How long could the Lindsay Clancy jury remain deadlocked?

On Tuesday, the jury in Lindsay Clancy’s trial told the judge that it was deadlocked, or unable to reach a unanimous verdict in her case. Several recent high-profile cases provide a possible glimpse at how long deliberations could continue if no progress is made. 

Judge William Sullivan ordered jurors to keep deliberating after they sent their note. Jurors then continued to deliberate until around 3:30 p.m., at which point they went home without a verdict.

Hung jury in Karen Read and Emanuel Lopes trials

The concept of a deadlocked jury may ring some bells, as there have been a few high-profile cases in Massachusetts in recent years involving hung juries. Most notable were Karen Read in 2024 and Emanuel Lopes in 2023 and 2024.

Lopes was charged with the murder of Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna in 2018. His first trial in 2023 ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury.

The jury in his second trial in 2024 was also deadlocked, reporting to the judge three times that it was deadlocked. After six days and 32 hours of deliberations, it reached a unanimous guilty verdict.

The jury in Karen Read’s first trial in 2024 was also deadlocked, which ultimately led to a hung jury. After five days and 27 hours of deliberation in that case, a mistrial was declared.

In Read’s trial, jurors first signaled they were deadlocked after 17.5 hours, then again after 23.5 hours. Both times they were sent back for deliberations before the mistrial was eventually declared after signaling a third time they were deadlocked.

Read was acquitted a year later following a second trial.

What is the “Tuey-Rodriguez” instruction?

In both of the above cases, the judge gave the jury what’s commonly known as a “dynamite” charge to encourage them to reach a verdict.

In Massachusetts, the dynamite charge is called a “Tuey-Rodriguez” instruction, named after a 1973 case.

The law permits judges to send deadlocked juries back to deliberate twice. More chances are allowed if jurors ask clarifying questions about the law.

Upon the second reporting of being “deadlocked,” judges will consult with the attorneys involved in the case, then will often read jurors the Tuey-Rodriguez charge, which says, in part:

“You should consider that it is desirable that the case be decided. You should consider that you have been selected in the same manner, and from the same source, as any future jury would be. There is no reason to suppose that the case will ever be submitted to six persons who are more intelligent, more impartial, or more competent to decide it than you are, or that more or clearer evidence will be produced on one side or the other. With all this in mind, it is your duty to decide this case if you can do so conscientiously.”

After this is read, if the jury returns deadlocked a third time, the judge then has the discretion to declare a mistrial.

If a mistrial is declared, the conditions for the defendant go back to what they were pretrial. In this case, that would mean Clancy would remain “in custody” at Tewksbury State Hospital under psychiatric care.

The Plymouth County district attorney, Timothy Cruz, would then get to decide whether to retry Clancy for first-degree murder — or for a lesser charge — or to not retry the case at all.