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Judge Gives Defense 1 Hour To Appeal Before Declaring Mistrial; Judge In Lindsay Clancy Trial Says He Intends To Declare Mistrial, But Gives Defense 1 Hour To Appeal . Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 04, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think just stay close. Stay very close, because at any moment things can change. This is a very fluid situation. One judge can stop this trial in its tracks from having the judge declare a mistrial. At that point, we see what the judge does. On the other hand, if that stay is not gained by the defense, the judge may go forward and, and say, you tried. I know you tried and at that point, the jury would be brought in. The judge would speak to them. He would thank them for their service and know how hard they tried. And then following that, a mistrial would be declared.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: And from there, we'll see what could happen. A lot up in the air right now, many twists and turns. Jean Casarez, thank you. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Our special coverage on this breaking news continues on Inside Politics with Phil Mattingly right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR, PHIL MATTINGLY: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Dana Bash. And we are following breaking news on the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the mother accused of strangling her three young children to death in 2023. After seven days of deliberations, the jury says it still cannot reach a unanimous verdict. In the last hour, the judge responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE. WILLIAM F. SULLIVAN, PLYMOUTH COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT: I would find that under Massachusetts case line statutory law, the jury did not ask to be sent back, which would be a possibility if they had requested it to be sent back to them, but under the statute and the case law, I don't feel I have any choice but to declare a mistrial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: But right now, that mistrial is actually on hold. The judge gave the defense an hour to make an emergency appeal for a stay. That was about 11:30. They have roughly 30 minutes left. Now, at the heart of this case, that's really gripped the nation, was Lindsay Clancy criminally responsible for killing her children, or, as her defense argues, was she in the grip of postpartum psychosis?

I want to get straight to CNN's Jean Casarez outside the courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Jean, you've been covering every second of this. Can you reset what's happening right now and what does it mean?

CASAREZ: And every second of this trial, especially in deliberations, you do not know what is going to come next and what we are on a hold right now. This case is on a hold, because the defense attorney is going to the highest court in Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court, asking them for an emergency stay to stop the judge from declaring a mistrial in this case.

The reason for that is the defense believes the jury should continue to deliberate, even though a note was sent by the foreperson of the jury saying that with heavy heart, we come to you and say we cannot be unanimous in this case and we know that will not change. Despite that note, the defense wants his deliberation to go on.

He knows that just one juror has to fold just one on his side for Lindsay Clancy to be found not guilty by reason of mental insanity at the time that she killed her children, and so we're waiting. It's about 30 minutes more to go, Phil. But in 30 minutes, will that judge be punctual and say, OK, where's the stay? There's the hour. Give it to me now, or I'm going to declare that mistrial.

MATTINGLY: I want to bring in trial attorney Donte Mills and jury and trial consultant Robert Hirschhorn. Donte, first, I want to play what Lindsay Clancy's defense attorney asked for to the judge after the judge declared a mistrial. Listen?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN REDDINGTON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: What I'm asking for is time to file a single justice appeal for this travesty. That's what I'm asking for.

SULLIVAN: So, you're asking for an emergency stay at this point.

REDDINGTON: Yes. And the jurors don't have to come back tomorrow. They can be told -- they don't even have to come back if I lose the motion. But if I win the motion, then obviously they would have to come back Tuesday.

SULLIVAN: If you want to go up and petition to the SJC for a stay, I'll give you an hour before we bring the jury back down. I think you could. It's just a request for the stay of the declaration of this trial. So, I'll hold off for an hour, and then we'll come back in regards to that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So, Donte, can you just break this down for us? I guess in the most simple terms, what is Clancy's defense attorney trying to accomplish here?

DONTE MILLS, TRIAL LAWYER: Absolutely, this is something that's unusual in this already unusual case. We have to remember that the nature of this case is a homicide, a triple homicide that three children were murdered. Lindsay Clancy tried to take her own life. The prosecutor is arguing that she knew what she was doing. This was a plan she put it in place and got it done. The defense is arguing that she had that pre -- that prenatal -- that postnatal psychosis and that she was not aware of her actions and that there should be a reason for her not to be found guilty because she wasn't aware of her actions.

[12:05:00]

From our understanding, based on when the defense attorney talked about that jury note, it's clear that there's 11 people who believe that the prosecutors did not prove that she was criminally aware of what she was doing, but there's one holdout. That note also indicated, which is very rare, that that holdout had some doubt but was ignoring that doubt. And as the note said, it wasn't following the law because remember, in a criminal case, you have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, what the jurors were saying was, there's some doubt with this juror but he's disregarding that doubt, and he's not saying not guilty and we have an issue with that. What this defense attorney now is trying to do, and what he tried to do, is get this juror removed from that panel, saying that this juror is not following the judge's instructions, so that this juror should be removed, bringing an alternate juror who obviously the defense attorney believes would side with him so that they can get a not guilty verdict.

What the judge is doing is allowing this defense attorney sometime to flush that out. And why he's doing that? Because once this mistrial is declared and the jury is dismissed, this case is over. This trial itself is done in all 85 witnesses, all over 200 exhibits, all five weeks that went into this is null and void. They can't bring the jury back once they are dismissed for a mistrial and say, well, you know what? He got a -- he got a ruling from a higher judge saying that we should have kept this jury here.

Now let's call them back. Let's bring them back. Once they're dismissed, you can't do that. So, I think the judge rightfully so said, OK, I'm prepared to declare mistrial, but before I officially do so, take a shot. If you can get a judge to say that something else needs to be done, we still have the jury available. We don't need to do this all again. But it would make sense to do that as opposed to release the jury, and then the judge says, well, you shouldn't have released them because then -- by then it's too late.

The jury may have spoken to the press, they may have spoken to other people, and you can't get them back once they are officially released. And that's why the judge is giving this hour so that the defense attorney can exhaust every possibility because a lot of time and attention went into this case, and if there's a way to save it, the judge is going to allow that to happen.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. You make a really great point of this is a the highest stakes moment in a trial in which every day has had several of them, a true inflection point where everything could end in 15, 20 minutes at this point in time. Robert, one of the first things I thought about as I was listening through this is what does this do to the jury? What is the jury doing right now? Are they aware of what's happening right now? And is it really possible they could be asked to deliberate again?

ROBERT HIRSCHHORN, JURY & TRIAL CONSULTANT: Yeah, Phil. Thanks for having me. Those jurors are as pissed off as hornets. This has been a grueling process for them, and what they wanted to, they've already told the judge when they used the words in their last note about the, you know, that they're -- it's heartfelt. I mean, they're signaling to the judge they have really tried and they're done. I mean, there's nothing else they can do to try to persuade that one juror. So, what we're all witnessing is the deadlock in Plymouth Rock. That's what we've got going on here.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. Your point about the note is also what stood out to me. Like it just seemed they were closing the book. They had given it everything they'd had. It had been 30 plus hours. It had been six plus days. Jean, we are expecting to find out what happens with this stay any moment now. Do you have any -- what are the attorneys doing right now?

CASAREZ: Well, the prosecutors are probably just waiting because an emergency stay is just on one side right there. They don't respond, I believe, to that at that point. If Kevin Reddington has followed through on what he said he was going to do, then he might be in the midst of doing it. He might be waiting for a phone call back. We know he's in that courthouse. We know all parties are in that courthouse, and it's just -- it's just an actual holding pattern right now. The judge is probably doing the same thing.

MATTINGLY: And Donte, where does this leave? Obviously, we are still waiting to hear about this emergency stay request for the prosecutors right now. Where does this leave the state's case? If a mistrial is declared, will be tried again. Can it be tried again?

MILLS: Absolutely. If a mistrial is declared, you -- they will have the right to bring the case again. You have to now understand or believe that the prosecutors are looking at worst case scenario. From our understanding from the jury's notes, they're not going to win this case. So. it's either this juror is going to change his mind or be removed, and another alternate juror would come in.

[12:10:00]

But it seems as if 11 people are entrenched and believe that the prosecution has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she was aware of her actions. So, the prosecutors are already sitting there, understanding that they're behind the eight ball. Worst case scenario for them is that somehow we get a verdict that says not guilty. Best case scenario for them at this point, and that's why you saw them kind of pushing for it, is a mistrial because they get a reset. And what they can do with that reset is say what worked, what didn't work. They'll hear from some of the juries, I'm sure.

They'll hear some of the arguments, kind of go over the testimony, and really evaluate what arguments they made that stuck and what didn't, so that they can make adjustments for that second trial. I do believe in a second trial, the prosecution does have a leg up because they do have that trial and error from the first one, where they can perfect their case to hopefully get to reasonable doubt, and that's why you understand the defense attorney now is saying, listen, we did all this work.

Let's try and get a result from this jury because the defense attorney believes the result will be in their favor, and that's why they're pushing and the prosecution is simply saying, judge, they've done all they could do. They deliberated for over five days. Let's just declare a mistrial. Let's have this reset. We can't get any more blood from this stone. Let's move on so that we can have our day in court again.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. It's such an important breakdown of kind of the strategic posture of both sides at this point in time. Can I follow up there, Donte? Have you ever encountered something like this? Like the mechanics of how this works. Is there just a judge waiting somewhere for a call and this all of a sudden happens in an hour? Explain to people kind of a process here.

MILLS: I have, and I can tell you, I've tried a lot of cases. The toughest time for any trial lawyer is when the jury has the case, because you start off by just in your mind thinking I should have said this, I should have argued that, I should have pushed back on this point. So that's the most stressful moment of any trial lawyer is when the jury is deliberating.

The other stressful point is when questions come back and we saw some questions here early on, on that first day and then you get to the point where the jury says they have a verdict, but there's some confusion. I've had trials where there was confusion with the verdict, where they answered a question in a way they weren't supposed to, and the judge had to send them back in. I've had trials where the judge had to push them because they said they were dead locked and they were pushed for a decision.

I can tell you that the jury really takes this serious. I say it every time I pick a jury that nobody gets a jury slip in the mail and pops open a bottle of champagne, right? It's not cause for celebration. People have other things to do. A lot of people see it as taken away from things that they could be doing, but once they're in the process, jurors are truly committed. They want to get this right and they want to have a result.

That's why we saw that jury note said with a heavy heart we can't come to a decision because they understand the importance of their job and they're not doing their job right now. So, I'm sure that jury is sitting in that room, kind of mad at each other to a certain degree that they can't come to a decision. Clearly, they're pissed off at that one holdout who they believe feels a certain way, but is ignoring how he feels.

And then the lawyers are just sitting around because there's absolutely nothing they can do to impact this jury outside of the defense attorney going to another judge to hopefully say either one person on the jury can be removed or the judge should instruct them to keep trying. But as a lawyer sitting in that room, he know there's nothing else I can say that's going to impact this jury. And the jury is sitting there saying, listen, we know it was important. We tried our best, but we just can't do it, and they sent that note out truly with a heavy heart.

MATTINGLY: Robert, if mistrial is the outcome here, which, it seems to be head in that direction, we obviously are waiting to hear about this appeal any moment now. The case is retried. How do you find a jury that could deliberate on this?

HIRSCHHORN: Well, jury selection is the key to the whole case. I mean, it's the process of asking potential jurors the questions about the issues in the case to determine whether or not they're going to be able to be a fair and impartial juror, whether or not they can set aside any bias they have if they've been influenced by the publicity. But what's interesting about this particular one, here's a nuance that I haven't heard many people talking about.

If they had sent out a note. If the jury had sent out one of their notes and said, one of the jurors is refusing to deliberate, I have absolutely been involved in cases where -- when that kind of note comes out, the judge would have dismissed the juror. That's number one. Number two, one other point I want to make about Kevin, you know, Reddington, the defense lawyer. He's a cagey old trial lawyer. Here's my only criticism of the man right now.

[12:15:00]

He knew last night where this was all going. He should have had that stay written up. He should have drafted it last night, had it in his back pocket to show to the judge, judge, I'm ready. I've got it prepared. I'm going to file it immediately. That's my only criticism of Kevin. But other than that, he is a true believer in his client. He told us he loves his client. Everybody in this country, remember, folks, everybody in this country has the right to a fair trial, and you want to have a zealous advocate and that's what Kevin is.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, he certainly has been that. Donte Mills, Robert Hirschhorn, stick around. We are watching the courtroom. We'll take you back there as soon as the judge gavels it back into session. With just minutes to go until the judge's one-hour deadline for the defense runs out. Stay with us. We're going to take a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: We are following the breaking news on the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. We are just minutes away from a final decision on whether the judge will declare a mistrial. About 45 minutes ago, he said that was his intention. After seven days of deliberations, delivered a deadlock jury. But he gave the defense attorney one hour to make an emergency appeal for a stay.

Now I want to bring in Dr. Noa Sterling, an OB/GYN. And Dr. Sterling, I appreciate your time because I feel like we've spent so much time talking about the legal dynamics here, the strategic dynamics, where the jury is on things. The context of what is essential to understanding this case and both sides' arguments is postpartum psychosis, which is not a well understood mental health diagnosis. I'm interested if you think this case draws more attention in a positive way and underscores the need for more research into this condition.

DR. NOA STERLING, OBSTETRICIAN-GYNECOLOGIST: OK, so first of all, yes. It does underscore that we need a lot -- we need a lot more research in all of women's health, and particularly maternal mental health, because maternal mental health is key to the health of the entire family. And postpartum psychosis is something that you know, my hope from this trial is that people we spread awareness that bipolar disorder, which Lindsay had but was misdiagnosed and she didn't -- she got the diagnosis too late, is a big risk factor for postpartum psychosis, up to 30 percent risk if you are bipolar of having postpartum psychosis. The other big risk factor is sleep deprivation. So, these are the two things that I hope we -- more people will know about from this trial.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, by positive. I mean awareness being the key of people actually understanding it better, actually discussing it, which I know is always a problem in issues like this. There's also the question of treatment, which has been kind of center stage, particularly in the conversations outside of the courtroom. Are there lessons from her case for doctors treating women with postpartum mental health issues?

STERLING: Absolutely. I think one of the most important things is that a mother who is unable to sleep, even when her baby is sleep -- is sleeping, even when she's given the opportunity, is incredibly high risk for suicide and for psychosis. And so that needs to be a huge red flag. If you know, if you're an ER doctor and you have a mom who's suffering from postpartum depression who's not able to sleep, that needs to be -- you need to see that as a really high-risk patient.

So, yes, we need to be talking about this more. And the treatment for postpartum psychosis is ideally prevention. And Lindsay Clancy's care was just so fragmented, so all over the place. She needed a care coordinator to look at everything. She also needed an electronic health record that everybody could look at, but we don't have that in this country.

MATTINGLY: The trial has clearly opened up the larger conversation about maternal mental health, but it has, without any question, elicited extremely strong opinions on the topic. All sorts of sides, all sorts of opinions. Where do you think the conversation goes after this trial is over?

STERLING: Well, I think there's a lot of people who don't realize that mental health is not a moral failing. This is our brain, our nervous system is an organ, and that organ can become diseased. And when that organ is diseased, we see the results in behavior, unusual thoughts, those types of things. So, when we look at a disease process that involves the brain, involves the nervous system, we can expect to see that disease process show up in behavior. And I think a lot of people think that somehow this behavior is a moral issue and not a medical issue.

MATTINGLY: Dr. Noa Sterling, your expertise is invaluable. Thank you very much for your time.

STERLING: Thank you for having me.

MATTINGLY: Well, this is a story that's captured the attention of people everywhere, without any question, including, of course, here in Washington. I've got three great political reporters joining me now, and obviously, this is not the day-to-day of any of our jobs in terms of what we cover, but the conversation is happening everywhere amongst all of our friends and families.

Jamie, I'm interested in like, it's kind of the same question I just asked Dr. Sterling, like the intensity of it. Awareness is a good thing about these types of issues, but the intensity of it has been jarring at some point.

[12:25:00]

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So, I don't think, actually, big picture that surprising for those of us who 25 years ago saw the Andrea Yates case. She was a nurse. She drowned five of her children. These questions, when a mother is responsible for killing their child, just raise the stakes, raise the emotions. There is no question that we have seen, you know, intense division on both sides. We see people standing outside the courtroom who've driven from all over in support of her.

We've seen, I think, more than a million dollars has been raised for her fund. So, I just think you have the nature of this case, a mother and child that raises it. Now that we have this situation with the juror, which in any case is gets a lot of focus, and if it is correct, there's speculation that this holdout is a man. I think we're just going to see even more discussion about it.

MATTINGLY: Tia, to that point, I think what's been -- I don't even know what the right word for it is, like having the conversation is important. At times has felt like certain people can have the conversation, and the people who are on the other side of them shouldn't be involved in the conversation at all, regardless of gender or opinion or anything like that.

I think my biggest question in moments like this is, you know, the hope that the broader conversation can lead to something better in the future out of this awful tragedy. Am I being naive here?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Well, no, you're not being naive because we always hope to learn from things like this. Learn how we can support mothers, how we can support parents, learn how our judicial system works, and what it means to be tried by a jury of your peers. What it means to require unanimous jury verdicts if you're going to, you know, charge somebody with the most serious crime. So, I think it's a good opportunity to see our justice system at work, flaws and all. But I think we can't ignore the nuance of, you know, race, not just gender, but race.

We can't ignore the nuance of, you know, just the optics of why does this trial draw so much attention when there are, you know, other things we could be focusing on? And I just, you know, that is not to fault anyone for focusing on this, but at the end of the day, when you talk about who gets to raise a million dollars when they're accused of killing three children. We just can't -- we just can't ignore some of those optics and dynamics, and I think those rightly should be part of the conversations we're having now. And that goes even beyond just this particular allegation and this particular trial.

MATTINGLY: Brez, why do you think -- and I think what Tia is laying out is like very clearly dynamics that people should understand are fueling pieces of this. The fixation on this, the national attention on this, the degree to which the national conversation has been about this over the course of the last six or seven weeks. Why do you think that is? Why this case? Why not 15 other different cases?

JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: I mean, Tia makes a good point. I do think it's -- and Jamie does as well. I mean, it's the tragic nature of this. The, you know, this woman, you know, the children that's stunning. It's a stunning. It's a shocking crime. It shocks everyone. And then, you know, what happened afterwards? She tried to take her own life, and she's paralyzed, and then this has become a huge moment on discussing about postpartum psychosis and depression.

And then, you know, then you did -- because everything is political. Also, you did have conservative commentators. You had a couple of Matt Walsh, some of these other ones talking about men, of course, you know, talking about, you know, the victims here. Don't forget the victim. The children are the victims here, which is, you know, it's a -- it's, you know, that's and then -- and that set off a firestorm even on the right. So even among conservatives, you have Meghan McCain, you had others pushing back on this, saying, you know, you've lost, you really can't understand this situation, and it is.

And now we're talking about if the one juror is a holdout as a man, that's another gender issue right here. So, I do think it's like, you know, the tragedy of this case. She was misdiagnosed and she fell between the cracks, and even the OB/GYN you were talking to that they couldn't because of the way our health system works. Her own doctors couldn't see her on everything that she was being treated for.

So, I think there's just, you know, the confluence of so many different things, and just it's really -- it's talking about people lining up globally watching this. This has attracted attention internationally, so I do think it's, you know, everyone has talked about it on the Hill. They would talk about this trial. You would talk about other reporters and members or even talk about it, so, yeah.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. No, I mean it has become the thing. I think, to your point, like I would hope people can have the ability to see that there are a lot of different parts of this, and it is very complex, and there are multiple different conversations, all of which I think would be good to be having about the elements in this case. But aren't great if they're just putting people into corners where they just want to yell at each other.