By David Morgan
WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Massachusetts Superior Court Judge William Sullivan played a prominent role in at least two other high-profile murder trials before presiding over the case of Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of murdering her three young children.
Sullivan declared a mistrial on Friday in the case of the former labor and delivery nurse. Her attorney says she suffered from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her children in 2023, then cut herself with a knife and jumped from a second-story window in an attempt to take her own life that left her paralyzed.
DEADLOCKED JURY
Sullivan found himself at the center of an unusual final stretch in the six-week trial, with jurors telling him three separate times they could not reach a unanimous verdict. He repeatedly sent them back for more deliberations.
On Friday, Sullivan refused a defense request to remove a juror who Clancy’s lawyer said was preventing the jury from returning a not-guilty verdict. He declared a mistrial after the jury foreperson sent a note on behalf of 11 jurors indicating that one juror had acknowledged doubt but refused to apply it to the verdict.
EDUCATION, APPOINTMENT AND RETIREMENT
Sullivan, 69, was appointed to the Superior Court in 2014 by former Governor Deval Patrick. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and a law degree from Boston College Law School. Like all state judges in Massachusetts, he faces mandatory retirement by age 70.
PARALLEL CASE
Less than a month ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that Sullivan wrongly excluded mental health records as the presiding judge in the murder trial of another mother who was accused of killing her two young children.
Latarsha Sanders was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the 2018 stabbing deaths of her two sons, aged 8 and 5. Her attorneys had mounted an unsuccessful defense by saying she was not responsible for her actions because she was insane.
The high court vacated her convictions and ordered a new trial early last month, finding that Sullivan had committed a prejudicial error by ruling inadmissible thousands of pages of medical records that showed Sanders to be suffering from paranoia and schizophrenia that had gone undetected and untreated for years.
BOTH SIDES OF CRIMINAL LAW
Sullivan was admitted to the bar in 1982 and spent two years as an assistant district attorney in Norfolk County before becoming a prominent defense attorney.
In a 2013 criminal case that made national headlines, Sullivan mounted an insanity defense on behalf of Nathaniel Fujita, a young man accused of murdering his former high school girlfriend, Lauren Astley. Rather than disputing the allegations, Sullivan argued the accused had suffered a psychotic episode and could not control himself. Fujita was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The case later featured on the TV documentary series “48 Hours” and Sullivan appeared on the show to discuss Fujita’s mental health.
(Reporting by David Morgan; editing by Scott Malone and Rod Nickel)
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