Judge Delivers 'Dynamite Charge' to Deadlocked Jury in Lindsay Clancy Murder Trial

A Massachusetts judge overseeing the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy has given jurors a formal instruction designed to help them break through their impasse, after they told the court for a second time that they could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Judge William Sullivan delivered the instruction, known as a Tuey-Rodriguez charge, on Wednesday. The jury had first reported it was struggling to reach agreement on Tuesday, at which point Sullivan sent them back to continue deliberating. When they returned a second time saying they were still deadlocked, the judge issued the formal charge.

The Tuey-Rodriguez charge is unique to Massachusetts and is sometimes referred to as a "dynamite charge" because of its purpose: pushing a stuck jury toward consensus without coercing any juror into abandoning their honestly held beliefs. It draws its name from two Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions spanning more than a century. In Commonwealth v. Tuey (1851), the court approved an instruction encouraging deadlocked jurors to re-examine their views with open minds. More than 120 years later, Commonwealth v. Rodriguez (1973) revised that language to remove pressure on minority or holdout jurors, producing the more neutral version used today, which asks all jurors to carefully weigh one another's views while maintaining their own convictions.

Retired Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Thomas Drechsler told Fox News Digital that the instruction is typically reserved for cases in which a judge has determined jurors have fully deliberated but remain at an impasse. "The charge encourages the jurors to rethink their own feelings in light of what other jurors feel," Drechsler said, while reminding them that "no one is in a better position to decide the case than the jurors who heard all the evidence."

If jurors report they are still deadlocked after receiving the charge, Drechsler said, "there's a higher likelihood" the case could end in a mistrial, though he noted that he has seen juries return verdicts after receiving the instruction.

Clancy is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 deaths of her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, at the family's home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She does not deny killing the children but has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible at the time. Prosecutors have maintained that Clancy was legally sane and that she intentionally planned the killings.

Jurors will continue deliberating after receiving the charge. If they remain unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Sullivan has the option of declaring a mistrial, which would leave prosecutors to decide whether to pursue a new trial.