After an 11-1 jury deadlock ended the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in a mistrial, legal observers say the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office, known for refusing plea deals, may have no choice but to consider one.

Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial on September 4 at Plymouth County Superior Court in Plymouth, Massachusetts, after jurors deliberated for seven days without reaching a unanimous verdict on three counts of first-degree murder. Eleven of the twelve jurors reportedly favored finding Clancy, 36, not guilty by reason of insanity. A single holdout prevented the unanimous decision required for any verdict.

Clancy is charged with strangling her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, all under age six, at the family's home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023. She now sits in a psychiatric facility, paralyzed from the waist down after a suicide attempt following the killings, and her defense attorney says she remains on around-the-clock suicide watch.

The question hanging over the case is straightforward: does District Attorney Timothy Cruz retry a case that eleven jurors already signaled he cannot win?

Cruz's office built its reputation on refusing deals, and that record cuts both ways

Boston-based criminal defense attorney Peter Elikann, who has worked against the Plymouth County DA's office, told Fox News Digital that Cruz's prosecutors have a well-known posture on plea agreements.

"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 argued the 11-1 split should give prosecutors pause. A different jury could reach a different result, he acknowledged, but the lopsided margin points in one direction.

"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?"

Elikann framed a deal as a practical outcome for both sides, a "win-win situation" in which the DA's office and the defense "try to work out some sort of compromise that they can both live with."

One holdout juror could not cite evidence for his position, fellow juror says

Juror Nick Dargie offered a pointed account of the deliberations to ABC News, describing repeated efforts to get the holdout juror to explain his reasoning.

"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."

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington went further. He argued in a motion filed after the mistrial that the holdout juror "ignored doubts he had and wanted a guilty verdict," and that the other eleven jurors "applied the reasonable doubt standard," concluding prosecutors had not proven Clancy was criminally responsible. The jury had deadlocked multiple times before Sullivan finally ended the proceedings.

Reddington also sought to have the holdout juror removed during deliberations, arguing the juror's stance "reflects a bias against those who suffer from debilitating mental illness, a protected category." Sullivan denied that request. Reddington then filed an emergency stay with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which was also denied.

Reddington filed a long-shot motion, and signaled he wants to talk

On Wednesday, Reddington filed a motion asking Sullivan to enter a finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility on each charge. He conceded the legal odds in the filing itself.

"A hung jury is not a verdict; jeopardy does not terminate on a hung jury, and a mistrial ordinarily permits retrial."

The motion asks for a hearing on September 29, the same date Clancy is due back in court for a status hearing. It is an unusual move, judges rarely override a jury's inability to reach a verdict by entering their own finding, but it keeps pressure on prosecutors to consider alternatives to a second trial.

Reddington appeared on "Good Morning America" on Tuesday and struck a conciliatory tone toward Cruz, whom he said he has known for thirty years.

"I'm willing to listen to Tim. I've known Tim for 30 years. He's a very hard charging prosecutor. 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 has also described Clancy's fragile condition. In a separate interview, he said she is "suicidal" and on "24/7, one-on-one suicide watch," adding, "I worry about her every day." He told reporters Clancy was hurt by the way prosecutors talked about her during the trial but "never once expressed anger towards anybody in the system."

Cruz has not tipped his hand, and a retired judge doubts he will bend

Cruz offered little after the mistrial. He said only that no decision would come that day and that he planned to meet with his team before addressing the case "at the appropriate time and in the context of an official court proceeding."

At the same time, Cruz framed the prosecution in terms that suggest he is not ready to walk away. He told reporters after the mistrial that "this was and has always been about getting justice for those three little babies."

Retired Massachusetts Superior Judge Jack Lu agreed that a deal would serve the public interest, but predicted Cruz would not offer one. He told Fox News Digital that Cruz's office would likely come back with the same first-degree murder charges.

"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 described the prosecution's stance as philosophical. "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.

That philosophical conviction now runs headlong into an arithmetic problem. Eleven jurors heard the same evidence Cruz's team presented and concluded the state had not proven criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. Reddington's defense centered on postpartum psychosis, the argument that Clancy was so severely mentally ill at the time of the killings that she could not be held criminally responsible. The trial itself was emotionally grueling, with testimony about the children's autopsies halting proceedings at one point.

September 29 will test whether principle or pragmatism wins

Clancy's next court date is September 29. On that day, Sullivan will take up Reddington's motion for a not-guilty finding and the broader question of what happens next. Cruz's office will have had nearly a month to weigh the 11-1 result, the cost of a second trial, and the near-certainty that Reddington will mount the same defense with the same evidence, evidence that already persuaded all but one juror.

Reddington has also asked President Trump for a pardon, a request that carries no legal weight because the president has no authority over state murder charges. But the move signals how far the defense is willing to go to keep the case in public view.

Three children are dead. No verdict has been reached. And a prosecutor's office that prides itself on never blinking must now decide whether pressing forward serves justice, or simply guarantees another mistrial.

When eleven out of twelve jurors say the state did not make its case, the question is not whether the DA has the right to try again. The question is whether taxpayers and victims' families should pay the price for stubbornness dressed up as principle.