Kevin Reddington has asked Judge William Sullivan to investigate the holdout juror who deadlocked Lindsay Clancy’s triple-murder trial.
Reddington, Clancy’s defense attorney, filed a motion Monday claiming juror Michael Desronvil, 48, may have provided inaccurate information on jury questionnaires or during voir dire, according to the filing. The motion also asks the judge to examine Desronvil’s alleged history of domestic violence and whether he improperly used a cellphone while the jury was deliberating.
Judge Sullivan has already agreed to impound jury information and the questionnaires completed before the trial began. He has not yet issued a ruling on Reddington’s broader request to investigate Desronvil himself.
Desronvil, a father of four, was the lone juror who refused to acquit Clancy, 33, on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children Callan, 8 months, Cora, 5, and Dawson, 3. The other 11 jurors voted to find her not guilty by reason of postpartum psychosis, leading Sullivan to declare a mistrial after the panel reported it was hopelessly deadlocked.
One fellow juror told NBC10 Boston that Desronvil acknowledged reasonable doubt about the prosecution’s case yet still would not vote to acquit. “We felt defeated,” the juror said in an interview following the mistrial.
Clancy’s former husband Patrick Clancy, in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night, said he believed his ex-wife was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed their three children on Jan. 24, 2023. She strangled them while he was out picking up food and running errands, then attempted suicide by slitting her wrists and neck and jumping from a second-story window at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts home. The fall left her paralyzed, and she appeared throughout the six-week trial in a wheelchair.
Clancy is scheduled to return to Plymouth Superior Court on Sept. 29, where Reddington plans to ask that the charges be dismissed. His argument rests on the claim that the entire jury, Desronvil included, ultimately agreed there was reasonable doubt the prosecution had proved its case, even if Desronvil would not sign a not-guilty verdict.
Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz is also expected on Sept. 29 to announce whether his office will pursue a retrial. The mistrial came after Reddington’s emergency petition to the state’s highest court failed; Sullivan had given the defense one hour to file that appeal.
The domestic violence allegations surrounding Desronvil have added another layer of scrutiny to an already extraordinary case. Multiple outlets have reported that questions about his background emerged only after jurors began speaking publicly about the deliberations that ended in deadlock.
Clancy has remained in custody since the mistrial was declared. The Sept. 29 hearing will address both the defense’s motion to dismiss and the prosecution’s decision on whether to try her again for the same charges.