Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz was met with heckling outside court after the case against Lindsay Clancy was declared a mistrial.
Cruz spoke to reporters shortly after Judge William Sullivan announced the mistrial at a courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
While he addressed the media, a woman standing behind him shouted: ‘You only cared when the kids were dead – why didn’t you care about the mother?’.
Cruz remained composed as others nearby appeared to support the woman’s remarks, responding with chants of: ‘Amen’.
As reporters pressed Cruz with questions, the woman continued speaking over him, at one point prompting the district attorney to ask a journalist to repeat their question.
She was also seen shaking her head as Cruz spoke and kept shouting before eventually walking away. Others in the crowd accused him of being corrupt, while another woman standing behind the district attorney shook her head repeatedly during his remarks.
Asked whether the prosecution’s handling of the Lindsay Clancy case had been insensitive, Cruz replied that the killing of three children was insensitive.
‘Insensitive is ignoring those facts, we have an obligation to stand up for those people and seek justice’, he added.
Cruz addressed members of the media moments after Judge William Sullivan announced a mistrial at a court in Plymouth, Massachusetts
As he was talking, a woman standing behind him, seen here in pink over his right shoulder, said: ‘You only cared when the kids were dead – why didn’t you care about the mother?’
Cruz maintained Clancy’s killing of her children was cold-blooded murder, but that he refused to be drawn on whether he would push for a retrial and said the decision was yet to be made.
Prosecutors may also ask for the verdict to be decided by a judge, rather than a jury trial.
The jury panel of nine women and three men spent over 37 hours deliberating the case after five weeks of evidence.
They sent four notes to the judge this week saying they had been unable to reach a verdict.
Yesterday it emerged that 11 of the 12 jurors had come to the same verdict, but that a twelfth holdout was refusing to follow them.
The final note sent by jurors on Friday morning read: ‘It is with a heavy heart that we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to.’
Clancy – who killed her three young children in January 2023 – now faces a grueling retrial.
She strangled her children with exercise bands and then allegedly attempted to kill herself, but her efforts failed and left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair for life.
Clancy is seen here during Friday’s hearing inside Plymouth County Superior Court
Clancy was charged with murder after strangling her three children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan in 2023
The law requires the jury to come to a unanimous decision, and if they are unable to, the judge is forced to declare a mistrial.
A mistrial means the prosecution will have the opportunity to try Clancy again. The trial will have to start over from jury selection.
A second trial would not violate Clancy’s Fifth Amendment right against double jeopardy, which protects citizens from being punished for the same crime twice.
The Constitution of the United States prevents the government from trying a person again for the same crime after they have already been found innocent or guilty.
But because Clancy’s first trial has resulted in a deadlock, the prosecution is allowed to charge her a second time.
It is unclear whether the prosecution will move forward with a second trial.
Clancy is likely going to be kept institutionalized in the interim while a decision is made.
