Lindsay Clancy is set to appear in a Massachusetts courtroom on Monday for a pivotal hearing that could determine the future of her triple murder case in the deaths of her children.
Two months after a deadlocked jury ended a lengthy trial this summer in a mistrial, the judge overseeing the case told prosecutors and defense lawyers he plans to discuss a future trial date during Monday’s hearing.
“That’s my goal — to get this thing tried to as soon as proper without sacrificing anyone’s rights, anyone’s position. But I don’t want this thing to then just start to kind of get kicked down the road, punted, and go forward,” Judge William Sullivan said during September’s hearing.
Neither side has firmly committed to retrying the case, saying they want to see how the judge rules on some post-trial motions before they decide their plans. Judge Sullivan plans to hear arguments on some of those issues during Monday’s hearing, including Clancy’s motion to dismiss the case and a request for a gag order ahead of a potential second trial.
Below are the three main issues set to come up during Monday’s hearing.
Motion to dismiss
Clancy’s attorneys are asking Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case, arguing that he failed to fully investigate whether the holdout juror who forced the mistrial properly followed the court’s instructions on the law.
Attorneys Martin Weinberg and Kevin Reddington argue there was no need to declare a mistrial at that point, and that retrying the case after improperly ending the first trial would amount to double jeopardy.
Prosecutors argued that Judge Sullivan “properly declared a mistrial” after the jury reported being deadlocked twice, and that investigating the holdout further “would have surely led to judicial coercion of that juror and the impermissible intrusion into the substance of the jury’s private deliberations.”
“The Court’s decision to conduct a limited individual inquiry of each juror and then instruct the collective jury on reasonable doubt – made after carefully considering counsels’ proposed alternatives — was a proper exercise of the Court’s discretion,” prosecutors wrote.
Attorneys with the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office also argued the foreperson’s notes about the deadlock did not allege a “personal issue, bias, or extraneous influence attributable to the dissenting juror.”
The holdout juror — who identified himself as Michael Péguy Desronvil — said in statements and an interview following the trial that he had no doubts about her guilt.
“How methodical I thought Lindsey was in the execution of the children, so that was really big for me,” he told Fox News. “The thought process that goes behind and to fulfill the commitment of doing that. I thought it was um, it was um, it was uh logical.”
Judge Sullivan will also hear arguments Monday about the defense’s request to further investigate the holdout juror, including by reviewing court documents and his cell phone records. Last month, Judge Sullivan denied a request to hold an evidentiary hearing about the holdout.
“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,” Judge Sullivan wrote.
Request for a gag order
Judge Sullivan will also hear arguments about a request by prosecutors to impose a gag order, which they argue is necessary to “prevent the carnival atmosphere” from the first trial.
“Restraints on any further extrajudicial statements are necessary in this case to protect the integrity and fairness of the judicial system,” they wrote.
Ahead of a potential second trial, prosecutors said the gag order would “prevent any further pollution of any potential jury venire as well as subsequent witness testimony.”
Defense lawyers pushed back on the request and argued that the concerns raised by prosecutors were speculative.
“It offers no evidence that any prospective juror has been exposed to, or affected by, anything counsel has said. Invoking an important interest is not enough to justify such an order. And if a future venire were already ‘inevitably tainted,’ silencing counsel now could not cure it,” wrote defense attorney Laura McConnell. “The harm the government fears is purely speculative. There is no venire, no jury, and no trial date.”
While gag orders are sometimes imposed during high-profile trials, the defense argued that prosecutors did not meet the high legal bar needed to justify the request.
“The government bears a heavy burden to justify such an order. It offers no evidence. There is no jury, and it is unknown whether one will ever be impaneled. There is no trial date. The Motion should be denied,” McConnell wrote.
Future trial date
Judge Sullivan concluded Clancy’s last appearance in court by telling both sides to “be prepared to talk about picking a trial date” during Monday’s hearing.
“I think it’s important that this case move forward if it has to move forward,” Sullivan said during the Sept. 29 hearing. “Why don’t we just pick a trial date that will get this case moving?”
In a rare moment of agreement, both Reddington and prosecutors told the judge that they would rather wait until he resolves the post-trial motions before they agree to a new date.
“We’d rather defer until you make your rulings and then any appellate arguments are presented, rather than pick a trial date,” Reddington said.
Following the hearing, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said outside court that his office is still evaluating whether to retry the case.
“We’re doing a very thorough review right now, and we’re going to continue to do our job to make sure that we do what’s best for the interests of justice and the interests of those three children,” he said.
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