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A Massachusetts judge Monday gave a stern warning to Lindsay Clancy’s hotshot lawyer for publicly naming the holdout juror who sparked a mistrial, launching a tense exchange between the pair.
Clancy attorney Kevin Reddington had been raising issues about the sole holdout juror — who has since been identified as Michael Desronvil — when he said, “This gentleman, Desronvil.”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Sullivan cut in.
“No, you’re not,” said a defiant Reddington.
“There is no need to bring out that juror’s name,” the judge said.
“He’s all over the internet,” Reddington retorted.
The judge said going forward that Reddington was only to refer to Desronvil as “Juror Doe,” like everyone else had been doing.
“We don’t need this,” the judge blasted.
The 36-year-old mother of three appeared in the Plymouth, Massachusetts courtroom Monday where prosecutors and her newly beefed-up legal team went head to head on a number of issues.
Clancy’s side argued for the entire case against her to be tossed out because of potential misconduct with the holdout.
Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that the judge should issue a gag order after Reddington went on a press tour following the stunning Sept. 4, mistrial that ended with 11 jurors prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity and only Desronvil wanting to convict her.
Reddington argued at trial that Clancy couldn’t be held criminally responsible because she was in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis, made worse by a slew of prescription psychiatric drugs, when she strangled kids Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, before she tried to kill herself.
Prosecutors claimed she carefully plotted the slayings and knew what she was doing was wrong.
After seven days of deliberations, Sullivan found the jury was hopelessly deadlocked, but not before the foreperson sent out two notes the day prior, alleging the holdout refused to follow the law on reasonable doubt.
Desronvil has since come forward maintaining those claims are false and that he had “zero doubt” about Clancy’s guilt.
One of Clancy’s two new lawyers, Martin Weinberg, argued the first-degree murder charges against her should be dismissed because a more in depth probe should have been conducted on Desronvil before the mistrial was declared.
Weinberg said the judge might have been forced to dismiss Desronvil from the jury if a grilling revealed misconduct, including potentially lying on his jury questionnaire and misusing his cell phone during the deliberation process.
Sullivan expressed skepticism about this argument when he pointed out that he questioned each of the jurors one-by-one — during a so-called voir dire — and asked them if they were able to follow his instructions on the law regarding reasonable doubt.
“Didn’t I do that? Didn’t I do a voir dire? Didn’t I swear them in?” the judge said.
“So you’re saying I should have done it a second time?” Sullivan asked Weinberg.
“Not to simply ask a single question but to make a probing voire dire,” Weinberg responded.
Desronvil’s lawyer, Heather O’Connor, argued her client did nothing wrong and the only reason he was being targeted by the defense was because he “did not vote the way the defense needed.”
Sullivan said he would make rulings at a later date and said he’d announce his ruling on Clancy’s motion to dismiss at a Nov. 16 hearing. He said, if a new trial was required, the date could be chosen at their next meeting.
