Could Lindsay Clancy walk free after a mistrial?

( NewsNation ) — A Massachusetts jury is deliberating Thursday for a sixth day on whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for the strangling deaths of her three children in 2023, amid conflicting testimony about her post-pregnancy mental health.

For a second time, jurors on Wednesday told the judge they were still unable to reach a unanimous verdict . They were sent back to try again with a Tuey-Rodriguez charge instruction. Also known as a “ dynamite charge ,” the instruction is used when a jury is deadlocked.

So, what happens if jurors can’t reach a verdict?

Massachusetts requires a unanimous verdict. If jurors can’t agree, the judge would push them to keep deliberating. If they remain deadlocked , the result is a mistrial, and prosecutors would be free to retry the case before a new jury.

If a mistrial is declared, the case would essentially go back to the same status as before the trial, with the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse charged with murder and held at a psychiatric hospital awaiting a resolution of the criminal case.

Prosecutors would have to decide whether to try again with a new jury. If they do, the jury selection process would begin again and a new trial would be scheduled.

Prosecutors could also offer Clancy a plea deal, Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case, told the Associated Press .

“Any time the threat of a retrial with murder one hanging over the client is re-interjected, defense lawyers will, at the very least, explore whether or not there’s any interest in a resolution,” Bailey said.

Clancy’s defense contends she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis and should not be found guilty.

After the killings, her husband found her badly injured in the yard, where she landed after jumping from a second-story window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down .

Prosecutors argued she understood what she was doing and should be held criminally responsible.

Though less likely after a first trial ends without a verdict, the district attorney’s office could decide to not retry the case.

What possible verdicts could Clancy face?

If jurors find Clancy criminally responsible and convict her of first-degree murder, she would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A second-degree murder conviction also carries a life sentence but with eventual parole eligibility.

Under Massachusetts law, the burden is entirely on prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was criminally responsible when she killed her children.

To do that, they must show either that she wasn’t suffering from a mental disease or defect or that she was still able to understand her actions were wrong and control herself despite it.

Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, has argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and lacked criminal responsibility.

His final witness, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick — who also testified for Andrea Yates’ defense in 2006 — told jurors Clancy was “clearly psychotic” the day of the killings and believed, delusionally, that her children would be better off dying with her than being taken by social services.

A not-guilty finding on these grounds would not mean Clancy goes free.

The judge allowed for the possibility of a manslaughter verdict before the case was handed over to the jury.

NewsNation’s Damita Menezes, Laura Ingle and Safia Samee Ali, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.