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Jury Deliberations Begin In Lindsay Clancy Case. Here’s What We Know About The Jurors.

The jury makeup is of particular interest, since the defense argument centers around postpartum psychosis.

Amanda Prestigiacomo
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Jury Deliberations Begin In Lindsay Clancy Case. Here’s What We Know About The Jurors.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

On Thursday afternoon, jurors started deliberating the fate of Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of murdering her three young children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan.

Following closing arguments from the state and defense teams earlier in the day, the jury was sent back to start deliberations at around 12:45 p.m. local time inside the Plymouth, Massachusetts, courthouse.

According to reporters inside the courtroom, the jury consists of nine women and three men. The forewoman has been described as an older woman with gray hair and glasses, according to CNN. An additional three women and three men are serving as alternates.

One of the female jurors was “wiping her eyes during closing arguments,” and another female juror “nodded when a psychiatrist testified Clancy’s choice to not take a certain medication was reasonable ‘in her mind,'” CNN reported.

The gender of the jurors is particularly of note since the defense team has argued that Clancy, who has admitted to strangling her three children, should not be held criminally liable for her actions because she was suffering postpartum psychosis when she committed the crimes. The injection of the postpartum element has garnered a shocking amount of support and sympathy for Clancy in the online space, mostly from women.

On Thursday, the judge allowed jurors to consider lesser offenses, including second-degree murder or manslaughter, when deliberating Clancy’s fate. The former labor and delivery nurse also faces three first-degree murder charges, which carry a life sentence without parole. 

If convicted of second-degree murder, Clancy would face a life sentence with the possibility of parole. A manslaughter conviction is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

During closing arguments, Clancy’s defense team painted the defendant as a “darn good mother” who was mistreated by the health care system. The state said Clancy was indeed suffering mentally, but never suffering from psychosis. She was planning on killing herself and decided to take her children with her and methodically planned out the murders, the prosecution argued.

Related: Judge Hands Lindsay Clancy Jury A New Option At The Eleventh Hour

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