The fight over a deadlocked murder trial has moved beyond the courtroom and toward a potential professional complaint.
One juror’s decision is now at the center of a dispute over lawyers’ conduct and public accusations.
Attorneys for Lindsay Clancy trial holdout Michael Desronvil say they plan to file a bar complaint against Kevin Reddington.
Reddington represents Clancy, whose trial over the deaths of her three children ended in a mistrial last month.
Desronvil’s lawyers accuse the defense attorney of singling out their client after he declined to support an insanity acquittal.
Tyler Cox, one of the juror’s attorneys, announced the planned complaint during an interview with Sean Hannity.
“We are going to file a bar complaint,” Cox said, making clear the step remained a plan.
A planned complaint is not a disciplinary finding, and the report does not say one has been filed.
The dispute follows Reddington’s request for a judicial investigation into possible misconduct by Desronvil.
The defense wants to know whether the juror gave false answers on his questionnaire or used his phone during deliberations.
Those are allegations for the court to assess, not established findings of misconduct.
Cox called Reddington’s motion unprecedented and objected to what he described as an attack on one juror.
“You don’t attack jurors this way, you don’t single them out,” Cox said during the television interview.
Reddington rejected accusations that he had persecuted anyone when the case returned to court Tuesday.
“I’m tired of hearing about me persecuting people,” he told the court, defending his motion and public comments.
The exchange raises a serious question about how attorneys challenge a verdict without unfairly pressuring individual jurors.
Lawyers can ask courts to examine suspected misconduct, while jurors must remain free to follow their own judgment.
Neither principle resolves the factual dispute over what Desronvil did during deliberations.
Prosecutors have separately asked Judge William Sullivan to impose a gag order following Reddington’s comments about the jury.
That request has not been decided, and arguments on the motion are scheduled for Clancy’s November 2 hearing.
Sullivan declared a mistrial September 4 after jurors reported they were hopelessly deadlocked.
The panel sent three notes describing the impasse before the judge ended the proceedings without a verdict.
Several jurors have since said 11 members were prepared to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity.
They have also claimed Desronvil expressed doubts about her guilt but refused to find her not criminally responsible.
Desronvil and his attorneys dispute that account, saying he believed Clancy was guilty and had no doubts.
Those conflicting accounts explain why both the jury’s deliberations and the defense’s response remain under scrutiny.
A lone dissenting juror does not have to adopt the position favored by the other 11.
A mistrial also leaves the underlying charges unresolved, regardless of what jurors later say about their votes.
Clancy, 36, is accused of killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, eight months, in January 2023.
Prosecutors allege she strangled the children with exercise bands at the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home.
Reddington has argued that Clancy was experiencing severe postpartum psychosis and heard a voice directing her actions.
The defense has described her subsequent injuries as the result of an attempted suicide.
Clancy survived a fall from a second-story window that left her paralyzed, according to the report.
Those claims were central to the trial’s dispute over whether she could be held criminally responsible.
The mistrial did not decide that question or produce an acquittal on the murder charges.
Prosecutors have not announced whether they will retry the original charges, pursue lesser charges, negotiate, or drop the case.
The proposed bar complaint concerns Reddington’s conduct toward Desronvil, separate from Clancy’s guilt or legal responsibility, The New York Post reported.
The requested gag order concerns what attorneys may say publicly as the proceedings continue.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
