Lindsay Clancy defense blocked from challenging holdout juror

Massachusetts judge blocks Lindsay Clancy bid to question holdout juror

A Massachusetts judge has blocked Lindsay Clancy's attempt to investigate the lone holdout juror who refused to acquit her of murdering her three young children.

The U.S. Sun reported that Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan denied the defense request for an evidentiary hearing aimed at the juror who kept the jury from a unanimous verdict. The four-page order also rejected a bid to postpone the next court date.

Citing state Supreme Judicial Court precedent (notably the Karen Read case), Sullivan ruled that post-trial information cannot be used to challenge a validly declared mistrial or breach the strict secrecy of jury deliberations.

Three murder charges against Clancy remain pending. Arguments on a separate double-jeopardy dismissal motion are still set for November 2. The ruling closes off one path the defense hoped would undercut the mistrial declared after a 26-day trial.

Clancy, 36, is charged with killing her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, on January 24, 2023. Prosecutors say the children were strangled with exercise bands. Clancy then jumped from an upstairs window and was left paralyzed from the waist down.

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Jurors acted like "activists" before deliberations actively began

Holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy murder trial breaks silence, says evidence proved she "planned" killings

The lone holdout juror who forced a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder case is pushing back on fellow jurors' accounts of deliberations, insisting he never wavered in his belief that prosecutors proved Clancy killed her three children knowingly.

Michael P. Desronvil, 48, released a written statement through his representative Ray Marcel defending his refusal to join the other eleven jurors in finding Clancy not criminally responsible.

In the statement, obtained by CBS News, Desronvil said flatly: "I didn't have any doubts." He added that the physical evidence, key witnesses, and the prosecution's case amounted to "enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned."

That account directly contradicts what other jurors have said publicly. Fellow juror Paula Devlin told "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King that the panel worked together to try to reach consensus, and that the split at one point stood at 10-2 before narrowing to 11-1, with Desronvil as the sole holdout. Several jurors and Clancy's defense attorney have described the final tally as 11-1 in favor of finding Clancy not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

Desronvil says jurors "cut him off" during deliberations. The jury deliberated for more than 38 hours over the course of a week, according to Breitbart, which reported that Desronvil described eight of the twelve jurors as favoring a not-guilty verdict from day one.

Through his representative, Desronvil characterized those jurors as behaving like "activists" pushing for acquittal before deliberations had meaningfully begun.

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