Lindsay Clancy’s defense team is pursuing a rare legal maneuver that could end her prosecution entirely.
Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s attorney, informed Judge William Sullivan in Massachusetts that he will file under Rule 25(b)(2), a procedural mechanism that permits a trial judge to enter a not guilty finding even after a hung jury triggered a mistrial. The case, which involved seven weeks of testimony and six days of deadlocked deliberations before the mistrial was declared, centered on whether Clancy, a former nurse, could distinguish right from wrong when she killed her three young children in the basement of their family home in 2023.
Marian Braccia, a former assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, explained the rule’s significance to People: “A rule 25 motion is essentially a ‘sufficiency of the evidence’ mechanism. It allows the trial judge to enter a finding of not guilty if the judge concludes that the Commonwealth’s evidence was legally insufficient to sustain the conviction.”
Braccia continued: “In Massachusetts, the Rule 25 specifically contemplates a judge deciding a motion like this after a jury has been discharged without returning a verdict.”
Clancy’s defense throughout the trial maintained that postpartum psychosis rendered her unable to comprehend the criminality of her actions. Prosecutors countered that the killings were intentional and that she retained awareness of right from wrong. The jury’s inability to reach consensus after extended deliberations ended the trial phase without resolution.
Braccia elaborated on how Massachusetts law handles precisely this scenario. “So Massachusetts law specifically allows a judge to consider the sufficiency of evidence if the jury hasn’t been able to return a verdict and a mistrial has been granted because of a deadlock — which is exactly what happened in this case — and the judge declared a mistrial,” she told the outlet.
The practical stakes of Reddington’s motion extend far beyond a second attempt at conviction. Braccia laid out the constitutional protection that would attach: “If Judge Sullivan says, ‘I agree with the defense, the Commonwealth was deficient. They did not present sufficient evidence that any rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that there was criminal responsibility here’ — then the result would be an acquittal.”
She added: “There would be an entry of a not guilty verdict. It would not be another mistrial, and that is enormously consequential, because an acquittal implicates double jeopardy.”
That protection, Braccia emphasized, would be absolute. “If she’s acquitted, that’s the end of this prosecution. If she’s acquitted, the Constitution says that she is protected from ever being prosecuted again for causing the death of her three children.”
The prosecution now faces strategic calculations beyond the legal question of whether retrial is permissible. Braccia suggested the Commonwealth must weigh whether pursuing the same charges again serves justice or merely prolongs trauma.
“I think the Commonwealth has to be thinking right now about a few things. Whether it legally can retry the case, certainly — but whether it should retry the case in the same way, on the same charges, now that they’ve learned that 11 of the 12 jurors were reportedly favoring acquittal,” Braccia shared.
She pressed further on the human and fiscal costs: “Now, of course, the prosecutor’s mission is always to seek justice, and justice can mean a lot of different things. But they also have to be considering: Do we want to re-traumatize two grandmothers who lost three grandbabies? The expenses and the experts and the money spent on this seven-week jury endeavor, is that something the taxpayers want?”
Clancy has never disputed that she caused the deaths of her children in January 2023. The case against her turned entirely on her mental state at the time, with defense experts describing a severe postpartum psychiatric crisis and the prosecution presenting evidence of planning and awareness. The hung jury emerged after four days of reported impasse, with jurors sent home repeatedly before the mistrial was finally declared on the seventh day of deliberations.
An update on the case from authorities is scheduled for September 29.