Tensions high in Clancy courtroom as defense blames 1 juror for deadlock

Tensions running high at the Lindsay Clancy murder trial as the jury failed to reach a verdict for a sixth day. The judge questioning each juror individually as the defense tried to get one of the jurors tossed off the case. Our Chief Investigative Correspondent Aaron Katurski is at the courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Good morning, Aaron. Good morning to you, Rebecca. The judge is expected to start the day here questioning one juror who the defense said refuses to follow the law and is keeping the jury at an impasse. This morning on the seventh day of deliberations, the trial of Lindsay Clancy is in disarray. The jury is deadlocked and Clancy's attorney blamed a single holdout. There's a person who has doubt but will not listen to the judge's instruction. The defense claims one juror is refusing to follow the law that says a defendant must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, keeping the jury from a unanimous verdict. And if we come back here in a half an hour with a mistrial because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of this court, it's a shame. It's a real shame. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington wanted the juror dismissed, but the judge refused. I don't feel that it is proper for me to side with one side or the other of the deliberations. I don't feel it's appropriate for me to say I agree with one juror or the other. The judge did remind jurors of their duty to follow the law. It's not enough for the commonwealth to establish a probability, even a strong probability, that the defendant is more likely to be guilty than not guilty. That is not enough. The jury is deciding whether to hold Clancy legally responsible for strangling five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan, or whether to find her not guilty because she was in the depths of postpartum psychosis. It is all but unheard of, Gio, to remove a juror 36 hours into deliberations, and being a holdout usually isn't a good enough reason. But this one juror could cause a mistrial and force everyone involved in this case to go through it all again. Gio? Truly fascinating. Aaron Kaczorski, thank you so much. Let's go ahead and bring in ABC News Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams right now. Dan, it is good to see you. It feels like just about everyone is talking about this case. So Aaron just talked about how unusual this is. How unusual is something like this? Well, look, it's not that unusual to have 11 to 1, meaning it doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen. It's not that unusual to have a divided jury. What makes this a little bit unusual and something I haven't seen before is the fact that the defense is now coming out and saying this juror should be dismissed because of it, because this juror isn't deliberating properly, isn't following the law. That's what makes this a bit unusual. And Dan, as you noted there, the defense said that one juror is refusing to listen to the law. They asked the judge to remove that person from the jury. Can you walk us through what happened and what happens next? Yeah, so basically the judge re-read part of the instruction and told all of the jurors, you have to follow my law. I'm telling you what the law is. But the question is, how does each juror interpret that? I think it would have been very hard for a judge to say, yeah, I'm going to dismiss this juror because this juror doesn't agree with the other jurors on how to interpret reasonable doubt here. I mean, that's the entire point of the deliberation process is for jurors to say, I think this, I think that. And even if 11 jurors think the one is absolutely wrong, it would be incredibly unusual for a judge, and I think almost unheard of, for a judge to dismiss that juror because the others say the person isn't deliberating in the way that they think the juror ought to. Yeah, it would certainly raise questions about precedent in the future when juries are at an impasse. You say the issue of reasonable doubt is especially important here because of Massachusetts law. Right, because here the prosecutors have to effectively disprove the defense. Meaning in most states, when you say I'm going to plead insanity, you have to prove the case. In Massachusetts, once you present evidence of a lack of criminal responsibility, it is the prosecution's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that that's not the case. And I think that that's really got to be part of the issue here that the jurors are fighting over, which is what does it mean that the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she isn't insane? And that's why Massachusetts law, which, by the way, is very favorable to the defense, I think becomes relevant here. Certainly some dramatic moments in the courtroom. We'll stand by and see how this plays out. Dan Abrams, we appreciate your time this morning.