Judge Gives Clancy Trial One More Hour Before Declaring Mistrial 

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1:17After seven days of deliberations, the jury says it still cannot reach a unanimous verdict. In the last hour, the judge responded. I would find that under Massachusetts case law and statutory law, the jury did not ask to be sent back, which would be a possibility if they had requested it to be sent back to them. But under the statute and the case law, I don't feel I have any choice but to declare a mistrial. But right now, that mistrial is actually on hold. The judge gave the defense an hour to make an emergency appeal for a stay. That was about 1130. They have roughly 30 minutes left. Now, at the heart of this case that's really gripped the nation was Lindsay Clancy criminally responsible for killing her children.

2:04Or, as her defense argues, was she in the grip of postpartum psychosis? I want to get straight to CNN's Jean Casares outside the courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Jean, you've been covering every second of this. Can you reset what's happening right now and what does it mean? And every second of this trial, especially in deliberations, you do not know what is going to come next. And what we are on a hold right now, this case is on a hold, because the defense attorney is going to the highest court in Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court, asking them for an emergency stay to stop the judge from declaring a mistrial in this case.

2:46The reason for that is the defense believes the jury should continue to deliberate, even though a note was sent by the foreperson of the jury saying that with heavy heart, we come to you and say we cannot be unanimous in this case, and we know that will not change. Despite that note, the defense wants this deliberation to go on. He knows that just Just one juror has to fold just one on his side for Lindsey Clancy to be found not guilty by reason of mental insanity at the time that she killed her children. And so we're waiting. It's about 30 minutes more to go, Phil. But in 30 minutes, will that judge be punctual and say, OK, where's the stay?

3:32There's the hour. Give it to me now or I'm going to declare that mistrial. I want to bring in trial attorney Dante Mills and jury and trial consultant Robert Hirshhorn. Dante, first I want to play what Lindsey Clancy's defense attorney asked for to the judge after the judge declared a mistrial. Listen. What I'm asking for is time to file a single justice appeal for this travesty. That's what I'm asking for. So you're asking for an emergency stay at this point? Yes. And the jurors don't have to come back tomorrow. They can be told they don't even have to come back if I lose the motion. But if I win the motion, then obviously they would have to come back Tuesday.

4:12I'll if you want to go up and petition to the SJC for a stay, I'll give you an hour before we bring the jury back down. I think you could. It's just a request for the stay of the declaration of the mistrial. So I'll hold off for an hour and then we'll come back in in regards to that. So, Dante, can you just break this down for us, I guess, in the most simple terms? What is Clancy's defense attorney trying to accomplish here? Absolutely. This is something that's unusual in this already unusual case. We have to remember that the nature of this case is a homicide, a triple homicide. The three children were murdered.

4:53Lindsay Clancy tried to take her own life. The prosecutor is arguing that she knew what she was doing. This was a plan. She put it in place and got it done. The defense is arguing that she had that prenatal, that postnatal psychosis and that she was not aware of her actions and that there should be a reason for her not to be found guilty because she wasn't aware of her actions. From our understanding, based on when the defense attorney talked about that jury note, it's clear that there's 11 people who believe that the prosecutors did not prove that she was criminally aware of what she was doing.

5:32But there's one holdout. That note also indicated, which is very rare, that that holdout had some doubt but was ignoring that doubt. And as the note said, was it following the law? Because remember, in a criminal case, you have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So what the jurors were saying was there's some doubt with this juror, but he's disregarding that doubt and he's not saying not guilty. And we have an issue with that. What this defense attorney now is trying to do and what he tried to do is get this juror removed from that panel, saying that this juror is not following the judge's instructions so that this juror should be removed, bringing an alternate juror who obviously the defense attorney believes would side with him so that they can get a not guilty verdict.

6:21What the judge is doing is allowing this defense attorney some time to flush that out. And why he's doing that? Because once this mistrial is declared and the jury is dismissed, this case is over. This trial itself is done in all 85 witnesses, all over 200 exhibits. All five weeks that went into this is null and void. They can't bring the jury back once they are dismissed for a mistrial and say, well, you know what? He got a ruling from a higher judge saying that we should have kept this jury here. Now let's call them back. Let's bring them back. Once they're dismissed, you can't do that. So I think the judge rightfully so said, OK, I'm prepared to declare mistrial.

7:04But before I officially do so, take a shot. If you can get a judge to say that something else needs to be done, we still have the jury available. We don't need to do this all again. But it would make sense to do that as opposed to release the jury. And then a judge says, well, you shouldn't have released them because then by then it's too late. The jury may have spoken to the press. They may have spoken to other people. And you can't get them back once they are officially released. And that's why the judge is giving this hour so that the defense attorney can exhaust every possibility because a lot of time and attention went into this case.

7:37And if there's a way to save it, the judge is going to allow that to happen. Yeah, you make a really great point of this is the highest stakes moment in a trial in which every day has had several of them. A true inflection point where everything could end in 15, 20 minutes at this point in time. Robert, one of the first things I thought about as I was listening through this is, what does this do with the jury? What is the jury doing right now? Are they aware of what's happening right now? And is it really possible they could be asked to deliberate again? Yeah, Phil, thanks for having me. Those jurors are as pissed off as hornets.

8:18This has been a grueling process for them. And what they wanted to do, they've already told the judge, when they used the words in their last note about the, you know, that it's heartfelt, I mean, they're signaling to the judge they have really tried, and they're done. I mean, there's nothing else they can do to try to persuade that one juror. So what we're all witnessing is the deadlock in Plymouth Rock. That's what we've got going on here. Yeah, your point about the note is also what stood out to me. Like, it just seemed they were closing the book. They had given it everything they'd had. It had been 30-plus hours.

8:57It had been six-plus days. Jean, we are expecting to find out what happens with this stay any moment now. Do you have any – what are the attorneys doing right now? Well, the prosecutors are probably just waiting because an emergency stay is just on one side right there. They don't respond, I believe, to that at that point. If Kevin Reddington has followed through on what he said he was going to do, then he might be in the midst of doing it, might be waiting for a phone call back. We know he's in that courthouse. We know all parties are in that courthouse. And it's just an actual holding pattern right now.

9:39The judge probably doing the same thing. And Dante, where does this leave? Obviously, we are still waiting to hear about this emergency stay request for the prosecutors right now. Where does this leave the state's case? If a mistrial is declared, will it be tried again? Can it be tried again? Absolutely. If a mistrial is declared, they will have the right to bring the case again. You have to now understand or believe that the prosecutors are looking at worst-case scenario. From our understanding from the jury's notes, they're not going to win this case. So it's either this juror is going to change his mind or be removed and another alternate juror will come in.

10:22But it seems as if 11 people are entrenched and believe that the prosecution has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she was aware of her actions. So the prosecutors are already sitting there understanding that they're behind the eight ball. Worst case scenario for them is that somehow we get a verdict that says not guilty. Best case scenario for them at this point, and that's why you saw them kind of pushing for it, is a mistrial because they get a reset. And what they can do with that reset is say what worked, what didn't work. They'll hear from some of the juries, I'm sure. They'll hear some of the arguments, kind of go over the testimony and really evaluate what arguments they made that stuck and what didn't so that they can make adjustments for that second trial.

11:06I do believe in a second trial, the prosecution does have a leg up because they do have that trial and error from the first one where they can perfect their case to hopefully get to reasonable doubt. And that's why you understand the defense attorney now is saying, listen, we did all this work. Let's try and get a result from this jury because the defense attorney believes the result will be in their favor. And that's why they're pushing in a prosecution is simply saying, judge, they've done all they could do. They've deliberated for over five days. Let's just declare a mistrial. Let's have this reset.

11:42We can't get any more blood from this stone. Let's move on so that we can have our day in court again. Yeah, it's such an important breakdown of kind of the strategic posture of both sides at this point in time. Can I follow up there, Dante? Have you ever encountered something like this? Like the mechanics of how this works? Is there just a judge waiting somewhere for a call and this all of a sudden happens in an hour? Explain to people kind of the process here. I have, and I can tell you, I've tried a lot of cases. The toughest time for any trial lawyer is when the jury has the case, because you start off by just in your mind thinking, I should have said this.

12:18I should have argued that. I should have pushed back on this point. So that's the most stressful moment of any trial lawyer is when the jury is deliberating. The other stressful point is when questions come back. And we saw some questions here early on on that first day. and then you get to the point where the jury says they have a verdict, but there's some confusion. I've had trials where there was confusion with the verdict, where they answered a question in a way they weren't supposed to, and the judge had to send them back in. I've had trials where the judge had to push them because they said they were deadlocked and they were pushed for a decision.

12:51I can tell you that the jury really takes this serious. I say it every time I pick a jury that nobody gets a jury slip in the mail and pops open a bottle of champagne, right? It's not calls for celebration. people have other things to do. A lot of people see it as taken away from things that they could be doing. But once they're in the process, jurors are truly committed. They want to get this right, and they want to have a result. That's why we saw that jury note said, with a heavy heart, we can't come to a decision, because they understand the importance of their job. And they're not doing their job right now.

13:24So I'm sure that jury is sitting in that room, kind of mad at each other to a certain degree, that they can't come to a decision. Clearly, they're pissed off at that one holdout who they believe feels a certain way but is ignoring how he feels. And then the lawyers are just sitting around because there's absolutely nothing they can do to impact this jury outside of the defense attorney going to another judge to hopefully say either one person on the jury can be removed or the judge should instruct them to keep trying. But as a lawyer sitting in that room, you know there's nothing else I can say that's going to impact this jury.

13:59And the jury is sitting there saying, listen, we know it was important. We tried our best, but we just can't do it. And they sent that note out truly with a heavy heart. Robert, if mistrial is the outcome here, which it seems to be heading that direction, we obviously are waiting to hear about this appeal any moment now. In the cases we tried, how do you find a jury that could deliberate on this? well jury selection is the key to the whole case i mean it's the process of asking potential jurors the questions about the issues in the case to determine whether or not they're going to be able to be a fair and impartial juror whether or not they can set aside any bias they have if they've been influenced by the publicity but what's interesting about this particular one here's a nuance that i haven't heard many people talking about if they had sent out a note if the jury had sent out one of their notes and said one of the jurors is refusing to deliberate i have absolutely been involved in cases where when that kind of note comes out the judge would have dismissed the juror that's number one number two one other point i want to make about kevin uh you know the defense lawyer.

15:16He's a cagey old trial lawyer. Here's my only criticism of the man right now. He knew last night where this was all going. He should have had that stay written up. He should have drafted it last night, had it in his back pocket to show to the judge, judge, I'm ready. I've got it prepared. I'm going to file it immediately. That's my only criticism of Kevin. But other than that, he is a true believer in his client. He told us he loves his client. Everybody in this country, remember, folks, everybody in this country has the right to a fair trial. And you want to have a zealous advocate. And that's what Kevin is.

15:56Yeah, he certainly has been that. Dante Mills, Robert Hirshhorn, stick around. We are watching the courtroom. We'll take you back there as soon as the judge gavels it back into session. With just minutes to go until the judge's one-hour deadline for the defense runs out. Stay with us. We're going to take a quick break.

16:39Mom, book direct at choicehotels.com. See you on the roof. Big news. Wayfair's Black Friday sale is here early. Right now at Wayfair, get up to 70 % off everything you need for the season ahead. Save on kitchen and dining, bedroom furniture and mattresses, holiday decor, and way more. Now is the time to score big. From seasonal finds to favorites you'll use all year long. Plus, with Wayfair, enjoy fast and easy shipping with delivery and time for the holidays. Save up to 70 % off early Black Friday deals. Shop now at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. We are following the breaking news on the Lindsay Clancy murder trial.

17:21We are just minutes away from a final decision on whether the judge will declare a mistrial. About 45 minutes ago, he said that was his intention after seven days of deliberations delivered a deadlocked jury. But he gave the defense attorney one hour to make an emergency appeal for a stay. Now I want to bring in Dr. Noah Sterling and OBGYN. And Dr. Sterling, I appreciate your time because I feel like we've spent so much time talking about the legal dynamics here or the strategic dynamics, where the jury is on things. The context of what is essential to understanding this case and both sides' arguments is postpartum psychosis, which is not a well-understood mental health diagnosis.

18:01I'm interested if you think this case draws more attention in a positive way and underscores the need for more research into this condition. Okay, so first of all, yes, it does underscore that we need a lot more research in all of women's health and particularly maternal mental health because maternal mental health is key to the health of the entire family. And postpartum psychosis is something that, you know, my hope from this trial is that people, we spread awareness that bipolar disorder, which Lindsay had but was misdiagnosed when she got the diagnosis too late, is a big risk factor for postpartum psychosis.

18:43Up to 30 % risk if you were bipolar of having postpartum psychosis. The other big risk factor is sleep deprivation. So these are the two things that I hope we more people will know about from this trial. Yeah, by positive, I meant awareness being the key of people actually understanding it better, actually discussing it, which I know is always a problem in issues like this. There's also the question of treatment, which has been kind of center stage, particularly in the conversations outside of the courtroom. Are there lessons from her case for doctors treating women with postpartum mental health issues?

19:19Absolutely. I think one of the most important things is that a mother who is unable to sleep, even when her baby is sleeping, even when she's given the opportunity, is incredibly high risk for suicide and for psychosis. And so that needs to be a huge red flag. You know, if you're an ER doctor and you have a mom who's suffering from postpartum depression who's not able to sleep, that needs to be, you need to see that as a really high risk patient. So, yes, we need to be talking about this more. And the treatment for postpartum psychosis is ideally prevention. And Lindsay Clancy's care was just so fragmented, so all over the place.

20:02She needed a care coordinator to look at everything. She also needed an electronic health record that everybody could look at. But we don't have that in this country. The trial has clearly opened up the larger conversation about maternal mental health. but it has without any question elicited extremely strong opinions on the topic. All sorts of sides, all sorts of opinions. Where do you think the conversation goes after this trial is over? Well, I think there's a lot of people who don't realize that mental health is not a moral failing. This is our brain, our nervous system is an organ and that organ can become diseased.

20:40And when that organ is diseased, we see the results in behavior, unusual thoughts, those types of things. So when we look at a disease process that involves the brain, involves the nervous system, we can expect to see that disease process show up in behavior. And I think a lot of people think that somehow this behavior is a moral issue and not a medical issue. Dr. Noah Sterling, your expertise is invaluable. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for having me. Well, this is a story that's captured the attention of people everywhere, without any question, including, of course, here in Washington.

21:17I've got three great political reporters joining me now. And obviously, this is not the day-to-day of any of our jobs in terms of what we cover. But the conversation is happening everywhere amongst all of our friends and families. Jamie, I'm interested in kind of the same question I just asked Dr. Sterling, like the intensity of it. Awareness is a good thing about these types of issues, but the intensity of it has been jarring at some point. So I don't think actually big picture that's surprising for those of us who 25 years ago saw the Andrea Yates case. She was a nurse. She drowned five of her children.

21:57These questions, when a mother is responsible for killing their child, just raise the stakes, raise the emotions. There is no question that we have seen intense division on both sides. We see people standing outside the courtroom who've driven from all over in support of her. We've seen, I think, more than a million dollars has been raised for her fund. And so I just think you have the nature of this case, a mother and child that raises it. Now that we have this situation with the juror, which in any case gets a lot of focus, and if it is correct, there's speculation that this holdout is a man, I think we're just going to see even more discussion about it.

22:52Tia, to that point, I think what's been, I don't even know what the right word for it is, like having the conversation is important. It at times has felt like certain people can have the conversation and the people who are on the other side of them shouldn't be involved in the conversation at all, regardless of gender or opinion or anything like that. I think my biggest question in moments like this is, you know, the hope that the broader conversation can lead to something better in the future out of this awful tragedy. Am I being naive here? Well, no, you're not being naive because we always hope to learn from things like this.

23:29Learn how we can support mothers, how we can support parents. Learn how our judicial system works and what it means to be tried by a jury of your peers. what it means to require unanimous jury verdicts if you're going to, you know, charge somebody with the most serious crimes. So I think it's a good opportunity to see our justice system at work, flaws and all. But I think we can't ignore the nuance of, you know, race, not just gender, but race. We can't ignore the nuance of, you know, just the optics of why does this trial draw so much attention when there are, you know, other things we could be focusing on.

24:10And I just, you know, that is not to fault anyone for focusing on this. But at the end of the day, when you talk about who gets to raise a million dollars when they're accused of killing three children, we just can't ignore some of those optics and dynamics. And I think those rightly should be part of the conversations we're having now. And that goes even beyond just this particular allegation and this particular trial. Brez, why do you think, and I think what Tia's laying out is like very clearly dynamics that people should understand are fueling pieces of this. The fixation on this, the national attention on this, the degree to which the national conversation has been about this over the course of the last six or seven weeks.

24:57Why do you think that is? Why this case? Why not 15 other different cases? I mean, T makes a good point. I do think it's, and Jamie does as well, I mean, it's the tragic nature of this, that, you know, this woman, you know, the children, that's stunning. It's a stunning, it's a shocking crime. It just shocks everyone. And then, you know, what happened afterwards, she tried to take her own life and she's paralyzed. And then this has become a huge moment on discussing about postpartum psychosis and depression. And then, you know, then you did, because everything is political also, you did have conservative commentators.

25:41You had a couple of Matt Walsh, some of these other ones, talking about men, of course, you know, talking about, you know, you know, the victims here. don't forget the victim, the children are the victims here, which is, you know, it's, you know, that's, and then, and that set off a firestorm, even on the right. So even among conservatives, you have Meghan McCain, you had others pushing back on this, saying, you know, you've lost, you really can't understand this situation. And it is, and now we're talking about if the one juror is a holdout as a man, that's another gender issue right here. So I do think it's like, you know, the tragedy of this case, she was misdiagnosed and she fell between the cracks.

26:22And even the OBGYN you were talking to, that they couldn't, because of the way our health system works, her own doctors couldn't see her, everything that she was being treated for. So I think there's just, you know, the confluence of so many different things. And it's just, it's really, it's talking about people lining up globally watching this. This has attracted attention internationally. So I do think it's, you know, everyone has talked about it on the Hill. They were talking about this trial. You would talk about other reporters and members or even talk about it. Yeah, no, I mean, it has become the thing.

26:53I think to your point, like I would hope people can have the ability to see that there are a lot of different parts of this. And it is very complex. And there are multiple different conversations, all of which I think would be good to be having about the elements in this case, but aren't great if they're just putting people into corners where they just want to yell at each other, which is kind of an evergreen sentiment. All right, coming up, we are going live to the Plymouth courtroom where the judge could decide the fate of the Lindsay Clancy murder trial any moment now. And if you have a question about the case, email it to CNNAllAccess-Questions at CNN.com.

27:26CNN experts are taking those questions and comments right now on CNN All Access.

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28:20Now is the time to score big, from seasonal finds to favorites you'll use all year long. Plus, with Wayfair, enjoy fast and easy shipping with delivery and time for the holidays. Save up to 70 % off early Black Friday deals. Shop now at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. We are following the breaking news in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. Any moment now, the court will be back in session after a stunning turn this morning. After seven days of deliberations, the jury told the judge it could not reach a unanimous verdict. Still could not reach a unanimous verdict. Then came this exchange, ending with a dramatic announcement from the judge.

29:01And the question is, it is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to.

29:16My, well, let me ask what is the party's position in regards to that question. Your Honor, from the Commonwealth's perspective, since the TUI instruction has already been given and then there was like a deliberation after that I think that it would require a mistrial at this point. Attorney Ragton. Your Honor, my understanding is that this court has the discretion to have the jury sent back for the second time. The first time that there was a report we did not treat it as a report of deadlock. We did not instruct them under TUI. We did not give them soft TUI. We didn't give them anything. We just sent them back to deliberate.

29:56So technically we have one report of deadlock that your honor gave the Tui Rodriguez charge to, I believe under the statute, as well as the case law, this court has the ability to send the jury back. The fact that that jury foreperson wrote very unusually, it is with a heavy heart that we are unable to come to a decision. Based on the earlier questions that we have I think it would be a sound and a wise decision for this court to send it back under the law. Well I would find that under Massachusetts case law and statutory law the jury did not ask to be sent back which it would be a possibility if they had requested it to be sent back to them but under the statute and the case law, I don't feel I have any choice but to declare mistrial.

30:54But the defense pushed the judge to stop from ruling this mistrial, which led to this announcement. What I'm asking for is time to file a single justice appeal for this travesty. That's what I'm asking for. So you're asking for an emergency stay at this point? Yes. And the jurors don't have to come back tomorrow. They can be told they don't even have to come back if I lose the motion. But But if I win the motion, then obviously they would have to come back Tuesday.

31:22If you want to go up and petition to the SJC for a stay, I'll give you an hour.

31:33That hour is up now, about five minutes ago, which means an announcement on Lindsey Clancy's fate is likely imminent. We are told prosecutors are back in the courtroom now. Now, I want to go straight to Laura Coates, CNN's Laura Coates. Laura, as this has all been playing out, what are your expectations, given the kind of uncertainty and surprised twists and turns we've seen, not just over the course of the last couple of weeks, but just in the last hour? What a difficult case for this jury to have five different options, Phil, anywhere from first-degree murder all the way down to not guilty, when they began by only having the two.

32:09Not guilty by reason of criminal lack of responsibility or talking about the guilty by reason of having that criminal responsibility. Now they have five options and it has proved to be an insurmountable hurdle for this jury. One would expect a mistrial to be declared. They only had an hour to ask for a stay, but the stay is largely based. It's a fancy way of saying, hold on, everyone, let's put a pin on this. Can I have more time to investigate? Can I ask this judge to probe this particular juror who they believe was not following instructions, but the judge found that that person was a little bit deeper.

32:45And here we know that this has been days and days of deliberation over a week now. And they're coming against a weekend, which frankly, Phil, is oftentimes the harbinger of a exhausted jury, let alone a holiday weekend. We knew that would be against them either way. But add to that the emotional strain here. And remember, it is up to these jurors. They are the fact finders. They are the ones who weigh the credibility. And if they have determined that they cannot come to a unanimous decision, the judge is unable to continue to force their hand if he has exhausted all remedies. Yeah, the use of heavy heart in the note, the way the note was worded, seemed to put a definitive end to what they had been trying to do for 30 plus hours.

33:34Laura, you mentioned something that I want to follow up on, which is this request for a stay. Is this something that gets granted? You seem to be thinking it's very unlikely. Is there precedent for something like this actually working? Well, normally a stay, and just to be clear, when we're talking about appealing to a higher court, usually you can only appeal once there is a final decision, as in a verdict happening. A mistrial or a jury that is totally deadlocked is normally not appealable, but they're asking the stay to be about what the judge had within his own discretion. Remember, they wanted this judge to ask further questions because the defense counsel believed that the jury, that one particular juror, was a problem for the rest of the jury.

34:20They didn't give great amount of detail in terms of the exact why, nor do they likely know all the details. They know that there is a deadlocked juror. And you can almost imagine that Norman Rockwell painting of one juror at the end of a long deliberation table, arms folded. If that's what happened, that juror may have every right not to come to the same conclusion as long as they are following the instructions of the court. And so one thing that a judge can do to try to preserve their own ruling and avoid having an appellate process undermine it is to couch it in language that shows that it was their own firsthand observation, their own particular assessment based on their interview of a particular juror, not some error of judgment in a rule of law.

35:06And that can be helpful in preventing the stay. But I think you picked up on exactly the right part, Phil. Heavy heart is an understatement here. You've got three children, five, three and eight months old, who their mother has admitted to strangling with an athletic band. The question before this jury was whether she was criminally responsible for it or there were different degrees of intent and responsibility. So this is a case that it began with the only two options being, was she guilty and had premeditated and intended for this to happen and was calculated and manipulative? Or was she not criminally responsible, as she has said, that she had commanding voices telling her to do this?

35:49And all of her cries for medical attention and mental health intervention fell upon deaf ears of a system that failed her. These two different choices for this jury is why they have this heavy heart and mind. But you should have heard the medical examiner describe what happened to the children. You should have heard the father, the now ex-husband of her. You should have heard even the defendant's own mother and relatives speaking about this. This is not an easy case. We knew it would not be an easy case in terms of the experience of having to deliberate and sit through this trial. But now we see that giving jurors five separate options where they have to go through every single element to decide, that is even harder.

36:33It's such a great, like I cannot fathom being in that situation, being one of the 12. Robert Hirshhorn and Dante Mills are back with us now. And Robert, to that point, like what Laura just brought up, the Rockwell painting, which I think is like such a great snapshot, not of what we know is going on, but I could definitely see that being kind of the dynamic here. walk people through like what is the jury doing right now yeah well it's kind of reminiscent of 12 angry men except i've dubbed this 12 pissed off jurors uh here's what's going on they're they're sad i'm sure there's tears that are flowing back there there's anger there's there's the entire range of emotion because jurors as laura said they really do take their responsibility seriously.

37:18That's why it's called jury duty, right? Not jury vacation. And they really do want to do a good job. And look, I have a lot of admiration for this jury. I promise you, none of your viewers, none of your listeners would want to trade places with this jury, because this is a lot of work that they had to put in. It's a lot of emotional distress on them. Here's the other thing that's really interesting, Phil. If the judge had said to the jury when they sent out the last note if he had the authority to it if he had the discretion to say i want you to continue deliberating if you're not able to reach your verdict today we'll we'll break at our normal time four o 'clock and we'll we'll take monday off because it's a holiday and we'll see you all back here on tuesday i think there would have been a really good chance that that one holdout juror would have said at that point okay i'm done i want out fine i'll i'll vote with the rest of y 'all But that's not what happened, and now we have this stay.

38:19I don't think it's going to be successful. But look, Kevin's a cagey old trial lawyer. If anybody could pull it off, it's somebody like him. You know, Dante, from the lawyer perspective, we're past the one-hour mark right now. What is happening right now?

38:42I think we lost Dante's audio. We're going to try and get that back. Laura, you know, it feels like every eye in the country is on this courtroom right now, has been on this courtroom for the last several weeks. The case has really captured with extraordinary intensity a conversation and a moment right now. If this is declared a mistrial, where do you think that conversation goes? And triggered a conversation about not only our healthcare system, about postpartum, about mental health, and this will continue maybe not just in the court of public opinion, but it will also continue in a civil case because there is an ongoing civil case that's happening where medical providers who were treating Lindsay Clancy have been sued.

39:32There is an active litigation against several of them. And so there is that ongoing case, not yet a trial, if it gets to that point. Remember, if there is a civil trial, it's a much lower burden of proof. It's no longer beyond a reasonable doubt. And it's one of those cases where the defense attorney wanted from the jump it to be known that he was putting the health care system on trial. As much as Lindsey Clancy is in that defense seat, they wanted to be sure that this jury was questioning all the instances in which she tried to get help and they believe fell on deaf ears. But these are very difficult conversations.

40:14If you were just to see, we've been carving this on all access since the very beginning. And we've been posting people's social media reactions. And we're seeing everything online as well. We're so interactive in that way. And we see the gamut from some people who are incredulous that this could even be debated. But then there are others who are talking about this as an issue of self-awareness of our own health care system. And you see a number of people outside the courtroom dressed in pink who are demonstrating their support, if not for Lindsay Clancy specifically, but for the discussion on postpartum psychosis and depression and mental health more broadly.

40:58But for these jurors, if I'm the prosecutor in this case, which is what they tried to do, I want to take it from the general and I want to make it very specific. This is not a case about every person who's ever experienced postpartum mental health issues or psychosis or diagnoses. It's about this woman and what she chose to do. And they were very clear, they say, according to prosecution, chose to do, they wanted to be very clear that they do not want this to be some sort of pretextual acquittal of her behavior in an effort to have a larger conversation. So, you know, it's a very tough case, Phil.

41:37And, but it is, it's a good thing that it is sparking the conversations that so many people have wanted to have for a long time about raising awareness of what the experience of a woman who's given birth is, can be. Yeah. The degree to which the conversations are happening in like isolated corners, like running in parallel with one another, I would hope that we can try and merge them at some point to have full conversations. I know you guys have been covering it, watching it all play out, that your conversations have been invaluable as you've watched every stage of this. All right, Stay with me, Laura.

42:13We are eagerly waiting to hear what's happening inside that Massachusetts courtroom. We will return there live next. Stay with us as we take a quick break.

42:42Can't be amazing, all right. Bring a date, your team, or even your mom. Book direct at choicehotels.com. See you on the roof. Share comfort and joy this holiday season at Tecovas. Our boots are handcrafted in over 200 meticulous steps and have a broken-in feel right out of the box with styles for everyone in the family. Our expert staff can help you pick the perfect gifts, and we have free in-store gift wrapping to help make the holiday season truly special. See you soon at your local Tecovas store or shop with us anytime at tecovas.com. Any moment now, court will be back in session in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial after a stunning turn this morning when the jury told the judge it still could not reach a unanimous verdict.

43:32At any minute, we could learn Clancy's fate and if a mistrial could stand, leaving the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a chance to retry the case. We're told prosecutors are back in the courtroom right now. CNN's Jean Casares is outside the courthouse in Plymouth, along with lawyer Dante Mills and jury and trial consultant Robert Hirshhorn. Jean, what is the feeling outside the courthouse right now as we all wait for what happens next? Just anticipation. What is going to happen next? We don't know. And you're right, Phil, we have confirmed that the two assistant district attorneys that tried this case, They are in the courtroom, as well as the elected district attorney for Plymouth County, Massachusetts, also in that courtroom.

44:14The family members of Lindsey Clancy were allowed to go into that courtroom. And they, of course, ahead of the public or the media, they always sit almost immediately right behind Lindsey. The media is still in the hallway, but no sign of Kevin Reddington. They have not seen him at all. They don't believe he's in the courtroom. They haven't seen him come to go into the courtroom. So we are at a standstill right now. Judge obviously waiting until all parties are present to convene this court session to see what will happen next. And again, an hour was given for the emergency appeal. All right. We have just learned.

44:52Go ahead. Phil, we have just learned that Kevin Reddington just walked out of the courtroom. So conceivably he has been in the courtroom because no one saw him enter the courtroom. So he just walked out of the courtroom right now. I don't know if that is for business that he must conduct or if he's just walking out of the courtroom. But everyone is very close to that courtroom right now for anything that might happen momentarily. Yeah, the expectation is momentarily, as you said. Dante, quick question. If this is declared a mistrial, what conversations happen then between prosecution and defense?

45:29Well, it depends on what side most of the jurors were on. If they were, in fact, on the defense side, the defense attorneys have some leverage here to say, OK, listen, you almost lost this case. There's no guarantee that we won't get the same result next time. So you should offer something that our client is willing to accept where she accepts some responsibility. Maybe there's a shorter sentence that you include in that plea deal and say, listen, don't take this risk, because as you can see, you have a chance to lose. But I also want to point out, I know the judge gave an hour, an efficiency, a speediency.

46:04All of that is important, but you also want to get it right. If there's a chance to save this jury, you want to save them because of all of the work that went in. And also the other component to this is if a retrial happens, they're going to have to pick a new jury. Almost everybody has been involved in this case and have had conversations about it or overheard people talking about it. So getting a fresh jury, especially if you try and do it right away, that doesn't already know the facts of this case, that may not already have opinions, and then at the end of that case will all have 12 people agree and not end up in the same situation, that's not an easy ask.

46:40So I think they should take, even if it takes longer than an hour, you take every avenue that you have, every possible thing that you can do to try and save this jury and get a verdict while all the work has been done. Because even if we do start over, there's no guarantee that we won't end up back into the same place. If you have, first off, thank you. You guys have been extraordinarily helpful with your expertise throughout the course of the hour. I know everybody will be sticking around, continuing to watch that courthouse as we await a decision on an emergency appeal to the declaration of a mistrial.

47:18Should happen any moment now. If you have a question about the Lindsay Clancy murder case, email it to cnnallaccess-questions at cnn.com. CNN experts are taking on your questions and comments right now at CNN All Access. Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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