Judge Rejects Defense Bid to Question Holdout Juror in Lindsay Clancy Case

The Massachusetts judge who presided over Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial has rejected a request to question the lone juror who declined to vote for the mother’s acquittal in the deaths of her three children.

With jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on September 4.

The ruling sparked intense scrutiny, and information about juror Michael Desronvil’s background later emerged. Clancy’s lawyer alleged that Desronvil had misled the court about earlier domestic violence accusations—claims that, if disclosed during jury selection, could have prevented him from serving.

Clancy’s defense subsequently filed a petition seeking an evidentiary hearing to examine whether Desronvil had lied during jury selection, improperly used a cellphone or failed to follow the judge’s instructions. 

But in a decision issued Wednesday, Sullivan ruled that information discovered only after the mistrial cannot be used to challenge whether the mistrial was justified when it was declared.

The judge also rejected the defense’s claim that the jury foreperson’s notes were ambiguous. Sullivan has not yet decided on Clancy’s request to dismiss the three murder charges on double jeopardy grounds.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments on that motion on November 2. 

In Wednesday’s ruling, Sullivan pointed out that Clancy’s lawyers had not objected to Desronvil’s presence on the jury before the mistrial was declared. He noted that the information appeared to have come from “post-trial media reports.” 

“However, potential evidence of good cause to dismiss a deliberating juror that came to light only after a mistrial was declared simply is not relevant to whether there was a manifest necessity for a mistrial,” Sullivan wrote. 

The judge likewise observed that, before the mistrial, the defense had “raised no suggestion that [Desronvil] had been exposed to extraneous evidence or improperly used a cellphone during deliberations.”

“Because post-trial information cannot be used to attack the determination that a mistrial was manifestly necessary, Clancy is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on that issue,” he ruled. 

Sullivan also criticized the defense’s attempt to investigate whether Desronvil had properly followed instructions from the judge and the jury foreperson.

“This Court concludes that any further judicial inquiry is inappropriate, given 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,” Sullivan wrote.

At the same time, the judge said he “disagrees that the foreperson’s notes to the Court were ambiguous.”

Desronvil has defended his decision not to acquit the mother-of-three of murder due to the ‘methodical’ way she killed her children at their Duxbury home in January 2023, which he described as an ‘execution.’

Clancy had strangled the three young children to death with exercise bands, but she pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity, claiming that she was overmedicated by doctors and suffering from postpartum psychosis.

But Desronvil said in a recent interview with Fox News that he faced a huge trove of evidence that convinced him of Clancy’s guilt – including the 911 call her husband, Patrick, made after he discovered the bodies.

‘It was surreal,’ Desronvil said of the call. ‘Hearing the pain in his voice, hearing the desperation, from that clip.’

He also cited video footage from the scene and ‘the thought process that goes behind’ strangling the children with exercise bands before committing the act.

‘I thought it was logical,’ the holdout juror said, noting there was a lot of other evidence that convinced him Clancy was guilty as well.

Desronvil went on to tell Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany how his decision to vote guilty caused ‘tense’ moments as he deliberated with the other jurors for seven days. 

They have previously described how Desronvil wrapped an exercise band around a water bottle to mimic how the Clancy children – Cora, five; Dawson, three; and Callan, eight months – died.

The act reportedly left the other 11 jurors speechless. 

‘I asked him: “Why are you doing that? That’s a band that was used to strangle a child. That’s disgusting,”‘ fellow juror Nick Dargie recalled.

Several other jurors claimed that Desronvil admitted he had reasonable doubt about Clancy’s guilt despite voting to convict her, prompting Clancy’s legal team to ask for the evidentiary hearing.

Desronvil denied this, and he when asked in his first interview this week if he ever had reasonable doubt, he bluntly replied: ‘No.’

The holdout juror had also faced allegations from Clancy’s attorney that he lied to the court about previous domestic violence allegations, but Desronvil said in the interview that he ‘told the truth’ about his past. 

He insisted that an arrest in 2021 for domestic violence – which was later dropped – was an incident that ‘blew out of proportion’ between himself and his ex-wife. 

Desronvil went on to say he never lied to the court’s questionnaire over his legal history, and said the incident involved ‘no physical or mental abuse.’

Clancy’s attorneys are now arguing that she should not face another trial in the case under ‘double jeopardy claims.’

They had earlier argued that she should be found not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility for murdering her three children, claiming prosecutors failed to prove she was criminally responsible for the children’s deaths.

Sullivan, though, denied that motion, writing that the evidence on both areas ‘was sufficient to have satisfied any rational trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt.’