Lindsay Clancy, the 36-year-old Duxbury, Massachusetts mother who strangled her three young children with exercise bands in 2023, returned to court Monday as her defence team moved to have first-degree murder charges dismissed entirely. The motion rests on a constitutional argument: retrying her after the September mistrial would violate double jeopardy protections, her lawyers contend, because judicial and juror misconduct tainted the first proceeding. The defence's case hinges on two jury-room notes from the foreperson flagging that juror Michael Desronvil was not following deliberation rules. Defence lawyer Martin G. Weinberg argued that Judge William Sullivan's response — a collective reminder to all jurors about duties and reasonable doubt — was inadequate. Sullivan never questioned the foreperson separately to learn the specific nature of the problem, Weinberg said, meaning a juror who claimed to follow the law "could have been lying" without detection. Defence lawyer Kevin Reddington escalated the allegation further, accusing Desronvil of using a mobile phone to research case-related terms during deliberations and questioning whether the juror had been truthful during jury selection. If substantiated, either claim could constitute grounds for a finding that the mistrial resulted from prosecutorial or judicial failure rather than a genuine deadlock — a distinction that matters enormously for whether retrial is constitutionally permissible. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague pushed back on the entire framing. The holdout juror did not refuse to deliberate, she argued — he refused to agree, which is the fundamental right of any juror. Sullivan's handling of the impasse was appropriate, and deeper interrogation of a dissenting juror risked improperly interfering with deliberations. The distinction between a juror who dissents on the evidence and one who is incapable of deliberating is legally critical, and Sprague argued the record supports the former. Clancy has never disputed killing five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and seven-month-old Callan. Her defence rests entirely on the claim that postpartum psychosis left her unable to control her behaviour. Prosecutors have acknowledged her mental health difficulties but maintain she acted deliberately and understood her actions were wrong. The gap between those two positions is the entire case. Sullivan did not rule Monday. He scheduled another hearing for November 16 and indicated a retrial could begin as early as March. Meanwhile, the state has requested a gag order to prevent lawyers and their supporters from making extrajudicial media statements that could prejudice the proceedings — a signal that the public dimension of this case is becoming a concern for the court. Prosecutors have not committed to re-charging at the first-degree level, leaving open the possibility of reduced charges. The defence's strategy is clear: force the state to either accept the mistrial outcome or face a constitutional challenge that could end the case before a second jury is ever seated.
