A Massachusetts jury trying to decide whether Lindsay Clancy is criminally responsible for strangling her three young children wrapped a sixth day of deliberations Thursday without a verdict, after a note from the foreperson accused a lone holdout juror of refusing to follow the judge's legal instructions, according to CNN's live coverage of the trial.

Judge William Sullivan spent part of the afternoon questioning each of the 12 jurors individually at the bench after the foreperson's note said one member "refuses to listen to the law" on reasonable doubt, prompting defense attorney Kevin Reddington to ask that the juror be removed, the Washington Times reported. Sullivan declined to dismiss anyone and sent the panel back to deliberate before excusing jurors for the night; they are due back at 9 a.m. Friday having now logged roughly 36 hours of deliberation.

Clancy, 35, does not dispute that she strangled her children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — at the family's Duxbury home in January 2023 before attempting to take her own life. The case instead turns on whether she was legally sane at the time. Her defense argues she was in the grip of a severe postpartum psychosis brought on, they say, by inadequate psychiatric care; prosecutors have countered that she acted "intentionally, rationally, and swiftly," motivated by depression and exhaustion rather than delusion, according to NBC News.

A jury twice at an impasse

This is the second time the panel has told the court it cannot agree, after weeks of testimony from more than 80 witnesses — including Clancy's former husband and the emergency responders who reached the home the night the children died. Under Massachusetts' Tuey-Rodriguez instruction, a judge may send a deadlocked jury back to keep trying, but is expected to declare a mistrial if jurors report an impasse a third time, per ABC News.

"One juror refuses to listen to the law" on reasonable doubt, the foreperson's note told the court, according to reporting from the courtroom.

If Sullivan ultimately declares a mistrial, the decision on whether to retry Clancy on three counts of first-degree murder would fall to Plymouth County prosecutors and the Massachusetts Attorney General's office. Legal analysts covering the trial for WBUR have noted the case has already put an unusual spotlight on how the state's insanity standard applies to postpartum psychosis, a diagnosis rarely tested this publicly in a murder trial.

The courthouse has drawn a steady public reaction throughout the trial; NBC News has reported that supporters have mailed Clancy enough letters to fill three boxes. Outside the courtroom, advocates for maternal mental health have pointed to the case as evidence of gaps in postpartum psychiatric care, while prosecutors and some family members have pushed back on characterizing the killings as a product of illness alone.

Jurors return Friday morning for a seventh day of deliberations. Unless they reach a unanimous verdict — or the judge declares a mistrial — the case that has held Massachusetts and national audiences for six weeks of testimony and six days of deliberation remains unresolved.