A Massachusetts judge has shut down Lindsay Clancy’s renewed push for a required finding of not guilty, keeping three first-degree murder charges alive weeks after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

Fox News reported that Judge William Sullivan denied the motion on Thursday in Plymouth County Superior Court, rejecting defense claims that prosecutors never proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The ruling leaves Clancy facing a continued prosecution over the January 2023 deaths of her three children at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. A mistrial was declared on Sept. 4 after jurors could not agree. She is due back in court on Nov. 2 on a pending double jeopardy challenge and a defense request for an inquiry into a lone holdout juror.

Judge finds the record enough to go forward

Sullivan’s order made clear the court saw a sufficient trial record for a rational fact-finder to convict. He wrote that physical and circumstantial proof was placed before the jury on the elements of murder.

The judge stated:

"There was evidence introduced, both physical and circumstantial, that would permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the charge of murder."

He also rejected the idea that mental illness, standing alone, ends the criminal-responsibility analysis. Sullivan wrote:

"Mental illness alone does not preclude a finding of criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Commonwealth’s theory, as the judge summarized it, was that Clancy did not lack substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the law. Prosecutors pointed to the nature and methods of the killings and to her actions and demeanor around that time.

That posture tracks earlier trial coverage of expert disputes over Clancy’s mental-state claims, including FBI psychiatric testimony challenging the defense narrative about voices and capacity.

Defense says the case is pure speculation

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington pressed a blunt attack. He argued there is “no evidence” Clancy killed her children and that Plymouth County prosecutors failed to introduce enough proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He also contended the state failed to prove she could have been criminally responsible.

The New York Post reported that this was Reddington’s fourth failed attempt to have the murder charges thrown out after the six-week trial ended in a mistrial. In court he asked where the evidence was and insisted the entire case rested on speculation.

Reddington told the court:

"Where is the evidence that she did this?"

He added:

"This entire case is based on speculation."

Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham answered that the evidence is voluminous. The judge sided with the Commonwealth on the threshold question of legal sufficiency, just as he had when he denied a similar required-finding motion at the time of the Sept. 4 mistrial.

Trial testimony earlier in the case also included disputed accounts of Clancy’s final interactions with the children, material examined when closing arguments approached in the original murder trial.

Three children dead, case still open

The children named in the case are Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 7 months. They died at the Duxbury home in January 2023. Patrick Clancy has been identified in court-related photo captions alongside the children. No public conviction has been entered. The jury deadlocked, and the charges remain pending.

New York Post coverage of the latest ruling stated that prosecutors presented sufficient physical and circumstantial evidence for a rational fact-finder to convict and described the Commonwealth’s trial presentation as showing Clancy planned and strangled the three children. That remains the prosecution theory. It is not an adjudicated finding of guilt.

Attorney Edward Paltzik has criticized the defense’s post-mistrial moves, though the public record excerpted in coverage does not include a full verbatim statement from him on the latest denial.

Holdout juror fight and the Nov. 2 docket

After the mistrial, attention turned to a single juror who wanted a guilty verdict. Reddington has asked the court to inquire into that holdout. The defense is also pursuing a double jeopardy motion aimed at blocking another trial.

Both issues are teed up for Nov. 2. A new trial date has not been set. Clancy and Reddington appeared for a status hearing at Plymouth County Superior Court after the mistrial, their first such appearance in that posture.

Public interest in the deadlock has already spilled into national media, including coverage of how a juror described the lone holdout on the Clancy panel in post-trial interviews.

Sullivan’s latest order does not decide double jeopardy or juror-inquiry questions. It decides something more basic: whether the trial evidence was so thin that the law required a not-guilty finding as a matter of course. The court said no.

What the order does and does not settle

A required finding of not guilty is a high bar. It asks a judge to take the case away from any future jury because the proof, even viewed favorably to the state, cannot support the charge. Sullivan held that the physical and circumstantial record cleared that bar against Clancy’s motion.

He tied the Commonwealth’s criminal-responsibility theory to concrete categories of proof already introduced: the nature and methods of the killings, and Clancy’s actions and demeanor in the surrounding period. Investigators and prosecutors will still have to persuade a future jury, if the case is retried. The judge’s point was narrower. The law does not compel dismissal on this record.

Cases involving maternal defendants and insanity or capacity claims continue to draw intense scrutiny in other courts as well, including matters such as a Bronx ruling of not guilty by reason of insanity in the deaths of two children. Clancy’s Massachusetts case remains in a different procedural lane: charges intact, mistrial behind it, and further motion practice ahead.

The November hearing will test whether double jeopardy principles block a second trial and whether the court will open an inquiry into the holdout juror. Until then, the murder charges stand.

The deaths of three young children still demand a lawful, complete accounting in open court. When a jury hangs and defense counsel seeks a judicial off-ramp, the public interest lies in clear rules, sufficient evidence standards, and a system that neither rushes to convict nor quietly walks away from unresolved homicide charges.