Lindsay Clancy never disputed strangling her 3 kids with exercise bands, and now she is in court asking a judge to drop her murder charges

Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother facing murder charges in the deaths of her three young children, has returned to court in a bid to have those charges dropped. As first highlighted by Al Jazeera, her lawyers are urging a judge to dismiss the first-degree murder charges, arguing that retrying her would violate her constitutional rights.

Her initial trial in August ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a verdict. Clancy’s legal team presented their arguments to Judge William Sullivan on Monday.

Prosecutors have said they intend to retry Clancy if the case moves forward, although they have not decided whether she would face the same first-degree murder charges again. The case stems from 2023, when Clancy is accused of strangling her three children with exercise bands at her home in Duxbury, a suburb of Boston. She then attempted to take her own life and was left paralyzed.

The defense believes the judge should have dug deeper into the jury notes

At Monday’s hearing, defense lawyer Martin G. Weinberg argued that Judge Sullivan should have investigated further after the jury foreperson sent two notes. These notes indicated that a juror, identified as Michael Desronvil, was not following the rules during deliberations. Weinberg believes more questioning could have revealed grounds to remove Desronvil and let deliberations continue.

Judge Sullivan spoke with each juror after receiving the notes. He reminded them of their duties and explained reasonable doubt, asking if they could apply the law, and all jurors confirmed they could.

Weinberg contended that Sullivan’s actions did not go far enough. He suggested that a juror who claimed they could follow the law might have been lying, and that the situation warranted questioning the foreperson separately to learn more about what was happening.

Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague argued there was no indication that the holdout juror’s disagreement came from personal bias or an inability to deliberate. Instead, she suggested it was simply a different assessment of the evidence.

Sprague said the judge handled the jury impasse appropriately, and that one juror holding out did not mean Sullivan should risk interfering with deliberations by questioning him further. “It is clear from the record this juror did not refuse to deliberate. He refused to agree,” she said.

Another defense lawyer, Kevin Reddington, accused the lone holdout juror of using a mobile phone to research terms related to the case. Reddington also questioned whether the juror had been truthful during jury selection.

Clancy has never disputed killing her three young children. However, her lawyers have argued that she suffered from postpartum psychosis and was unable to control her behavior at the time. Her ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, testified about her declining mental health during the trial.

Prosecutors have acknowledged that Clancy, now 36, had mental health problems. Still, they insist she acted deliberately and understood her actions were wrong.

Judge Sullivan did not immediately rule on the motion to dismiss the charges. He has scheduled another hearing for November 16 and suggested a retrial could begin in March.

Massachusetts’s request for a gag order is also expected to be discussed at the next hearing. The order would bar lawyers and their supporters from making extrajudicial statements to the media that could substantially prejudice the criminal proceeding.