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Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts woman accused of murdering her three children, is due back in court on Monday as lawyers discuss how her case should proceed, according to the BBC.
Her defence team is seeking to have the charges dismissed, while prosecutors have indicated they want to continue pursuing the case. Prosecutors could also reduce the charges in a second trial or drop them altogether.
Last week, opposing a defence motion to dismiss the case, prosecutors said the state should be allowed to “continue to pursue justice for Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy”. Clancy’s first trial ended in a mistrial after the 12-member jury could not reach a consensus.
The 36-year-old has not denied killing her children in 2023. Her lawyers argue that she was experiencing severe postpartum psychosis at the time; prosecutors say the killings were intentional.
Defence challenges the case’s next steps
A jury heard the case in August 2026 but did not reach a unanimous decision on whether prosecutors had proved Clancy’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as required under US law. A judge declared a mistrial in early September.
At a later court appearance that month, Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, asked the judge to dismiss the case. Prosecutors said the state had met its burden of proving her guilt, but the hearing did not resolve whether the charges would be dismissed, retried as they stood or replaced by lesser charges.
Judge William Sullivan said in September that he wanted to “get this thing moving” and asked the parties to be ready to discuss possible trial dates at the November hearing. Reddington said he could not go to trial before June 2027 if the case were retried.
District Attorney Timothy Cruz said at the time that prosecutors had not decided whether to seek a retrial. “We’re doing our due diligence; we’re going to continue doing that,” he said. “We’re going to do what we can for the children. That’s what this case is about.”
Clancy’s lawyers have pursued several routes to have the charges dismissed or dropped. In September, Reddington asked for her to be found not guilty under Rule 25, a Massachusetts provision allowing that outcome if prosecutors have not presented enough evidence at trial. The request was denied.
Judge Sullivan is due to hear arguments on several motions on Monday. Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor and mental health law expert, told the BBC the hearing is likely to focus on whether the jury was genuinely deadlocked or the trial was improperly ended.
Cucolo said Reddington could argue that another trial would violate Clancy’s constitutional protection against double jeopardy, which bars a person from being tried twice for the same crime. She said legal experts consider that outcome unlikely.
“The public attention that’s been put on this trial and the need to have some conclusion in the near future, I think that the judge is going to say that this mistrial was appropriate, was legally accurate, and that they need to now look to set a date for a retrial,” Cucolo said.
Prosecutors oppose dismissal of charges
Prosecutors have not explicitly announced that they will seek a retrial, but Cruz and the lawyers who presented the case have repeatedly said they want justice for Clancy’s children.
Last week, prosecutors asked Sullivan to reject the motion to dismiss the charges on double-jeopardy grounds. They argued that the court had properly followed mistrial procedures and that the state was entitled to pursue the case again.
“Because a mistrial was properly declared due to the manifest necessity of a deadlocked jury, the defendant’s motion to dismiss should be denied,” prosecutors wrote in their filing.
Sullivan could decide on Monday whether the case may proceed or issue a written ruling later, criminal defence lawyer Elyse Hershon told the BBC. The District Attorney’s Office could announce how it intends to proceed before the hearing, during it or days afterwards, she said.
“The three charges of first-degree murder are still pending; they are still hanging over Lindsay Clancy’s head unless and until the DA announces otherwise,” Hershon said.
Hershon said Cruz has previously made comments and announcements about the case at press conferences after court proceedings, and could do so again this week. She also said Sullivan may press both sides to put a trial date on the calendar, even if it is not yet certain there will be a jury trial.
“It does not mean it’s definitely going to be a jury trial, but [they will want to] put something in the books, hold those dates. It’s a big chunk of time. It’s four, five, six weeks of the court calendar; that’s hard to fit in at the last minute,” she said.
“I would anticipate they block off the time while they go through all these motions and the DA’s office figures out what it wants to do,” Hershon added.
