Judge Judy Sheindlin says Massachusetts prosecutors would set a dangerous precedent by walking away from the Lindsay Clancy murder case after a mistrial, even as the defense pushes for a plea deal that could end with probation.
Sheindlin, the 83-year-old former judge who hosted the syndicated courtroom show "Judge Judy" for 25 seasons, weighed in on the Clancy case in a TMZ interview Thursday. She did not hold back about the stakes of letting the case quietly resolve without a second trial.
Lindsay Clancy, a 36-year-old former delivery room nurse, strangled her three children with exercise bands in January 2023. Her defense does not dispute that she killed them. The sole question at trial was whether Clancy bore criminal responsibility, and after seven days of deliberation, jurors at Plymouth County Superior Court in Plymouth, Massachusetts, told the judge they could not agree. Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Sept. 4.
The jury reportedly split 11 to 1 in favor of finding Clancy not criminally responsible due to mental illness or defect. Only one juror held out for conviction.
That lopsided number gave the defense immediate leverage. Kevin Reddington, Clancy's longtime defense attorney, signaled right after the mistrial that he would fight any attempt to put Clancy on trial again. He has indicated he plans to argue that the circumstances surrounding the mistrial should bar a second prosecution entirely.
Reddington went further in a recent interview with Fox News' Bryan Llenas. If prosecutors agreed to reduce the top charge to second-degree murder, Reddington said he would opt for a bench trial, a proceeding decided by a judge alone, with no jury, in the hope that Clancy would receive probation.
Probation. For a woman whose own lawyers do not deny she killed three children.
Sheindlin told TMZ the case was too complex for a quick take.
"I can't give you a two minute answer on that."
But she made her bottom line plain. Asked whether prosecutors should retry Clancy, Sheindlin said:
"I think there's a danger in that, in not retrying."
She then drew the sharpest line in the interview, separating the factual question from the legal one.
"There's no question, my dear, that she killed her children. The only question is, is there an excuse for it? Make up your own mind on that one."
That framing cuts to the core of the case. Nobody disputes what Clancy did. The fight is entirely over whether a mental-health defense should shield her from criminal consequences, and whether prosecutors have the resolve to make that argument a second time in front of a new jury.
Rep. Nancy Mace weighed in on the Clancy case with a public call for Clancy to be publicly executed. Sheindlin dismissed the remark in a single sentence.
"I think it's ridiculous."
Sheindlin did not elaborate, but the comment drew a clear boundary: she wants accountability through the legal system, not political grandstanding.
Clancy is currently held at Tewksbury Hospital in Massachusetts. Her next court date is Sept. 29, when the path forward, retrial, plea deal, or a defense motion to block further prosecution, could start to take shape.
Prosecutors have not publicly announced whether they intend to retry the case. The defense, meanwhile, is already laying groundwork to prevent one. Reddington's bench-trial gambit signals confidence that a judge, reviewing the same evidence that left eleven jurors unwilling to convict, might hand Clancy a sentence that amounts to freedom.
Three children are dead, and their mother's lawyers do not deny she killed them. If the system cannot muster the will to try that case twice, the failure belongs to everyone who let it slide.
