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What happens when a jury is offered only two verdicts and neither one fits?

Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele step outside their usual lane to examine the hung jury that ended the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with killing her three young children.

After five weeks of evidence and seven days of deliberation in Plymouth County Superior Court, eleven jurors favoured acquittal while one held out, forcing a mistrial.

Gavin and Stephen unpack why a hung jury is not an acquittal, whether a fair retrial is possible after saturation media coverage, and why Massachusetts requires prosecutors to prove sanity.

They then contrast the American all-or-nothing framework with the Canadian legal system's infanticide offence under section 233 of the Criminal Code, a graduated option that may have broken the deadlock.

It is comparative legal commentary Canada rarely hears.

Listen For:

8:06 Is a hung jury an acquittal, and can Clancy be retried?

9:33 Can Lindsay Clancy receive a fair retrial after pervasive publicity?

11:15 Why must Massachusetts prosecutors prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt?

14:55 How has all-or-nothing charging shaped past US maternal filicide cases?

18:48 How would Canada's section 233 infanticide offence have changed the verdict?

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