Staff Reports
The latest courtroom skirmish in the Lindsay Clancy saga landed where it usually does: in legalese and procedural limits. This week, Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William F. Sullivan refused the defense’s bid for an evidentiary hearing into the lone holdout juror who forced a mistrial. The judge said you judge a mistrial by what was known when it was declared, not by what people announce afterward — and that ruling keeps a tight lid on probing jurors after the fact.
Judge denies evidentiary hearing into holdout juror
Judge Sullivan ruled the defense could not call live witnesses or examine juror records now that allegations have surfaced after the jury declared itself deadlocked. In short: no post-mistrial fishing expedition. The defense, led by attorney Kevin Reddington, had asked the court to preserve and examine juror questionnaires, jury notes and even cellphone metadata to try to show the mistrial wasn’t a “manifest necessity.” The judge rejected that path, leaving the defense’s motion to dismiss the indictment — the double‑jeopardy argument — to be decided on the existing record at the next consolidated hearing.
What the defense wanted — and why it mattered
The defense argued these post-trial allegations — that the juror lied on his questionnaire or used a phone during deliberations — mattered because they could prove the mistrial was avoidable and therefore retrial would violate double jeopardy. That’s a high bar. The court’s response was a common one in jury-law circles: courts protect the confidentiality of deliberations and won’t pry into jurors’ private reasoning unless there’s clear, timely evidence of misconduct known at the moment the mistrial was called.
Juror controversy, public reaction, and the real issue
The drama here goes beyond procedure. Reporting showed an 11–1 split, with most jurors apparently favoring a verdict tied to mental-health defenses and one juror standing firm that the defendant was criminally responsible. The lone juror, Michael P. Desronvil, has publicly defended his vote and said he “didn’t have any doubts.” His lawyer warns that probing jurors after the fact chills independence — a valid point. Still, there’s a bigger moral and political question: when a case involves the death of children, the public expects the system to be more interested in seeking truth than in performing virtue signaling tests about mental-health labels.
What’s next is simple to watch: the defense’s double‑jeopardy motion will be argued at the consolidated hearing, and prosecutors will decide whether to try the case again. The judge’s ruling protects jury privacy and keeps the courts from becoming rumor mills. That’s defensible legal policy. But the public deserves answers, too — and if the system keeps narrowing the routes for accountability every time the press lights a match, juries will look like political theater rather than guardians of justice. Keep an eye on the next hearing. If anything, this case should remind us that procedural law matters — but so does common sense and basic fairness to victims.
