The jury deciding whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for the deaths of her three children finished a third day on Monday without a verdict. They have now deliberated somewhere past ten hours, and the only note they have sent asked to see her prescription pill bottles and the knife.
There is no reported note from Monday, no supplemental instruction, and no readback.
Which makes this the moment to explain what happens if they cannot agree, because that is now the live question, and Massachusetts has a specific and carefully limited answer to it.
First, what unanimity actually requires here
There are three verdict slips, one for each child. Each carries five options: murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, manslaughter, not guilty, and not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.
The jury must be unanimous on each slip separately. They are not required to reach the same result on all three, and they are not required to resolve all three to return anything. A jury can hang on one count and return verdicts on others.
That structure is one reason deliberations in this case were never going to be quick.
The charge a judge gives a stuck jury
If jurors report they are deadlocked, the standard response in Massachusetts is an instruction with a name that sounds like a law firm: the Tuey-Rodriquez charge.
It comes from Commonwealth v. Tuey, decided in 1851, as modified by Commonwealth v. Rodriquez, 364 Mass. 87 (1973). The Supreme Judicial Court has described it as “an instruction designed to encourage the jury to reach a verdict, if possible,” and as “the orthodox approach to dealing with a deadlocked jury.”
The operative language, from the appendix to Rodriquez, is worth reading closely, because the balance in it is the whole point:
“[T]he verdict to which a juror agrees must . . . be his own verdict, the result of his own convictions, and not a mere acquiescence in the conclusion of his fellows, yet, in order to bring twelve minds to a unanimous result, you must examine the questions submitted to you with candor, and with a proper regard and deference to the opinions of each other. You should consider that it is desirable that the case be decided. . . . [I]t is your duty to decide the case, if you can conscientiously do so. . . . [I]n conferring together, you ought to pay proper respect to each other’s opinions, and listen, with a disposition to be convinced, to each other’s arguments.”
Note what it does not say. It does not tell jurors the case must be decided. It says it is desirable, and that it is their duty to decide if they can conscientiously do so.
Why Massachusetts modified the original
The 1851 version had a structural problem, and the SJC fixed it in 1973.
The old charge invited “the members of the tentative minority to reconsider their position in the light of the views of the tentative majority,” but did “not invite the majority members to reciprocate toward the minority.”
In other words, it leaned on whoever was losing. The Rodriquez amendments made the obligation mutual. That symmetry is why the charge survives constitutional challenge, and it is the first thing appellate courts look for when a defendant argues coercion.
The judge decides when, not the jury
Two points here surprise people.
A jury saying it is deadlocked does not make it deadlocked. Under Commonwealth v. Wilson, 443 Mass. 122 (2004), notification of deadlock “is not a prerequisite” for the charge, and whether to give it is within the judge’s discretion.
And a judge is not required to accept the first report of deadlock. The question is whether deliberations have been “due and thorough,” which is also the judge’s call. Courts weigh the complexity of the case, the conflicts on material issues, and how long the jury has actually been at it.
In one Appeals Court case, a jury sent a note two hours and ten minutes into deliberations reading “We are a hung jury at this time. Six Guilty Six Not Guilty. Please advise.” The judge declined to find them hung, observing that the case had been impaneled the prior week and the jury had been out only two hours. They later reported nine to three, received the Tuey-Rodriquez charge, and reached a verdict. The Appeals Court found no error.
Set against that, the Clancy jury has now spent more than ten hours on a case that ran over three weeks with competing psychiatric experts. If they reported deadlock, no judge would treat it as premature.
Where judges go wrong
The charge is permitted. Pushing past it is not, and appellate courts reverse for it.
In Commonwealth v. Firmin, 89 Mass. App. Ct. 62 (2016), a judge told jurors before deliberations even began that they should “do whatever voting or whatever [they] need to do” to reach a verdict, and warned that failure would mean a mistrial and retrying the case, adding that the court was “booked out until May.”
The Appeals Court held that was an abuse of discretion. The instruction went beyond Tuey-Rodriquez by telling the jury the case must at some point be decided, and by tending to induce jurors in the minority to be persuaded by the majority. The court noted the jury returned a guilty verdict less than thirty minutes after coming back.
The governing principle is simple: “When instructing the jury, a judge must avoid language that may coerce the jury into reaching a verdict.”
If they still cannot agree
The judge declares a mistrial on any count the jury cannot resolve.
A mistrial from a hung jury is not an acquittal, and double jeopardy does not bar retrial. The Commonwealth may try the case again, and prosecutors in a case of this profile ordinarily would. It would also be free to resolve the case some other way.
Any count the jury does resolve stands. A partial verdict is a real verdict.
What to watch for
Three signals, in ascending order of significance.
Note volume. Two full days on a single note, then several in quick succession, usually means a jury has moved from general review to a specific sticking point.
A request for readback. Asking to rehear particular testimony, especially from the psychiatric experts, would indicate they are working the criminal responsibility question rather than the facts of what happened.
The charge itself. If Judge Sullivan gives the Tuey-Rodriquez instruction, the jury has told him something we have not been told. It is given once, carefully, and the wording will be scrutinized on appeal if there is a conviction.
Absent any of that, a jury deliberating quietly into a fourth day on three separate verdict slips with five options each is doing exactly what it was asked to do.
Common questions
What is a Tuey-Rodriquez charge?
A Massachusetts jury instruction given to a deadlocked jury, from Commonwealth v. Tuey (1851) as modified by Commonwealth v. Rodriquez (1973). It urges jurors to reconsider with deference to one another while making clear that no juror should surrender a conscientious conviction merely to agree.
Can the Clancy jury hang on one count and decide the others?
Yes. There are three separate verdict slips, one per child, and unanimity is required on each independently. A mistrial can be declared on an unresolved count while verdicts on other counts stand.
If the jury hangs, is Lindsay Clancy free?
No. A mistrial from a hung jury is not an acquittal and double jeopardy does not bar a retrial. The Commonwealth could try the case again.
Does a jury saying it is deadlocked mean the judge must declare a mistrial?
No. Whether deliberations have been due and thorough is within the judge’s discretion, and courts have upheld sending juries back after an early report of deadlock.
Can a judge pressure a jury to reach a verdict?
No. A judge must avoid language that may coerce a verdict. In Commonwealth v. Firmin, the Appeals Court found an abuse of discretion where a judge told jurors the case had to be decided and mentioned the court’s crowded schedule.
Case law from Commonwealth v. Tuey (1851); Commonwealth v. Rodriquez, 364 Mass. 87 (1973); Commonwealth v. Wilson, 443 Mass. 122 (2004); Commonwealth v. Carnes, 457 Mass. 812 (2010); Commonwealth v. Bresnahan, 462 Mass. 761 (2012); Ray v. Commonwealth, 463 Mass. 1 (2012); and Commonwealth v. Firmin, 89 Mass. App. Ct. 62 (2016). Deliberation status as reported by CNN and the Boston Globe through August 31, 2026. General legal information, not legal advice.