Jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial informed the judge on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday, that they are deadlocked and unable to agree on a unanimous verdict. The development raises a familiar question in closely watched Massachusetts criminal cases: how long can deliberations continue when a jury says it cannot move forward?
After receiving the note, Judge William Sullivan instructed the panel to return to deliberations. Jurors continued working through the afternoon before leaving for the day at about 3:30 p.m. without reaching a verdict.
Hung jury in Karen Read and Emanuel Lopes trials
The phrase “deadlocked jury” has become increasingly familiar in Massachusetts courtrooms, particularly after several high-profile trials in recent years ended, or nearly ended, with hung juries. Among the most notable examples are the cases of Karen Read in 2024 and Emanuel Lopes in 2023 and 2024.
Lopes was accused in the 2018 killing of Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna. His first trial in 2023 ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous decision.
His second trial in 2024 also appeared headed for a stalemate. The jury told the judge three separate times that it was deadlocked. But after six days and 32 hours of deliberations, jurors ultimately returned a unanimous guilty verdict.
Karen Read’s first trial in 2024 followed a different path. In that case, the jury also reported being deadlocked, and after five days and 27 hours of deliberation, a mistrial was declared.
During Read’s trial, jurors first indicated they were at an impasse after 17.5 hours of deliberations, then reported the same problem again after 23.5 hours. Both times, they were ordered to keep deliberating. A mistrial was declared only after the jury told the court for a third time that it remained deadlocked.
Read was acquitted the following year after a second trial.
Nancy Lane/The Boston Herald and Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger
What is the “Tuey-Rodriguez” instruction?
In both of the above cases, the judge gave the jury what’s commonly known as a “dynamite” charge to encourage them to reach a verdict. That is also what happened Wednesday in Clancy’s trial.
In Massachusetts, the dynamite charge is called a “Tuey-Rodriguez” instruction, named after a 1973 case.
The law permits judges to send deadlocked juries back to deliberate twice. More chances are allowed if jurors ask clarifying questions about the law.
Upon the second reporting of being “deadlocked,” judges will consult with the attorneys involved in the case, then will often read jurors the Tuey-Rodriguez charge, which says, in part:
“You should consider that it is desirable that the case be decided. You should consider that you have been selected in the same manner, and from the same source, as any future jury would be. There is no reason to suppose that the case will ever be submitted to [twelve] persons who are more intelligent, more impartial, or more competent to decide it than you are, or that more or clearer evidence will be produced on one side or the other. With all this in mind, it is your duty to decide this case if you can do so conscientiously.”
After this is read, if the jury returns deadlocked a third time, the judge then has the discretion to declare a mistrial.
If a mistrial is declared, the conditions for the defendant go back to what they were pretrial. In this case, that would mean Clancy would remain “in custody” at Tewksbury State Hospital under psychiatric care.
The Plymouth County district attorney, Timothy Cruz, would then get to decide whether to retry Clancy for first-degree murder — or for a lesser charge — or to not retry the case at all.
