A lawyer for Lindsay Clancy is asking a judge to investigate the conduct of the lone juror who wanted to convict the Massachusetts mother of murder in the deaths of her three young children.
In a motion filed Saturday but made public Tuesday, Clancy's lawyer asked the court to question juror Michael Desronvil about his alleged use of a cellphone during deliberations, his truthfulness on a questionnaire that prospective jurors filled out before the trial began and his truthfulness when jurors were questioned by the judge a day before the trial ended.
Among other things, lawyer Kevin Reddington asked the court to obtain a record of any calls or texts Desronvil made between 8am and 4.30pm (local time) on each day the jury deliberated. Phone use during deliberations is prohibited in the state.
The judge declared a mistrial September 4 after the jury insisted it couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict, despite days of trying. Eleven of 12 jurors were ready to clear Clancy of criminal responsibility, with the majority feeling that she was in the grip of a rare condition called postpartum psychosis when she strangled her kids.
But Desronvil sided with the prosecutors, who had argued that Clancy knew what she was doing.
Desronvil hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with his service on the jury, though some other jurors complained that he was inflexible in his opinion that Clancy was guilty. In a statement released by his lawyer last week, Desronvil said he "didn't have any doubts".
Prosecutors have yet to say whether they plan on putting Clancy on trial again. She remains charged with murder and is in a psychiatric hospital until her case is resolved.
In another motion on Tuesday, another lawyer for Clancy, Martin Weinberg, asked the judge to take the unusual step of dismissing the criminal case, rather than putting on a new trial, on the grounds that a mistrial shouldn't have been declared in the first place.
Weinberg argued that the judge should have replaced Desronvil with an alternate during the deliberations after the jury foreperson complained he was refusing to listen to the law on reasonable doubt.
"Contrary to the court's stated believe at the time, it did have viable choices other than declaring a mistrial," Weinberg wrote.
A spokesperson for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz would not comment on the motions.
At the trial, jurors heard from psychologists and clinicians who treated Clancy for several months before the killings, when she was suffering from worsening mental health problems that emerged after the birth of her youngest child. She was released from a psychiatric hospital less than three weeks before she killed her children.
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