Hey guys, thanks so much for checking out my show. I really, really appreciate everybody who has been watching my videos and everybody who has subscribed to my channel. There have been a lot of new developments in the Lindsay Clancy case, and I have been working on this episode all weekend trying to get you guys some of the best legal perspectives out of Massachusetts.
There is new reporting about the jurors, and specifically about the holdout juror, and questions about his past.
There is reporting out there from NBC Boston that the holdout juror was arrested in the past for domestic violence, and that the charge was dropped. There is also reporting about a restraining order, and questions about the possibility that this may not have been disclosed on his juror questionnaire. There are also questions about whether it is morally or ethically right to even be reporting these things right now, and I am going to talk about all of that in this episode.
As I said, I have two different perspectives. I have one of Karen Read’s defense attorneys explaining how the defense, and specifically Lindsay Clancy’s defense team led by Kevin Reddington, could use all of this to their benefit. But I also have a retired Massachusetts judge who is very, very uncomfortable with any of this reporting about the jurors.
He actually thinks this is really a nothing burger, even if the holdout juror did not disclose information on the juror questionnaire. The retired judge is just not happy about any of this.
So I am going to hear from both of them. I am going to break down everything that has happened, and I am going to go through the juror questionnaire for you guys. All of it is in this episode of Brian Entin Investigates.
All right, hey guys. So things have gotten really, really messy with the coverage of the Lindsay Clancy jurors and what could happen next legally. There are a lot of questions there, which I am going to try to break down and explain in this episode.
There are a lot of ethical questions about digging into the jurors’ pasts. But ultimately, if one of the jurors did lie during the voir dire, which is the questioning by attorneys, or on the jury questionnaire, that could be an issue, which I am going to explain in this episode.
Now, I am obviously not going to name the holdout juror here, and I have seen people doing that on social media, which is very, very irresponsible in my opinion. I am not sure I would have reported all the information about him that is now out in the public sphere, but it is sort of irrelevant at this point because it is all out there. It has been out there all weekend, and again, some of this could actually lead to legal issues in the case.
So let me kind of back up here for you before I talk to my guests. Basically, the way this all started is NBC Boston says they reviewed court documents and interviewed family members of the holdout juror. Remember, 11 jurors wanted Lindsay Clancy to be not guilty for lack of criminal intent, but there was one juror who was the holdout and wanted a guilty verdict, and that is why there was a mistrial ultimately.
NBC Boston reports that there is an active restraining order against the holdout juror and that he faced a criminal charge for assaulting his wife. NBC Boston somehow found out his name and was then able to get this information. They say NBC reports that a police report says the juror’s 13-year-old nephew called 911 after he said his uncle grabbed his wife by the throat and threw her into a dresser.
The criminal charge, though, was later dismissed, and that is an important point to make. The criminal charge was later dismissed.
Last year, NBC Boston reports the same nephew took out a restraining order after he said the juror pushed him to the ground and punched him in the face, according to NBC Boston. They report the restraining order was active when the juror was selected for the Lindsay Clancy trial. So the question now is, should the juror have been allowed to be on the jury?
Should he have been selected as a juror?
Take a look at this. This is the Massachusetts juror questionnaire, and it has all the questions you would expect. Education level, marital status, employment.
But then there is this section that says “Your Experience with the Law.” It asks, have you or anyone in your household or family ever had any of the following experiences with the law? Been arrested?
Been charged with a crime? Been convicted of a crime? Been a crime victim?
Been sued, filed a lawsuit, been a witness in a civil or criminal case, been seated on a jury, been served with a court order, or sought a court order.
This is the part that could end up being relevant here. If what NBC is reporting about the juror is true, and he did not disclose it on the form, could that be an issue that the defense could bring up? Now, this is important.
At the bottom of the form, it says, “I certify that the information I have applied on this form is true and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that a willful misrepresentation or omission of a material fact on this form is a crime, which may be punished by a fine of not more than $2,000 upon conviction.”
There is something else interesting that I did not notice at first, but at the top of the form, look what it says. It says you are required by law to complete and sign this form, which is not a public record and will be destroyed by the court as soon as practicable after you are excused. Answer all questions even if the answer is none.
Complete answers help ensure selection of fair and impartial juries. So that is another question there. Was this form destroyed?
Which I am going to ask the judge about here in a second, the retired Massachusetts judge I am going to interview.
So, a lot of questions here, a lot of legal questions, a lot of moral questions about the coverage of the juror. While there have been a lot of people calling out the juror, there has also been a lot of support for the juror and concern that he is being targeted because he was the one holdout who did not think that Lindsay Clancy should be found not guilty. There are GoFundMes claiming to raise money for the holdout juror.
I am not sure if any of them are verified, but I have seen a few of them floating around.
Then even Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida tweeted, “A man objected to allowing a woman to ππΎππ her three young kids and get away with it. So NBC is trying to smear that juror whose identity should be protected. Another low for legacy media.
If the juror is being harassed, Florida will provide asylum. I’m sure he’d be welcomed and appreciated.” So again, a lot of ethical questions about whether the media and NBC should have done this report.
But what I am most interested in here, and what I want to dive into in this episode, are the legal questions.
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So, I am going to have my conversations with Massachusetts Judge Jack Lu in a few minutes. He is not happy, by the way, about this juror being called out. He is not happy about it, and he is going to explain why.
First though, I want to talk to Massachusetts criminal defense attorney David Yannetti, who was one of the lead attorneys for Karen Read. David, thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I really, really appreciate it.
I have been covering the Lindsay Clancy story. I was there for court for the last couple of weeks, and there have been so many twists and turns that we did not expect. The latest with this NBC reporting about the one holdout juror, where they are claiming that the juror had this domestic violence arrest that was later dropped, but also a restraining order during the time of the trial.
What do you make of this, and could this become a legal issue, do you think?
So, if it is true, I think one party or the other could argue that the juror misrepresented himself on the juror questionnaire and thereby potentially committed a fraud upon the court. He never should have been seated as a juror without both parties knowing that relevant information. This could be another arrow in the quiver of the defense to try to undo this mistrial and try to prevent a retrial.
I was looking at the juror questionnaire in Massachusetts, and it says “Your Experience with the Law.” There is “been arrested,” but there is also “been charged with a crime.” Then there was another one that stood out to me.
“Been charged with a crime, been served with a court order.” So I am thinking he had been charged with a crime if the NBC reporting is true. And then I do not know if a restraining order is technically a court order, but if he did not disclose that, what will happen?
Will the defense have to file something, and then the judge would go back and look at the form? Or how would this sort of play out, do you think?
You know, it could play out in a number of ways. This appears to be brand new information for both sides. Information that the defense did not have when they originally objected to the mistrial being declared.
Now it comes to a point where the defense will be trying to marshal all the evidence they have to support their contention that there was no manifest necessity to declare the mistrial, and that is the legal standard.
I think that is what attorney Reddington was getting at before the mistrial was declared. I think he would have liked a deeper inquiry into this particular juror and what exactly went on in the jury room in terms of whether he had a reasonable doubt or did not. Was he willing to follow the law or not?
Now we have this additional issue of was he actually qualified to serve? Did he misrepresent his background on this juror questionnaire?
I can see arguments from the defense potentially that the deadlock was not genuine, that perhaps it was artificially manufactured by this juror. They may allege that the juror committed a fraud upon the court by not being truthful in his questionnaire. Just to be clear, I do not know what is true or what is not true here.
I am just going on the reporting as well. I am certainly not casting any aspersions on this juror until this has been litigated in court. But if you ask me to speculate on what arguments the defense could make, those are my speculations.
Just overall, because there is so much debate about this all over the country and online even over the weekend, does it bother you at all that the names have not been listed yet, but there is already this digging into the jurors and their histories and what they may have filled out and not filled out? I guess where do we kind of draw the line, because I am kind of torn on it.
Well, I understand that completely. As a lawyer and an officer of the court, I would certainly prefer that this be hashed out in a courtroom in a formal way, in terms of discovery that the judge will allow, inquiry that the judge will allow and conduct, the appeals process, etc. But the news media also has a job to do.
I understand that. The court sometimes does not have complete control over what is reported in the news or particularly social media. These would be larger issues for the judge to grapple with.
I think you hit upon a good issue, or a good point, which is it feels not right for these jurors to be investigated in the press before they are really investigated in the courtroom.
Would they call the jurors in? Is that how it would work? Would they call them back and then interview them one by one, or interview just this juror?
How would that process work? And has that happened before? Would that be unusual?
It would be very unusual. Having defended Karen Read in a somewhat analogous situation where a mistrial was declared and we received information after the fact that we thought was relevant to the determination of whether there was a manifest necessity or not, our request was that the jurors be called back. That was not only denied by the trial judge, but that denial was affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court.
This just reinforces the longstanding belief and notion of the court system that they do not want to go inside that sacred jury room if they can avoid it at all. They want to leave that as a lockbox and only inquire in there if it is absolutely essential that they do.
So my sense is that a judge would be very reluctant to call the jurors back in. But is it a possibility? Sure, it is a possibility.
Even if the judge looks at the form and sees that the person did in fact not disclose that information, and it is in fact true, even then do you think the judge would not call that person back?
Well, I did not say the judge would not call that person back. I said the judge would be reluctant to do it. The points that you bring up move the needle a little bit in that direction.
But I just think it is a huge hurdle to clear to persuade a judge to recall a jury and bring them back in. It could happen, but you are right, it is very rare.
Since there was already a mistrial, would any of this even make a difference? I guess what would the goal be here? Because it is not like she was convicted or not convicted and one side is trying to overturn that.
There was a mistrial. So even if they show that the juror lied, what difference does it make now?
That is a good question. Typically, you can usually only appeal after a conviction, unless it is in an interlocutory appeal like Kevin Reddington took to try and prevent the mistrial. But generally, it is conviction and then appeal and finding error.
In this circumstance, the argument would be that a mistrial was mistakenly declared. Again, I come back to the legal standard of there was no manifest necessity to declare the mistrial. If that is the case, then a motion to dismiss the charges completely could be successful on double jeopardy grounds.
They swore in a jury, and the client withstanded one trial and did not want a mistrial. If the mistrial was mistakenly declared, the prosecution could be banned from trying her again. That could be the endgame here for the defense.
I think that is the road that attorney Reddington will likely go down. What the chances of success are, I cannot predict that. I think it is a very tough road to hoe.
So, the issue with the juror form and the possibility that the juror was not truthful, which we do not know, but according to some of the reporting, that aside, if the juror did not apply the judge’s instructions properly in terms of reasonable doubt, which was the issue that came up before the mistrial, is that an issue that you think could still come up now?
Oh, I think it certainly will. But for this apparent revelation of the questionnaire issue, that was what attorney Reddington had. He had a note from, I think, subsequent interviews from some of the sitting jurors that one juror had a reasonable doubt but refused to convict.
I am sorry, refused to acquit nonetheless. That would be a juror who refused to follow the judge’s instructions, and I think the argument would be that the judge should have inquired further to make sure that the instructions were being followed.
My understanding is the judge did do an inquiry and that all jurors said that they could follow the instructions. That may well have been sufficient. But that would be for an appeals court to determine.
The defense asked the judge to go further and ask two specific questions. Are you able to follow the court’s instructions on the law? And are you applying those instructions to your deliberations, which the judge did not do?
Do you think the judge should have?
I think the answer to that will come from the Supreme Judicial Court. I think this is a thorny area of law. Again, I think that courts, including appellate courts, are reluctant to get inside that jury room.
I understand where Judge Sullivan was coming from. I think it does not make sense for me to weigh in on this with my personal opinion, particularly because I am not in the weeds on this case like the participants are. I would not want to be seen as substituting my judgment for the people who actually tried the case and were in the trenches, including the judge.
Yeah, and I think that is fair. I think the word you use, thorny, is a really good word. I had not thought of that, but it is thorny because I was even thinking all weekend, where do you draw the line about trying to figure out what was in the jurors’ minds, what was happening in the jury room?
Even with some of these other jurors now coming out and talking, they are saying, “Oh, he said this and he said that.” At one point he said he did not think the defense proved their case, but then at another point he said he did not think the prosecution proved their case. Who are we to really try to understand what he was thinking?
They were in there hardcore deliberating for six days. I am sure they all said different things. It is kind of like, where do we draw the line?
That is a very good point. The public policy here is analogous to the attorney-client privilege. You want a client to be able to tell his or her attorney anything so that the attorney can give proper advice to the client, and it is sacrosanct.
You cannot pierce the attorney-client privilege. You cannot get in a room with an attorney and his or her client and eavesdrop and see what is said. Same thing with jury deliberations.
You want a jury to be able to discuss whatever they think is relevant without fear that they will later be second-guessed or embarrassed or anything like that. That explains why judges are very reluctant to learn anything about what goes on in there.
As part of the jury instructions, they are specifically told that they are not to reveal where they stand numerically in terms of a potential verdict. The jury in this case revealed that, but that was really in contravention of the judge’s instructions. The jury should be able to hash out any issue from any angle.
Ultimately, if 12 people agree, it is a just verdict.
And also, if they do in fact go back and investigate whether this person, if it is true, was not forthcoming on their form, do they have an obligation to go do that with the other 11 jurors? And is that really something we want to see happen as a precedent moving forward?
Yeah, it is a really good point. Do you really want to open up Pandora’s box and potentially harm the independence of a jury? These are all good questions.
On the other side, you have a woman who is essentially on trial for her life here. The stakes are very, very high, and these are very serious issues for the courts to be grappling with.
Really appreciate David for taking the time to talk with me. I want to talk now with retired Massachusetts Judge Jack Lu. Again, not happy about this juror being called out, and is really looking at this from the perspective of a former judge.
Listen to this.
Judge, it is nice to see you. I appreciate you for taking the time to talk with me again. I always think of you when these issues come up.
First of all, you are in Massachusetts. Obviously, NBC Boston has been reporting. They have not provided the name of the holdout juror, but they have been reporting about his criminal history, that he had this domestic violence arrest that was dropped, and also that he had, they claim, a restraining order during the trial.
These are not things that I have been able to independently confirm, but they are pretty much everywhere now because NBC reported it. What do you make of that? And if, and I printed out the juror questionnaire here, if he did not put that on the questionnaire, could that end up being an issue?
You know what? I am going to give you the short part of the answer and then the longer answer, and you can cut me off whenever you want. Not impressed that this is a big deal.
I will say it again. I am not impressed. Not a big deal.
You have the form there. It is a couple of inches of space to fill it in. There is no path to any kind of remedy for the defense here.
The lawyer is wonderful, Mr. Reddington. He is required to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, in the way of a conviction.
But this is much ado about nothing. And it is shameful that they have identified this individual by name and picture and other details.
Yeah, because there are people now on social media who are naming and figured out who it is allegedly. Again, I do not know for sure. Although some of the pictures people are posting, it looks, you know, you are right.
I mean, is not the whole point that you are not supposed to be identified unless you want to be when you are a juror, right?
There are all kinds of reasons why confidentiality is important, and this will be one of the least of the harms of the social harms it will cause is to make people reluctant to be jurors. But you are also cheapening the value of the justice given out by the legal system by doing this. These deliberations should have been confidential.
All right, so they can discuss what happened and things like that, not necessarily a big deal, but identifying the holdout is a really immoral thing to do, and I denounce it.
So if Reddington does bring up what we started out talking about, if he brings it up and this person did not tell the truth, what happens? Will the judge call them in, and will they then also have to check the other 11 jurors? Because how is it fair just to call out the holdout?
Maybe they put something on their form that was not true.
Yeah, I am willing to make predictions when no one can really know what is going to happen. I predict that Mr. Reddington, as he is probably obligated to do, will raise the issue without identifying this person.
He will ask to bring the person back in for a hearing. But to what end? What good does it do?
What are you going to do? Let us say they find he should have disclosed it and it was a mistake and a problem. What are you going to do?
Declare a not guilty by reason of insanity? There is no remedy here at all.
I will just take a little potshot and say, if you are going to do that, then let us talk to all the other deliberating jurors who are talking to the media now and ask them, did you access in any meaningful way social media during your deliberations or during the trial? Let us talk to them all. Let us see what they say.
It seems like a slippery slope a little bit with juries just in general. I mean, are we going to start interrogating jurors after, you know?
Yeah. What about the jurors being the bulwark, if I am using that strange term correctly, about being the bulwark about the red coats at the door trying to search your house? Once we go into their deliberations, we are going against hundreds of years of history of the American legal system in an attempt to protect people’s rights.
But I am just trying to put myself in Reddington’s mind. But if this person did not tell the truth, is that a bad thing? I mean, that is a bad thing, right?
It is barely a bad thing. We have people with, let us face it, no legal training. They are sitting in a room with between a couple of dozen to 150 people.
They are sitting at the table scribbling on a piece of paper with a pen. They have got about two by four inches to scribble in this information. The language in the questionnaire is carefully selected, but for a non-lawyer, you can miss so many things.
I have been a juror many times. It is confusing. Is it bad?
It is not a good thing. Is it terrible? No.
But let us compare what they are doing. Identifying a holdout juror by name and location versus omitting some information from your juror questionnaire. My finger here, the part about identifying a holdout juror, that is bad.
That is bad, bad, bad.
When I was looking at the juror questionnaire, I first missed this, but the top says, “You are required by law to complete and sign this form, which is not a public record, and will be destroyed by the court as soon as practicable after you are excused.” That made me wonder, could the form have already been destroyed? Maybe we will not even know what he put there?
We do not know the answer to that question. That may be the answer to a question about forms in general, not as to deliberating jurors or jurors that are seated, even alternates. We do not know the answer to that question.
I would say it is almost a certainty that as to potential jurors not actually selected, I am sure those are shredded at the end of the day by court security, also called court officers in Massachusetts. But as to the actual juror questionnaire, they could be still in a vault.
Have you seen some of the other jurors’ interviews that have been out and about on the different networks?
I have not. I have not been following the nuts and bolts of this. My heart goes out to these folks.
They have done a wonderful public service, and they are entitled to emote and to kind of spill their guts out there. But identifying the holdout is over the line and way over the line. It is wrong.
In some of their interviews, several of them described this person as scrolling on his phone, one of them said. Which, are you allowed to have your phone in there during deliberations?
Usually not during actual deliberations. During break, sure.
Okay. You know, I have a world I will throw in, but you feel free to interrupt me. No hard feelings.
I have a world of sympathy for the 11 who I actually, not that it matters, would have voted with. But this is sour grapes. The process has taken the road it was planned to take.
All of these complaints, they do not land solidly with me. I am not impressed.
And if he was scrolling on his phone, how about the other 11? Were you watching social media during your deliberations? Have you received any meaningful information while the case was going on about the case?
If you are going to go after the holdout, let us see what you have that might be of interest.
So, what do you think the judge will do?
I am willing to predict even though nobody really knows. I would say the judge is going to say something similar to what I said. There is no remedy here.
There is no need for a hearing. It is possible the judge will say we will bring the holdout juror in and establish a record. But even if he says the worst possible things, then what are you going to do about it?
That would be just so that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has a record on which to rule on when Mr. Reddington does his appeal. But there is no remedy.
There is no path forward. So he might bring this person in. They have my greatest sympathy, and frankly, because the Fifth Amendment is so broad, he might even take the Fifth.
And I am going to anticipate that when that juror takes the Fifth, I say big deal.
And just my last thing, kind of a separate topic here, but there have been so many questions about if, and I do not know if you know this, DA Cruz, whether he will go forward with the charges again, especially first-degree murder, or if there will be some kind of deal. Even with Reddington, and I saw you that day after it all ended with the mistrial, he was very hard on the DA when he came out. But then in subsequent interviews, he has kind of softened his approach with the DA.
I think maybe it seems to kind of open up the conversation about maybe not having a trial. Do you think there is any chance that they could work something out?
The chance of that happening is similar to the chance of me winning the Massachusetts lottery. And if it works out, I will promptly buy a lottery ticket for the first time in a decade or two or three. It is not going to happen.
If I am surprised, if I am actually shocked that it does happen, then I am happy because that is what should happen.
You think it should happen?
I do. I do not think first-degree murder is warranted here. And Mr.
Cruz, through his absolutely 150% sincere views, he thinks that this is a first-degree murder case, and if there is a conviction eventually, he is going to be asking for consecutive sentences. His views are sincere but deeply held philosophical views about the role of punishment in the American criminal legal system.
But should not the 11 to one vote that we now know happened be a signal to him?
Well, I think that is just right and wrong. It should not be first degree now. The 11 to one is kind of an ingredient in figuring out the likelihood of winning.
And his response, I respect it, would probably be, “I do not care whether I win or lose. I am doing what is right.” I disagree, but I respect that logic.
But on what is right and wrong, I am afraid I respectfully disagree with him. He is sincere, I will give him that. But he is also severe.
Is there any chance that people who are identifying the juror could be charged?
I am not sure. I am not sure.
Yeah, it seems kind of like a gray area.
Yeah, that is going to be up to prosecutors. I will go farther than a lot of people maybe, but I think we are going to have to leave that up to state and federal prosecutors.
Anything else on your mind, judge, right now? There have been kind of a lot of twists and turns the last couple of days here.
Well, just last night is when this person was identified, and I am just shocked and appalled to see this happening. I see it as a symptom of the infection of the legal system by social media. This is just one symptom, but an outrageous symptom.
This is a big problem, and America and Massachusetts needs to wake up.
Yeah, it has been interesting to see the way it is. I mean, with Karen Read, but then with this trial, people are picking apart every little thing these jurors said. People are then looking into their past.
People are posting their addresses. People are posting photos from years ago that they find. You know what I mean?
It is like they put themselves out there, but I do not know that they realized that everyone was going to be diving into every little thing about them.
Massachusetts is really a pure case study. You have Read trial number one. You have Read trial number two.
You have another defendant, I want to say Miss Fitzsimmons, I apologize in advance if I get her last name wrong, a police officer. And then you have this case. Each of those cases in the course of four years has shown what social media is in danger of doing to our legal system.
It is sad to watch. I have come to the conclusion, literally during the Clancy trial, that we need to do more.
Well, I appreciate you, judge, for your perspective. Thank you.
You are welcome.
Really, really appreciate the judge for taking the time to talk with me, and I will stay on top of this. Look, this Lindsay Clancy case has taken so many twists and turns that I do not think any of us expected. I am just trying to be fair in my coverage.
I want to tell both sides, and hopefully I accomplish that in this episode. I will keep you guys posted with what develops throughout the week. I have got a couple of interviews set up this week that I think will be helpful and informative, so I will keep you guys posted.
All right, thank you to everybody for watching. Thank you to everybody who has subscribed to my channel, and I will talk to you guys later.