Holdout Juror in Lindsay Clancy Case Will Not Face Phone Search or Inquiry, Judge Rules

The lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial, the only juror in favour of convicting her of murder for the strangling deaths of her three young children, will not have to have his phone examined or face an inquiry from her defence attorney, a Massachusetts judge ruled on Wednesday.

Judge William Sullivan denied Clancy attorney Kevin Reddington's motion for an evidentiary hearing. Sullivan wrote that the potential evidence to dismiss the juror, referred to as Juror Doe in court documents but understood to be Michael Desronvil, came to light only after the mistrial was declared, which makes it irrelevant under court precedent.

The defence did not raise the issue that Juror Doe lied on the jury questionnaire before the mistrial was declared, the judge wrote; it originated in media reports. He found that because post-trial information potentially affecting Juror Doe's impartiality cannot be used to attack the determination that a mistrial was manifestly necessary, Clancy is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on that issue.

Sullivan also noted that Reddington did not raise the possibility that Juror Doe used a cell phone improperly until after the mistrial was declared.

Any further inquiry into the holdout juror is inappropriate, Sullivan wrote, because of the mandate that the court must not delve into a juror's subjective reasoning, thought process, view of the case or relationship to the other jurors, and must not inquire into the jury's deliberative content, collective thought process or any disagreement among the jury.

Desronvil told Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany last week that he stands by his decision not to compromise with the 11 others who wanted Clancy to be found not criminally responsible due to postpartum psychosis. The jury deliberated for nearly forty hours before the eleven-to-one mistrial decision.

He has taken to referring to her slain children as 'The Three Angels'. They were Cora, 5, Dawson, 3 and Callan, 8 months.

Desronvil denied lying under oath on his juror questionnaire. He said jurors only used their cellphones during breaks from deliberations, and denied claims from other jurors that he had ignored reasonable doubts about the case.

Reddington has asked the court to preserve juror records from all 12 panellists and six alternates, including their questionnaires, courthouse hallway surveillance video taken outside the deliberation room and sign-in sheets for the jurors' cellphones.

But it was only Desronvil's phone he asked to have examined specifically, between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on each deliberation day. 'Everybody had their cellphones and our cell phone was used when we had a break,' the holdout juror said. 'So not during deliberation.'

The three children were killed at their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023, according to the case. With Wednesday's ruling, the defence's attempt to pursue the holdout juror further is blocked for now, and attention turns to the court's next steps in the case.