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By Marni Rose McFall
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The attorney for the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial has blasted calls to investigate the juror’s conduct.
Michael Desronvil was the lone juror in the trial who wanted to convict the Massachusetts mother in the deaths of her three young children.
Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked the court in a motion filed on Friday, which was made public on Monday, to question Desronvil over his allegedly having used a cell phone during deliberations, his truthfulness when jurors were questioned a day prior to the trial’s end and his truthfulness on a questionnaire filled out by jurors before the trial had begun.
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In the motion, Reddington asked the court to obtain a record of any texts or calls that Desronvil made on each day that the jury deliberated, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Phone usage during deliberation is prohibited in the state.
In a lengthy statement shared to X, Desronvil’s attorney, Edward Andrew Paltzik, whom he retained following backlash for his refusal to acquit Clancy, said the motion was “a full-frontal attack on the U.S. Constitution.”
“If the new normal is that jurors are going to face brutal reprisals for disagreeing with a defense attorney, you can kiss the Sixth Amendment goodbye,” he wrote.
He said the motion to investigate on the subject was “disgusting” and “worthy of nothing but universal condemnation.”
Newsweek has contacted Reddington and Paltzik for comment.
A mistrial was declared on the fourth of September by Judge William Sullivan, after the jury said it could not reach a unanimous verdict despite days of deliberation.
Eleven out of the 12 jurors were ready to clear Clancy of criminal responsibility in the deaths of her children.
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Clancy has not denied killing her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3 and Callan, 8 months old, at the family’s home in Massachusetts.
Her attorneys have said that she was not guilty by reason of insanity and that she was struggling with postpartum psychosis.
The case sparked nationwide debate over postpartum psychosis and how defendants suffering from severe mental illness should be treated by the criminal justice system.
Prosecutors in the case have said that Clancy had made a calculated decision to send her husband, Patrick, out of the house so that she could strangle her children.
Desronvil sided with the prosecution.
In a statement previously provided to Newsweek by Desronvil’s lawyers, he said, “I didn’t have any doubts. As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence present.”
“Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned,” he said.
Clancy’s Team Files Motion Asking Judge To Dismiss the Criminal Case
Separately, Clancy’s defense team filed a double jeopardy motion on September 21 to have the first-degree murder charges dismissed.
The suit was filed by the attorney, Martin Weinberg, who previously represented Karen Read in her double jeopardy claim.
That motion states that the judge should dismiss the criminal case and not put on a new trial, based upon the grounds that a mistrial shouldn’t have been declared in the first place.
It raises claims under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. It states that “Contrary to the Court’s stated belief at the time, it did have viable choices other than declaring a mistrial.”
“There was no manifest necessity for the declaration of a mistrial given the absence of judicial inquiry regarding repeated reports that one juror was refusing to apply the Court’s instructions regarding reasonable doubt,” that filing, reviewed by Newsweek, reads in part.
What Happens Next
The case remains unresolved, and the murder charges against Clancy are still pending.
The next confirmed court proceeding is a status hearing on September 29 in the Plymouth Superior Court before Sullivan.
This article contains reporting from the Associated Press.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Gray R. Thomas
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