Now that several of the jurors in the Lindsay Claney case have spoken, and given us some insights into the 38-hour deliberation in the triple-murder case against Ms. Clancy, we should appreciate that the jury system worked the way it was designed to. To members of the public who felt she should have been convicted of murder, and to those in the camp who insisted she should not be held criminally responsible for killing her 3 children, the jury as an institution is alive and well and therefore should be celebrated.
The Plymouth County jury, leaning 11-1 toward determining Clancy lacked criminal responsibility, failed to speak with complete unanimity, which led to a mistrial. The court of public opinion may not agree with the result, but the ability of one juror to stand firmly within their own convictions transcends this case and is paramount to maintaining the integrity of our jury system.
Criminal cases require a unanimous decision by all 12 members of a jury because the fate of someone’s life is in the hands of community representatives. The larger the jury, the higher the likelihood of dissent. A jury of 12 usually benefits criminal defendants when a strong majority are prone to convict, but one or two holdouts fight for an acquittal. Here, the opposite dynamic occurred. Yet, we should evenly appreciate that the holdout did not compromise his vantage point for the sake of expediency.
Clancy jurors who have spoken indicated the holdout acknowledged reasonable doubt but wanted to convict nonetheless. As a jury consultant monitoring and interpreting jury deliberations for the past 26 years, I have seen jurors regularly struggle with what reasonable doubt means. Laypersons do not use the term in daily life. Therefore, when a judge instructs them on the prosecution’s high burden of proof, there is a level of interpretation as to exactly what that means. The ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ concept is malleable and amorphous. Sometimes the crux of a deliberation can hinge on subjective notions of reasonable doubt. Besides, the holdout juror recently stated he felt the prosecution met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Communication between humans is often imprecise, and becomes magnified in a tense deliberation where jurors are exhausted and sometimes hear what they want to hear and say what they think others want to hear. There is no reason to think any of the jurors in this case deliberated in bad fait or is now being untruthful about what took place inside the deliberation room.
When the Clancy jury was deadlocked, the judge asked each of the 12 jurors whether they were heeding his instructions on the burden of proof and they all said they were. At that point, Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington asked the judge, prior to the mistrial declaration, to conduct additional pointed questioning of the jurors and sought to have the jury continue deliberating without the lone holdout. He was rightfully denied both requests and a mistrial was declared. Kevin Reddington called the mistrial “a travesty” and immediately appealed to the highest court in Massachusetts. The system worked by not granting Reddington’s requests to accept the findings of the 11 jurors who were inclined to acquit and disregard the holdout’s vote to convict.
Imagine a legal system where lawyers could, during deliberations, learn which way the jury was leaning and try to pressure a holdout to vote against their conscience, then utilize a mechanism to remove the juror with whom they disagreed. Some information about the holdout’s past has recently come under the microscope. It is important to remember that during voir dire, jurors swear under oath to be truthful. But sometimes if the right questions are not asked, or potential jurors do not understand a question, certain experiences can go undetected. It is not clear whether that happened in this case with the holdout juror.
After the mistrial, Mr. Reddington said, “I hope this juror can sleep well at night.” He stated that the juror’s reasoning reflected a bias against those who suffer from debilitating mental illness. If the juror had a clear bias against those who suffer from mental illness, this should have been identified during the four days of prospective juror questioning known as voir dire. If any juror had such a bias, they should not have made it onto this jury, as it would have violated Ms. Clancy’s right to a fair and impartial jury.
Unfortunately, while Reddington seeks to create the perception that he should have prevailed in this matter, his words may have a chilling effect on jurors in the future, especially those inclined to stand up to others. What juror would want to be second-guessed in the press by a lawyer with a much larger platform? No one wants to commence serving as a juror thinking that if a lawyer ultimately disagrees with the result, they could be subject to unmerciful criticism, allegations of bias and not deliberating in good faith. Sadly, Reddington’s attacks will dissuade jurors from wanting to serve in the future.
If the lone juror erred in applying the judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt, it’s up to the other 11 jurors to straighten that out during the deliberation. It is quite likely that this holdout juror had his own interpretation of the specific meaning of the reasonable doubt standard and felt the prosecution met the burden of proof.
We will be talking about the mistrial for a long time, and regardless of whether this case is retried, there will be a debate about what a just verdict would be. But we should all appreciate that failing to come to a unanimous decision in a 12-person jury is not a failure but rather a strength of our unique jury system of justice. We should similarly agree that absent strong indications of bad faith deliberations, attacking one holdout juror is an attack on our system. Knowing the system worked in the Lindsay Clancy case should help us all sleep well at night.
