The jurors, including the foreperson, are sharing more about what happened behind the scenes and the holdout juror who prevented Lindsay Clancy from being found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy trial
A judge declared a mistrial on September 4 in the U.S. murder trial of Lindsay Clancy for killing her three young children, a tragedy her attorney said occurred while she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
Reuters
The holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial was an “arrogant” man who disregarded evidence and said that although he had reasonable doubt, he would never return a not guilty verdict, according to three jurors who presided on the case that gripped the nation.
The jurors, including the foreperson, shared more about the behind-the-scenes deliberations over whether Clancy should be held criminally liable for strangling her three children. They spoke out in an exclusive interview with NBC10 Boston, posted on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
“He was very arrogant,” said Paula Devlin, who works for a defense contractor.
Roni Carlson, a former elementary school teacher and the jury foreperson, said that the holdout “admitted he had reasonable doubt.”
“I started filling out the forms, I was so excited,” she said. “I wrote my signature on each one, and then he said, ‘But I’m still not going to say that she’s not guilty by reason of insanity.'”
Kellie Farina, a chef and another juror on the case, said that the holdout “had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsey viciously killed her children.””We read to him on numerous occasions the definition of reasonable doubt from Judge (William) Sullivan’s instruction,” Farina said. “He actually said one day in the end, ‘Why don’t we have the judge come in and read it again?’ And we were like, ‘No, we have it in front of us.'”
At one point, Devlin said that the juror had a question about a toxicology report in the case, and that when it was answered, “he just completely disregarded the information that they gave him.”
The comments from the jurors give insight into why Sullivan declared a mistrial in the case on Friday after a week of failed deliberations. Sullivan repeatedly sent the jurors back to deliberate after they reported being deadlocked.
In a move that surprised even the most seasoned legal experts, Carlson told the judge on Thursday that one of the jurors was refusing to consider reasonable doubt as required by law. Tensions rose when Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked Sullivan to remove the holdout juror.
Though Sullivan re-instructed each juror about their duties when it comes to considering reasonable doubt, he declined to remove the juror in question, saying that it wasn’t appropriate for him to “agree with one juror or 11.”
Reddington continued to press for the juror to be removed on Friday, telling Sullivan that “we have a person who, under their oath, stood in front of you yesterday . . . looked you in the eye and lied.”
Sullivan balked when Reddington pushed for the judge to be more stern about instructions on the law. “What do you want me to do? Get a brass band?” Sullivan told Reddington.
Jurors had a tough task before them. Clancy’s defense team did not deny that Clancy killed her children, but they argued that she’s not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time.
Reddington painted Clancy as a doting mother who “tried very hard to get the help she needed,” while prosecutors called her a “controlling, meticulous and manipulative” woman who killed the children because she could no longer control “every little detail” of her and her family’s life.
The three jurors interviewed by NBC10 Boston said that the prosecution came off as harsh and praised Reddington for being at times entertaining, arrogant and displaying “amazing” compassion for Clancy.
“We weren’t trying to figure out if she murdered the children,” Carlson told the station. “She did, and she’s admitting that. We’re trying to figure out did she know right from wrong at that time . . . From her journals to her mother-in-law, everything proved that she loved her children, so she had to have snapped and not known what she was doing. To me, that was proof that she didn’t know what she was doing.”
The jurors also spoke of the toll the weeks-long trial took on them and how some evidence was particularly painful. They cited the 911 call made by Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, after he found the bodies of his children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan. He then found Lindsay Clancy, who had cut her wrists and neck and jumped out of a second-story window, leaving her paralyzed.
Farina said the anguished 911 call that Patrick Clancy made was “the most horrific thing.”
“It’s something that I will never not hear if I think about it,” she said. “When we we heard it again in the jury room, we were we were crying again. We were just like, ‘My God!’ The desperation, the despair in his voice was. … It’s something that will stick with me.”
The 911 call was so disturbing, Carlson said some jurors had to put headphones in so they wouldn’t have to hear it again.
“They had to turn up their music … because it just it was too much,” she said. “Once was enough. … I felt like I felt like being sick, actually.”
In the wake of the mistrial, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz is deciding whether to retry the case against Clancy. He said after the mistrial that he will “proceed accordingly and consistent with the evidence and the law” and that he’ll “never be swayed” by public sentiment.
If Cruz decides to charge Clancy again, a new jury would have to be selected.
Contributing: Christopher Cann and Melina Khan, USA TODAY
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime and courts reporter who covers the death penalty, cold case investigations, and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.