The saga involving the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial took another turn late last week when more was revealed about his identity.
Just before Labor Day, the jury in the triple murder trial, which was made up of nine women and three men, announced they were deadlocked and could not reach a decision on whether 36-year-old Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for the January 2023 killing of her three children–5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan Clancy.
The judge declared a mistrial in the case and, through a series of media interviews, jurors have confirmed the vote was 11-to-1 to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity. In the process, they have also besmirched the character of the holdout, calling him “arrogant” and unable to “move past” his “convictions.”
In an now infamous exchange with NBC Boston, juror Kellie Farina, a retired chef, audaciously claimed the lone juror had the “hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”
The Race Reveal
The airing of grievances was set to continue on Friday when juror Paula Devlin, who had already spoken to other outlets, sat down with Gayle King on CBS Mornings, but the anchor’s question about the identity of the holdout ultimately upended the interview.
While the gender breakdown of the jury was widely reported and the dissenting juror is known to be a man, nothing had been shared about the racial makeup of the group–until King broached the subject.
“I’m curious about the jurors themselves because we know it was nine women, three men. What was the age range? What was the racial makeup? I haven’t heard any of that,” King inquired. “What was it?”
Devlin said the jurors ranged in age from early twenties to early seventies and “a lot of the jurors had children.” She shared that there was “one person of color and then everybody else was white.”
That prompted King to ask the gender of the non-white juror. When Devlin sheepishly admitted it was a man, King immediately realized what she had stepped into.
“A black man is a holdout juror,” a visibly surprised King asked. “Well, I have to sit with that for just a second.”
Megyn failed to follow King’s logic. “I genuinely don’t get it. You presumed that anybody who would be willing to find her guilty after she murdered her three children would be white because all black men vote to acquit,” she wondered on Monday’s Megyn Kelly Show.
“Gayle, someone might accuse you of racism. You better watch it. It’s a racist attitude to an entire group of people and assume they vote one way or another based on skin color,” Megyn noted. “Even a black man, Gayle, can be a thinking individual, sentient person who comes up with his own viewpoints on life, liberty, and criminality in a court of law. If this man hadn’t been capable of doing that, presumably he would not have been selected as a juror.”
The Smear Campaign
The clip spread like wildfire on the internet and the same NBC Boston outlet that conducted the first softball interview with Devlin, Farina, and forewoman Roni Carlson began to dig into the man’s background.
While NBC Boston stopped short of releasing his name (though some on the internet did), their investigation revealed many identifying details. According to the outlet, domestic violence allegations had been made against him, including a 2021 criminal charge, after his 13-year-old nephew called 911 claiming he had grabbed his wife’s throat and threw her into a dresser.
NBC Boston reported the couple is now divorced and the criminal charge was later dismissed. The report went on to allege the holdout juror later had a restraining order taken out against him by the same nephew who called 911 that appears to still be active.
The NBC affiliate also discovered a pending eviction case tied to not paying rent and tracked down estranged family members.
‘Must Be Stopped’
While it is possible that providing false information about criminal history or other legal matters on a jury questionnaire could carry some form of punishment in certain jurisdictions, it is not clear that is what happened or what such a discovery would achieve since the trial ended in a mistrial anyway.
Megyn said the smear campaign has gone “too far” and could have a lasting impact on the judicial system. “Jurors are being intimidated and openly bullied in an effort that must be stopped,” she said.
“The judge needs to speak up against this. He is the protector of the jurors… We need all hands on deck to shut this shit down,” Megyn added. “I don’t care about his skin color. I don’t care about his domestic violence past. If he lied on the jury form and reached a verdict, that could have been a problem. I don’t see how it is now with a mistrial. Just stop.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,397 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.