Plymouth County's top prosecutor built a reputation on refusing to negotiate, but after an 11-1 jury deadlock ended Lindsay Clancy's triple murder trial in a mistrial, a veteran defense attorney says the office may have no choice but to deal.

Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial at Plymouth County Superior Court in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Friday, September 4, after jurors deliberated for seven days and failed to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the three first-degree murder charges against the 36-year-old Clancy. Eleven of the twelve jurors sided with the defense's argument that prosecutors had not proven Clancy was criminally responsible for the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, all under the age of six, at the family's home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Now the case sits in legal limbo. District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not said whether he will retry Clancy. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has already filed a motion asking Sullivan to enter a finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility on every charge. And a September 29 status hearing looms as the next decision point in a case that has gripped the country since those three children were found dead nearly four years ago.

Plymouth County's no-deal reputation meets an 11-1 wall

Peter Elikann, a veteran Boston-based criminal defense attorney who has tried cases against the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office, told Fox News Digital that Cruz's office has long been known for its reluctance to negotiate. But the lopsided jury split, he said, changes the math.

"Normally, the reputation of the Plymouth County DA's office is that they don't like to do deals as much as other district attorney's offices do, that they will push a case to trial even if it's not their strongest case. This very well could be an exception."

Elikann framed a potential deal as a practical outcome for both sides. He argued that the 11-1 deadlock signals deep trouble for prosecutors if they attempt a second trial.

"Different juries can differ. But that might be an indication that it's going to be really rough to get 12 people to find her guilty of first-degree murder. Therefore, it would be something that they would mull over. Why have another trial if the likelihood of getting a conviction would be considered so minimal by a lot of people?"

He called a negotiated resolution a potential "win-win situation" in which "the DA's office puts their head together with the defense counsel and they try to work out some sort of compromise that they can both live with."

Reddington wants a mental health facility, not a prison cell

Reddington has not been shy about his position. He appeared on "Good Morning America" earlier in the week and signaled openness to a plea deal, but on specific terms. The New York Post reported that Reddington stated he "would not plead Lindsay Clancy to a day in jail," insisting she "doesn't deserve jail" and pushing instead for placement in a mental health facility.

"I hope, however, after sitting through this trial and seeing the evidence that was presented from the government as well as from the defense, that he would revisit that issue and hopefully would be able to work something out that would be acceptable to both sides."

Reddington noted his long professional relationship with the district attorney. "I've known Tim for 30 years," he said. "He's a very hard charging prosecutor."

That relationship will be tested. On Wednesday, Reddington filed a motion asking Sullivan to enter a not-guilty finding on each charge, arguing that 11 of the 12 jurors "applied the reasonable doubt standard" and concluded prosecutors failed to prove criminal responsibility. The motion also alleged the lone holdout juror "allegedly ignored doubts he had and wanted a guilty verdict."

A juror who served on the panel publicly described frustration with the holdout's reasoning. Nick Dargie told ABC News that the lone dissenter could not point to evidence supporting his position.

"There was several times I would ask him to show us evidence or, you know, describe a witness testimony that helped to prove what he was saying, and... he couldn't. There wasn't a single piece of evidence or witness testimony that he used to prove why he was thinking the way he was, which is why we ultimately sent in that note."

Cruz says nothing, for now

The district attorney has kept his cards close. On the day of the mistrial, Cruz told reporters only that no decision would come immediately.

"There will be no decisions made today regarding that. I'm going to be meeting with our team, and we will address this case further at the appropriate time and in the context of an official court proceeding."

But Cruz also struck a tone that suggested retreat is not in his nature. Breitbart reported that Cruz stated plainly: "Children were murdered and it's our job to seek justice." His options include retrying the case on the same charges, reducing the charges, negotiating a plea, or dropping the case entirely.

Retired Massachusetts Superior Judge Jack Lu, who also spoke with Fox News Digital, predicted Cruz's office will not flinch. Lu called a plea deal a "good idea" and said it would be in the public's "interest," but he did not expect prosecutors to agree.

"I predict that the prosecutor's office will approach this the same way, at least as the charges are concerned, as they did for trial number one, seeking a conviction of first-degree murder. There is some possibility that they'll reduce the charges, and that would, that could happen, but I wouldn't be predicting that."

Lu added that he believed the first-degree murder charge reflected a genuine philosophical conviction inside the DA's office, not just a legal strategy. "I think it's the honest philosophical point of view of the prosecutor in this case that this individual should be convicted of first-degree murder," he said.

Seven weeks of trial, one holdout, and a case back at square one

The mistrial returned Clancy to her pre-trial status: charged with three counts of first-degree murder and held at a psychiatric facility. The Associated Press noted that the jury deliberated for seven days and twice told the judge it could not reach a unanimous decision before Sullivan pulled the plug.

Reddington's motion acknowledged the legal reality bluntly: "A hung jury is not a verdict; jeopardy does not terminate on a hung jury, and a mistrial ordinarily permits retrial." In other words, nothing stops Cruz from putting Clancy back in front of a new jury, if he chooses to.

Brad Bailey, another Boston defense attorney, told the AP that any time murder-one charges still hang over a defendant after a mistrial, defense lawyers will "at the very least, explore whether or not there's any interest in a resolution." Bailey also predicted the defense would argue against retrial on compassionate grounds, paraphrasing the likely pitch: "Why are you doing this to this poor woman? She's still clearly obviously suffering."

Reddington himself has been more combative. He accused the holdout juror of having an "agenda" and said the other eleven jurors "know they were robbed by one man, for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors."

Clancy's defense attorney has also asked President Trump for a pardon, a request that carries no legal weight, since state murder charges fall outside the president's pardon authority.

Trump calls the case a 'horrible tragedy'

President Trump weighed in from the Oval Office after the mistrial was declared, calling the case "a shame" and "a horrible tragedy." He did not hold back about the underlying act. "She did a horrible, horrible thing. Can't be worse," Trump told reporters, as Just The News reported.

Trump predicted Clancy would still face consequences, whether through a psychiatric institution, prison, or another trial. "There'll be a price," he said.

September 29 will set the course

Clancy is due back in Plymouth County Superior Court on September 29 for a status hearing. Reddington has asked that his motion for a not-guilty finding be heard on that date. Cruz's team will presumably signal its intentions, retry, deal, or something else, at or before that hearing.

The central question is whether an office built on a no-deal philosophy can afford to gamble on another seven-week trial when eleven out of twelve jurors already broke the defendant's way. Elikann, who has watched the Plymouth County DA's Office operate for years, put the tension simply: the office's instinct is to push forward, but the numbers from this jury make pushing forward a risky bet.

Three children are dead. Eleven jurors said the prosecution did not meet its burden. One juror, by multiple accounts, could not explain why he disagreed. If Cruz sends this case back to trial and gets the same result, he will have spent months of public resources to confirm what the first jury already told him.