Judge Judy Breaks Silence On Lindsay Clancy Case

Judge Judy Sheindlin commented on the Lindsay Clancy murder case in a TMZ street interview on Thursday. Asked whether Clancy was guilty of murder, she said, “There’s no question that she killed her children, the only question is—is there an excuse for it? Make up your own mind on that one.”

Asked whether prosecutors should retry the case after a mistrial, she said yes. “I think there’s a danger in not retrying,” she said.

Sheindlin was also asked about comments by Rep. Nancy Mace, who had called for a public execution. Sheindlin called those comments “ridiculous.”

TMZ summarized her view as a warning that ending the case with a mistrial could create “real danger.”

Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths of her children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, then 8 months old — in the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home. She has not disputed that she strangled the children with exercise bands before jumping from a second-story window in a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed.

👀 Judge Judy thinks there could be real danger in letting Lindsay Clancy's case end with a mistrial. pic.twitter.com/iYjMN25OVk

— TMZ (@TMZ) September 17, 2026

The defense argued she lacked criminal responsibility because of postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors said she knew what she was doing. After a long trial and seven days of deliberations, the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

The charges remain. Clancy is held without bail at Tewksbury Hospital, a state psychiatric facility.

Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not said whether he will retry first-degree murder charges, reduce the charges, seek a plea, or take another path. After the mistrial he said no decision would be made immediately and that next steps would be addressed in court.

Sheindlin’s comments split the legal question from the moral one. She treated the killings as established and left the excuse to the public. On procedure, she argued against leaving the case unresolved.

Mace’s call for a public execution sat outside that frame. Sheindlin dismissed it in a word.

The case is now in the gap between a hung jury and a prosecutor’s choice. Sheindlin used a sidewalk interview to say that gap itself is a risk.

Cruz still has not filled it.