Female jurors on Lindsay Clancy trial share what holdout juror was really like
Three women who were on the jury during the Lindsay Clancy case, which ended in a mistrial, have spoken out about their 'frustration' towards the holdout juror.
Clancy's children, Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan, were killed in their family home in Massachusetts in January 2023 by their mom, who attempted to take her own life after.
The 36-year-old's defence argued that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible, as she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
However, after over 36 hours of deliberations, the jury could not come to a unanimous verdict, with one juror not agreeing that Clancy was not guilty by way of insanity.
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The holdout juror was a point of contention in the emotionally charged trial after Clancy's defence team attempted to lodge a last-minute appeal alleging the juror was 'biased' and not following the court's instructions on reasonable doubt. The appeal was unsuccessful.
This left Judge William F. Sullivan declaring a mistrial. Now, three women on the panel, Ronnie Carlson, Kellie Farina, and Paula Devlin, who have become 'friends for life', have revealed what the juror was like.
"He was very arrogant. He really did not take anything that anybody said," Paula told NBC10 Boston.
"The nurses, he tried to ask a question about the medications, and we went back to the report from the hospital; we had the toxicology report. We could see the exact amounts. The nurses in the room spoke to that and talked to that," she added, clarifying that there were nurses on the jury.
"He just completely disregarded the information that they gave."
Ronnie, who was the foreperson for the jury, said that the man 'admitted he had reasonable doubt,' and she got ready to fill out the three verdict forms.
"I started filling out the forms," she said. "I was so excited. There were three forms I had to fill out, and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one, and then he said, 'But I'm still not going to say she's not guilty by reason of insanity'."
Kellie recalled the 'hours of frustration' in the room - which caused 'every one of them' to get up and walk around the room. "You just couldn't sit anymore."
She went on to claim the juror 'would not interact with us'.
"We read to him, on a number of occasions, the definition of reasonable doubt from Judge Sullivan's instructions."
She then claimed the man asked if they should get the judge in to read out the definition again, despite them having it right in front of them.
"He had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children."
The juror in question has not spoken out.
When the group could not reach a unanimous decision, they sent the judge a note that read: “It is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to.”
Everything else jurors have said about the Lindsay Clancy trial
In the US, once a trial is over, jurors are allowed to speak out about the case they were assigned to and what happened in their deliberations. So far, three jurors have opted to go public about what went on during the high-profile trial.
Deliberations filled with 'lots of crying'
The jury foreperson, a retired fifth-grade teacher, admitted it was 'heartbreaking' to be unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case, adding that the deliberations were filled with 'lots of crying' and 'lots of tears and then hugging'.
"I was so sad, so sad that we couldn't come up with a verdict for Lindsay. It was so heartbreaking," she said.
Deliberations led to fights and shouting
The group deliberated for a total of nearly 40 hours, which resulted in a lot of yelling which could be heard through the walls, according to the three jurors interviewed by NBC.
"We weren't trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did and she's admitted that," the foreperson explained. "We're trying to figure out - did she know right from wrong at that time."
"Everything proved that she loved her children"
The foreperson told NBC that they weren't convinced by the prosecution's case, saying that Clancy 'had to have snapped and not known what she was doing'.
"And with everybody saying she loved her children so much and everything proved she loved her children, from her journals to her mother-in-law, everything proved that she loved her children. So she had to have snapped."
Prosecutors were 'very, very harsh'
The third juror to go public, a chef at a senior centre, said she found the prosecutors to be 'very, very harsh'.
"They had no character witness in regard to Lindsay of being a bad mother," they added.
Topics: Lindsay Clancy, US News
Kiesha Dosanjh