Lindsay Clancy attorney argues juror ‘lied’ to judge

This court is now in session. Please be seated. Good morning, Your Honor. May I proceed? Yes, please. Your Honor, before the court, we have the matter of Karloff v. Lindsay Clancy. Ms. Clancy is present. She is represented by Attorney Kevin Reddington. The Karloff is represented by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague and Assistant District Attorney Shannon Buckingham. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Counsel. Good morning, Ms. Clancy. All right, so at the end of the day yesterday there was a note that was sent in from the jury and we put over to today to address it. Karloff, you had the opportunity to review that note? Yes, Your Honor. All right. The defendant, you had the opportunity? Yes, Your Honor. All right, and so I will hear from the parties as to how each party suggests or requests I deal with that note. So I want to hear from the Karloff first. Thank you, Your Honor. I apologize for my voice. So Karloff's suggestion is that the jurors be instructed to return to their deliberations without any further instruction of voir dire. The basis for that request is Karloff v. Ronke, R-O-N-C-H-I, 491 Mass 284 from 2023. In that case, it's a similar situation where it's reported one juror is having issues with the other jurors and it says in that case where reliable information comes to a judge suggesting a lack of impartiality, bias, extraneous influence, or inability to deliberate that there should be an individual voir dire hearing regarding that. We don't have any of those circumstances here. There's no indication of a lack of impartiality or bias or extraneous influence and no indication of inability to deliberate. In fact, they've deliberated for a very long time in this case and very conscientiously. So what we have here is a note that indicates a disagreement about how to weigh the evidence and that's deliberation. So it's the Commonwealth's position, especially considering the fact that Your Honor voir dired each of the jurors yesterday and they all said that they could follow your instructions. So when you couple that with the requirements of Ronke, I don't think an individual voir dire is necessary. If Your Honor does determine to do one, we would just ask along the lines of all the cases that we saw in this area, Ronke, Williams, Torres, a whole string of cases, that the juror be instructed not to comment on the deliberations and that the juror be told that he or she cannot be discharged unless a personal problem unrelated to their relationship with the jurors or their views on the case and that any attempt or any comments by the juror that tend to get into deliberations that Your Honor interrupt and remind the juror that we're not to get into that and that questioning be ceased of the juror unless he or she indicates that there is a personal problem unrelated to the case or the relationships. All right, thank you. Defendant? Thank you very much, Your Honor. I appreciate the opportunity to argue this to you. A couple of points that occur to me. First of all, as Your Honor is well aware, a defendant, any defendant in this courtroom or any courtroom in our country is entitled to have a juror who is true to their oath, who will agree that they will apply the facts as they determine them to be, proven beyond a reasonable doubt to the law as given to them by you as a judge or any other judge. If a jury consists of people and there's one person who is refusing to actually apply the law to the facts as determined for reasons that are not arising out of the case but are personal to the juror's position regarding their review of their oath and how they should apply their oath. In other words, if it's personal to this individual, which I believe it is, based on the first question that you had. And I have never seen a situation like this where a foreperson on the jury is so courageous as to speak on behalf of 11 jurors and indicate the juror number, which I will not mention, and I quote, has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states. Clearly, Judge, we have a person who under their oath stood in front of you yesterday when you did the individual voir dire and according to this information, under oath, looked you in the eye and lied. That juror told you that he would be able to apply the law to the facts as you asked him. And based on this note from this juror, it clearly and unequivocally indicates that they are basically 11 to 1 and this person will not apply reasonable doubt to the evidence to return a not guilty verdict. I would ask that the court would, and I know it's awkward. I'm familiar with the law. I know that we try to protect and preserve the sanctity, if you will, of the jury. We don't want to invade their deliberations. We want to keep that private. Obviously, that's a good thing to do. But when you have a situation where you have not one but two notes that clearly indicates that this individual has acknowledged doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict. He is, as the law states, he is not being honest with you at the sidebar. I would go so far as to reluctantly say that the individual has made a false statement under oath to this court. There has to be an issue that is not arising out of deliberations in the facts of this case, but the individual is refusing to apply your instructions on proof beyond a reasonable doubt to allow that jury to return a verdict of not guilty. I just wanted to put on the record that the note does not indicate that this juror lied to your honor when responding. The note indicates that the parties disagree on what is reasonable doubt or what doubt is and how it should be applied. And we are in no position to judge if the 11 are right or the 1 is right. But there's no indication that the juror is intentionally trying to mislead the court or lie to the court. All right. Thank you. As all three counsel are aware, the case law spells out the concerns that everybody has in a situation like this where it says the discharge of a deliberating juror is sensitive undertaking fraught with potential error. It's to be done only in special circumstances and special precautions. A judge must take the utmost caution to avoid invading the province of the jury. That's what I'm concerned with at this point. And as even under the statute, during deliberations, a juror properly may be discharged only for reasons personal to that juror, having nothing whatsoever to do with the issues of the case or with the juror's relationship with their fellow jurors. In this case here, I see no showing of the need for an inquiry of this particular juror. The note that we were referring to, the one from late yesterday afternoon, indicates that the juror has acknowledged doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict. Well, the instruction that the SJC has suggested we give in regards to reasonable doubt and that both parties agreed to says that reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt. And so in reading that note carefully and strictly in the way that I have to before I possibly invade the province of the jury, that note does not indicate that this is a person who has refused to follow the law. And in addition, as the parties recognized yesterday, we brought all the jurors, including the juror who is at issue here, and I asked whether or not those jurors could follow the instructions, including the instruction I just referred to. And all the jurors indicated that they could. This is not a case that there's any indication that the juror has refused to deliberate or has any reason, has indicated that they would not follow the law or that they're physically suffering or there's no note from the juror that indicates that the juror cannot or will not be able to continue deliberating as some of the other cases talk about. So for reasons of that, I'm not going to do a further inquiry of this juror over the defendant's objection. And at that point, my inclination would be to bring the jury back. My thought would be, though, to remind them that it's their duty to accept the law as I give it to them and that they have to follow that law. And I think this is what I told them a week ago. They have to follow it whether they like it or not. So I'm going to give them that instruction and remind them of that. So with that- I'm going to ask that the court also instruct the jurors or remind them that any future notes should not contain any information about deliberation. Well, here's what I was going to say. If there's any notes or any future notes, if there are any, you should refrain from detailing any of the actual deliberations and do not indicate where they stand numerically. A couple of things. Sure. First of all, I want to acknowledge that I have an objection, which I appreciate, and I do have an objection. And I am, again, citing Article 12, Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This goes beyond Massachusetts law. This is constitutional. It's a structural, I suggest respectfully, defect in the procedure that we're engaged in. We're elevating form over substance, and that's your Honor's ruling. I understand. I've objected. But I would ask that you not instruct the jury that they cannot indicate anything. And I understand why traditionally we tell jurors, don't let us know what your division is or what your split is. But in this case, I'm concerned that if you do that, that foreperson is going to feel that she violated something and might feel that your Honor is kind of coming down on her not to do that. And I think it's too delicate right now a situation. And in addition, and finally, I would ask that you not just give them, as I described it yesterday, a soft inquiry. Listen to my instructions. I would ask that you specifically direct their attention to proof beyond a reasonable doubt and re-instruct them on that forcefully. You did it yesterday, didn't you? You did it yesterday. You did it soft. You didn't do it forcefully. And I'm asking that you do it forcefully. What do you want me to do? Get a brass band? I read the instruction as written by the SJC. The fact that I perhaps didn't give it my full inflection, I'm sorry about that. I'm not an actor. I've just given the instructions. Well, my point, Judge, simply is that you're kind of glossing over the issue. The issue is this juror will not, according to that note, apply the law of reasonable doubt. And that's why I've requested, you know what I've requested, so I know my objection. But just in case the record's good, I am specifically not glossing over this issue. I have thought about this issue long and hard. I know the defendant objects, but the characterization that I'm glossing over it, trust me, that's not the situation. I've been thinking about this for quite a while. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to just give that instruction, as I said, that they have to follow my instructions. I'm not going to reiterate the reasonable doubt at this point. I may come to that again as we go through it. And I'll try and give this with more pizzazz than I gave yesterday, I suppose. But so with that, we'll bring the jury back in. And I'll ask the questions. I'll give those kind of, that instruction, and we'll send it back out. Court is adjourned. Thank you very much. We are adjourned. Yes, please. Your Honor, present before the court, we have 12 deliberating jurors and six alternates. And the matter of commonwealth versus Lindsay Clancy. Ms. Clancy is present. She is represented by Attorney Kevin Reddington. The commonwealth is represented by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague and Assistant District Attorney, Shannon Buckingham. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. What I want to do is first ask you those questions, and then move on from there. So the first question, as we all know, is going to be, is any member of the jury read, seen, heard, or overheard anything from any source about this case? It would affect your ability to be a fair and impartial judge. The last of these questions is, is there any other serious matter or concern, bearing on your service as a juror in this case, that anybody needs to bring to my attention at this time? Thank you. All right. So I did get the note yesterday. And one thing I would say, if there are any notes in the future, and I'm not saying there are, but if there are, just don't, make sure you don't put down where everybody is numerically. Okay? But what I wanted to do was give you, go over one thing. I wanted to remind you, as I instructed you earlier, it's your duty as jurors to accept the law as I stated to you. You should consider all of my instructions as a whole. You may not ignore any instruction or give special attention to any one instruction. You must follow the law as I give it to you, whether you agree with it or not. The law that I'm instructing you on is the law that's been established by our legislature and our appellate courts. And it applies to everyone. And you must apply the law as I have instructed you. And you have a copy of the instructions that I gave you. You should still have them back there with the jury. And with that, you may now resume your deliberations. All right. Counsel, anything we need to address at this time? No, Your Honor. Okay, all right. So we'll be in recess on this matter. Thank you, everyone. Court, all rise.