A Massachusetts judge refused to let Lindsay Clancy’s defense rifle through the lone holdout juror’s phone or haul him in for questioning after an 11-1 mistrial in her children’s murder case.
Judge William Sullivan denied attorney Kevin Reddington’s motion for an evidentiary hearing, ruling that the holdout juror will not surrender his cellphone or face a defense inquiry, Fox News reported.
The decision locks in the mistrial that ended Clancy’s first trial and leaves her facing a likely second one. Clancy is due back in court on Nov. 2.
Juror Michael P. Desronvil was the only panelist who voted to convict. The other 11 wanted a finding that she was not criminally responsible, citing postpartum psychosis. Nearly forty hours of deliberations produced the deadlock.
Reddington wanted Desronvil’s phone examined between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on each deliberation day. He also asked the court to preserve questionnaires, hallway surveillance video outside the deliberation room, and cellphone sign-in sheets for all 12 jurors and six alternates.
Sullivan shut that down. He found that potential evidence bearing on the juror’s impartiality surfaced only after the mistrial was already declared. Under court precedent, that timing made it useless as a weapon against the mistrial ruling itself.
The defense did not raise questionnaire or cellphone issues before the mistrial. Those claims grew out of later media reports. Sullivan wrote that Clancy was not entitled to a hearing on that basis.
"Because post-trial information potentially affecting Juror Doe's impartiality cannot be used to attack the determination that a mistrial was manifestly necessary, Clancy is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on that issue,"
Sullivan also barred further digging into the holdout’s mind. He cited the rule that a court must not probe a juror’s subjective reasoning, thought process, view of the case, or relationship to other jurors, and must not inquire into deliberative content or disagreements inside the jury room.
"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,"
Desronvil has not retreated. In an interview last week with Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany, he said he stands by his refusal to compromise. He has taken to calling the slain children “The Three Angels.” He denied lying on the jury questionnaire and rejected claims from other jurors that he ignored reasonable doubts.
On cellphones, he said jurors used them only during breaks, not while deliberating.
"Everybody had their cellphones and our cell phone was used when we had a break,"
"So not during deliberation," he added.
That is the man the defense wanted put under a microscope after the verdict failed to go their way.
The trial played out in Plymouth, Mass. Photo captions place the final push on Sept. 3 and Sept. 4, 2026. On Thursday the judge asked the jury to keep going. On Friday he indicated he was ready to declare a mistrial, then paused and gave the defense one hour to appeal before the case ended in deadlock.
National Review reported that Sullivan declared the mistrial after seven days of deliberation with one holdout among twelve. Defense bids for an emergency stay from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and to remove the holdout juror were denied. Clancy remains in a psychiatric facility pending a likely retrial.
She does not dispute that she strangled her three children in 2023. She pleaded not guilty on the ground that she was not criminally responsible because of psychosis and medication effects.
Just the News reported that Sullivan formally declared the mistrial on Friday afternoon after the state’s high court denied the stay. The defense had pointed to a jury foreperson’s note claiming one juror would not apply the reasonable doubt standard and showed bias regarding mental illness. Those removal efforts failed.
Sullivan thanked the panel for doing its duty through a long trial. The system still left one juror’s vote standing between a conviction and a hung jury, and then protected that juror from a post-hoc defense fishing expedition.
The case began in January 2023 at the family home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Cora Clancy, 5; Dawson Clancy, 3; and Callan Clancy, 8 months, were killed by strangling. Desronvil’s label for them, “The Three Angels”, is a blunt reminder of who is no longer here to speak.
Eleven jurors were prepared to accept that postpartum psychosis wiped out criminal responsibility. One was not. After nearly forty hours, the court accepted that split and ended the trial. Now the same court has told the defense it cannot reopen the holdout’s phone or private reasoning to unwind that result.
Clancy returns Nov. 2. Prosecutors will have to try the case again if they want a unanimous verdict. The defense already tried to isolate and discredit the one juror who voted to hold her accountable. The judge closed that door.
When a mother admits killing her babies and eleven jurors flinch, the one who will not flinch is not the problem, the culture that treats that holdout as the problem is.
