Lindsay Clancy's attorneys ask court to investigate holdout juror

Sept. 22 (UPI) — The lawyer for Lindsay Clancy, who was charged in the deaths of her three children, has asked the judge in the case to investigate the holdout juror, Michael P. Desronvil, who refused to acquit Clancy, which led to a mistrial.

The lawyer, Kevin Reddington, submitted the request Friday to Judge William Sullivan to get the juror’s mobile phone metadata from when he was deliberating the case. It also requests the court preserve the original questionnaires, jury notes and the court’s responses.

“The inquiry will not touch the substance of deliberations,” the motion said.

The motion doesn’t seek any particular outcome of the investigation, but Clancy’s lawyers also submitted more documents under seal.

Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the killings of her three children: Cora, 5; Dawson 3, and Callan, 8 months. The children’s bodies were found by their father, Patrick Clancy, in their Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023.

Clancy never denied strangling them. Her lawyers argued that she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis. The jury was deadlocked 11-1.

Desronvil said on Friday that the other jurors had repeatedly cut him off when he tried to discuss his views on the case. Some of the other jurors have accused him of refusing to follow the law. He said he has no doubt that Clancy is guilty.

Desronvil’s lawyer, Edward Paltzik, posted on X early Tuesday morning defending his client.

“The Looney Tunes motion filed yesterday by Kevin ‘Shooter McGavin’ Reddington to investigate Michael is not just an attack on Michael for being the courageous lone holdout juror, Paltzik said. “Reddington’s motion is actually a full-frontal attack on the U.S. Constitution. Because 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 good-bye.”

Also on Monday, Reddington and co-counsel Martin Weinberg filed a motion to dismiss the case against Clancy on double jeopardy grounds. They argued that the circumstances of the trial prevent the prosecution from trying her again.

“This able attorney is obligated to leave no stone unturned,” Jack Lu, a retired Massachusetts Superior Court judge, told The New York Times by text Monday. But undoing the mistrial would be a long shot, he added.