A Massachusetts judge Monday shot down two of Lindsay Clancy’s’ big legal gambits, including refusing to dismiss her murder case because of a controversial holdout juror who caused a mistrial.
Judge William Sullivan’s rulings likely mean Clancy will face a second murder trial for strangling her three kids — possibly as soon as early spring.
The main question that is left open, is whether Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz will opt to retry the 36-year-old Duxbury, Massachusetts mom on the same first-degree murder charges she faced the first time around or whether he will downgrade them to second-degree murder.
Sullivan denied Clancy’s bid to toss out the case completely finding the defense arguments unpersuasive that double jeopardy prevented the case from going to trial again.
Clancy’s team claimed that the lone holdout juror in favor of convicting her should have been probed further during deliberations when the foreperson sent out a note claiming he refused to follow the law on reasonable doubt. That juror potentially could have been dismissed and replaced with another jury, allowing the panel to reach a verdict, Clancy’s lawyers argued.
Sullivan found he couldn’t have questioned the juror beyond asking him, and all the rest of the jury, if they were able to follow his instructions on reasonable doubt. If he had, it would have risked coercing the juror and imposing into the deliberation process.
“Based on the imperative to avoid intrusion into the substance of deliberations and to avoid jury coercion, the court, in its discretion, concluded that it was inappropriate to investigate by questioning the holdout juror about any doubt Juror Doe harbored,” the judge wrote.
He also denied Clancy’s bid to get trial information about the juror, including his pre-trial questionnaire and a look into his prior arrest.
“Clancy has failed to explain how materials showing alleged misconduct by Juror Doe are relevant to any retrial of the murder indictments in front of a different jury,” Sullivan wrote in the other decision.
The sole holdout has since been publicly identified as Michael Desronvil. He has maintained he had “zero doubt” about Clancy’s guilt.
