

(CNN) — Lindsay Clancy is set to return to a Massachusetts courtroom Monday for a hearing that could determine the date of her retrial on triple murder charges for the killings of her children – or whether it is held at all.

The parties are expected to discuss scheduling a retrial and defense attempts to investigate a holdout juror whose belief in Clancy’s guilt led to a mistrial in September.

While Judge William Sullivan has already rejected several defense requests, a motion to dismiss the case over double jeopardy and other matters remain unresolved.

Prosecutors have not yet said whether they intend to try Clancy for a second time. And there remains the remote possibility of a plea deal that could end the case outright.

The hearing Monday is the latest development in a triple-murder case that became one of the most hotly debated criminal trials in recent memory this summer before it ended in a mistrial.

Prosecutors had argued Clancy, 36, “acted intentionally, rationally and swiftly” when she fatally strangled her three children in their Duxbury home and attempted suicide in January 2023. Her defense argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time and was not criminally responsible for the deaths of Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and 8-month-old Callan.

Clancy’s trial put a spotlight on maternal mental health, the internet’s tendency toward conspiracy and the ongoing skepticism of the so-called “insanity defense.”

After more than a month of testimony, the 12-person jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision due to a lone holdout juror, leaving an 11-1 split in favor of not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility. Sullivan declared a mistrial due to the deadlock.

Clancy did not testify in the trial. She has been held in Tewksbury Hospital since shortly after the killings and remains partially paralyzed due to her suicide attempt.

She could face life in prison if convicted. If jurors find she cannot be held criminally responsible, the court will likely begin the process of committing her to a psychiatric hospital.

Clancy’s post-trial motions

In the wake of the mistrial, Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington has made several motions seeking to prevent a retrial. In late September, Clancy appeared in court for the first time since the trial ended, and the parties debated several of them.

Reddington is seeking further information on the holdout juror, including certain cell phone records and his juror questionnaire, and asking the judge to question him about some of his sworn statements, according to a filing.

The holdout, Michael Péguy Desronvil, has said his position was misrepresented by some of his fellow jurors who spoke to the press.

Reddington previously asked the court in a filing to hold an evidentiary hearing to further question the lone holdout juror. Sullivan rejected that request on October 21, saying it was raised too late and was an “inappropriate” violation of jury privacy.

“This Court concludes that any further judicial inquiry is inappropriate, given the mandate that the court must not delve into a juror’s subjective reasoning, thought process, view of the case, or relationship to the other jurors, and must not inquire into the jury’s deliberative content, collective thought process, or any disagreement among the jury,” the judge wrote.

In another filing, Reddington asked the judge to dismiss the charges to avoid violating Clancy’s rights protecting her from double jeopardy, a legal ban on prosecuting a person more than once for the same offense. He argued the judge improperly declined to further question the holdout juror or the jury foreperson during deliberations and declared a mistrial without “manifest necessity,” a high legal burden meaning all other options to reach a verdict were exhausted.

In contrast, prosecutors argued in a filing the judge properly questioned the jurors in court and followed the law in declaring a mistrial.

At that September court hearing, Reddington asked the judge to enter a finding of not guilty, arguing prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence that she killed her children. “Where is the evidence that she did this?” he said.

The prosecution called that argument “laughable,” and Judge Sullivan rejected the defense’s argument days afterward.

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CNN’s Lauren del Valle contributed to this report.