PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Jury deliberations resumed for a fifth day Wednesday in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, after the judge questioned jurors one by one about the arrest of a woman accused of filming them as they left the courthouse the previous day, Clancy's lawyer said.
A former labor and delivery nurse, Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her three young children at the family's Massachusetts home in 2023, but she says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue that she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
Judge William Sullivan opened Wednesday's proceedings by giving a general admonishment to everyone in the courtroom about following his orders on how people should conduct themselves.
“And everybody should be well aware that the order and that statute is being enforced, and will be enforced,” he said. "So I just wanted to put that out there, with no follow-up and editorial comment.”
While Sullivan didn’t mention it directly in court, the order he referenced bars journalists covering the trial from photographing or filming the jury at any time until the case concludes. It also says “No person shall contact, follow, interview, or communicate in any way with a juror prior to the discharge of the jury or otherwise harass or tamper with a juror.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
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Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense interest, with reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also sparked deep divisions over her culpability and maternal mental health after childbirth.
The woman who was arrested, Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, Massachusetts, was arraigned Wednesday in the same courthouse on a charge of intimidation of a witness, jurors, or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings. A not-guilty plea was entered on her behalf and she was released without having to post bail, but was ordered to stay away from the court, the jurors and any witnesses in the case.
Light’s attorney, Jennifer White, called it a “misunderstanding” and said that Light, a retired nurse, was only trying to take a photo of Clancy and “not interact with the jurors.”
A prosecutor said Light was parked in a restricted area behind the courthouse and is accused of filming the jurors as they left court.
The Clancy jurors, meanwhile, resumed deliberations after having told the judge on Tuesday that they couldn’t agree on whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her children. Sullivan instructed them to keep trying. They deliberated for the rest of the day before asking to go home at 3:30 p.m.
Jurors have heard testimony from relatives and doctors about how her mental health declined in the months before the killings and how her treatment included several medications and a short stay in a psychiatric hospital. Medical experts hired by the prosecution and the defense reached sharply different conclusions about her psychiatric state when she killed the children.
If jurors ultimately can’t agree on a verdict, the judge could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges or try to negotiate a plea deal with her lawyer.
After court ended Tuesday, Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, said he saw it as a good sign that the jury kept working.
“The fact that they have not said that they’re done is very, very heartening,” he said. “Obviously, they’re working very hard.”
If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines that she poses a danger to the public.
