Breakdown of Clancy Trial from a Legal Perspective

0:00Chaos has erupted today in the Lindsay Clancy trial. I'm a lawyer, I'm a journalist, and I'm going to answer every single question you have about where things stand with Lindsay Clancy, where we're heading, and what you need to know about. Because I've been through multiple jury trials in the past, and well, this one is unique for a multitude of reasons, but especially what we saw in the courtroom today. Jurors are now on our 37 of deliberations they can deliberate for as long as they want. But today they sent in a note. Everyone thought they were going to be hopelessly deadlocked. Everyone thought the case would be ending in a mistrial, but the notes said something drastically different. It said that one juror in the case could not follow the judge's instructions. Abomchel, what does that mean and what happens next? Make sure to subscribe, like, comment here, get the word out, and drop any questions that you have below in the chat. And in the comment section, I will try to answer as many as possible.

1:00Like I said, I'm a lawyer, not just a journalist, and I've been through numerous cases. Here's what you need to know about. First, we're on our 37 of deliberations. At this point, the jury has said that it was deadlocked once. The judge sent them back to deliberate deadlocked twice. The judge gave a dynamite charge, and Massachusetts called the two-erot regus charge. Sent them back, told them to deliberate again. After 35-36 hours, they came back and they said that there's one juror who refuses to deliberate, or rather refuses to follow the judge's instructions. Here's Attorney Kevin Reddington making that clear. Back you're on it that you're allowing us to be heard in public, rather than at the side by the juror. The court has an instruction from the four-person of that juror that's been working for a week now, saying that there's one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you've given him or her on reasonable doubt. And I suggest respectfully that the soft instruction that you gave them saying at the side by, can you listen to the law as I instruct you, does not focus on the issue?

2:07It is the question is not sufficient enough. It does not allow any foundation for emotion to remove the juror who refuses to accept your instructions on the law on reasonable doubt. And if we come back here in a half an hour with a mistrial because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of this court, it's a shame. It's a real shame. And that's why I object to the court's ruling. I request that we have further inquiry. I request that my motion is to remove this juror that refuses to listen to your instruction on reasonable doubt. All right, come on. Thank you, Your Honor. We have the note from the jury. There's no way to determine what the deliberations are. Who's correct? Who's incorrect? Nor should we attempt to, because that's part of deliberations. I think what Your Honor has done by asking each juror if they're able to follow the law. And then giving a general instruction on reasonable doubt is appropriate

3:10under Commonwealth versus Ralph. So we do not have an objection to what the questions or the re-instruction. All right, well, I'm sure as parties understand, as they say, the discharge of a deliberating juror is a sensitive undertaking. I was just specifically responding to the specific question that was asked. I don't feel that it is proper for me to side with one side or the other of the deliberations. I don't feel it's appropriate for me to say I agree with one juror or the other. At this point, I've asked if they are able to follow my instructions. According, they swore earlier that they could. They've said to that at this point that they can. That was specifically addressed towards the specific question. And that's what I'm doing. So the defendant's objection is

4:10noted. And we will... Okay, that's what happened. Let's explain and let's tell you what happens next. So when they got in the courtroom and the judge first pulled everyone to what is called a sidebar. It's a private conversation where defense attorneys prosecutors talk, well, Lindsey Clancy was rolled up there. She's in a wheelchair, Kevin Ruddington, her attorneys rolled her up to the sidebar. Many people have asked me, why was she rolled up? A defendant has the constitutional right to sit in on every single sidebar. It doesn't usually happen because mechanics of it are difficult to have everyone get up every single time. But, be, you're often talking about very technical legal issues that a defendant wouldn't really understand in a sidebar. Sometimes in court you may see defendants putting on a headpiece, for example, in their listening in on what happens at a sidebar. So Lindsey Clancy doesn't have to go to a sidebar. She can if she wants. And she did, in this case, Kevin Ruddington wanted her to be there because what the judge did was something extraordinary. He brought in every single juror one by one and Waddeer. Waddeer is the process of questioning the juror. He asked every single juror whether or not they could follow his instruction.

5:15Then he brought them all in and then read them an instruction on reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt is not all possible. Doubt is not beyond every speculative doubt. It's beyond every reasonable doubt. And Kevin Ruddington wanted one juror who is refusing to follow the instruction. What that means, not clear, throw now at an alternate juror replaced. So let me answer your questions. Number one, do we know what the split is? We can presume. It's likely 11 to 1. Do we know which way it's splitting two guilt or innocence? We don't know that. It could be 11 guilty, one not guilty, 11 not guilty, one guilty. Based on the folks inside the courtroom though, they presume it's 11 not guilty and one guilty. Why? Well, because prosecutors were visibly upset when they heard what the note was. And Kevin Ruddington was visibly upset when the judge refused to remove the one juror who, according to the other jurors, refused us to deliberate. That's answer number one. Answer number two. Can the judge remove the jury or the juror? Yes, it's a very technical process though. See,

6:20if the judge were to remove one of these jurors who refuses to deliberate properly, jurors' deliberations start all over again. 37 hours, you throw them out. You replace it with one of the six alternates who have been at the courthouse every single day. And they restart from scratch. Jury deliberations start from scratch. That's technical problem number one. And you're already getting to the end of this trial. The judge said there's only a certain four to six weeks. We're at that six week mark of when these jurors kind of set off time. That's number one. Number two, removing a juror requires a judge to ask the jurors essentially what they mean by the fact that this one juror can't actually deliberate properly. And by doing so, the judge gets into very murky territory. In criminal law, one of the most important rules is you never pierce the veil of a jury deliberation room. You never go inside there. You never try to influence a juror. You never try to see which way deliberations are going. You stay out of it. And that's why almost never, unless jurors come out and speak, do you know what actually happened inside a deliberation room?

7:25Well, if the judge is going to remove a juror for misconduct or for failing to follow the rules, he's going to have to ask the other jurors what they mean by the juror not being able to follow the rules. This could very well be a scenario where you have 11 jurors voting not guilty, one juror voting guilty. And the juror voted guilty says, I don't think there's reasonable doubt, I am firm, I am firm, I'm not going to move from my convictions. That's not misconduct. That just means there's going to be an 11 to one split jury. And ultimately, you have to go in and really determine what they mean by can't follow the judge's instruction. So we're going to see what happens there. What happens next? Well, next, if the jurors come back and they say they can't reach a verdict, you're going to have a mistrial. You can't send them back again. We already had the two-year-old Rodriguez dynamite charge that I spoke about earlier. You can't send them back for a third time in Massachusetts because that's technically coercion. What happens if they come back with the verdict? You could have a guilty verdict and not guilty verdict. If you have a not guilty verdict

8:28or a verdict of not criminally responsible, that cannot be appealed. Done. The case is over. We move on. If you have a guilty verdict, you could have an appeal. And this is number issue number one that's going to come up on any appeal is the way these deliberations have been handled. It's going to be an issue on appeal 100%. And many ask, well, why did Kevin Reddington come out and make it public what the jury was saying? He's making a record. On appeal, in any criminal case, you have to make a record. You have to state your objections on the record. If you don't do that, you cannot appeal on that issue. And so this is what he did. He stated on the record, prosecutors stated their response, judges shoot their ruling, all on the record. Okay? So that's next. What happens if there's a mistrial? I got a lot of questions about that. Well, if there's a mistrial, what ends up happening is you do it all over again. Guarantee you they will do it over again. Now, theoretically, they could try her again on first degree murder, which carries them mandatory life in prison sentence.

9:29Or they can try her second degree murder, which carries life with the possibility of parole, man slaughter, which carries a significant several decades sentence, but less than life. Why is that important? Well, it's important because in Massachusetts, first degree murder cases cannot be tried in front of a judge. They have to be tried in front of a jury. Kevin Reddington has said this. He would potentially throw put the case in front of a judge, what is called the bench trial, not in front of a jury. And so we'll see what happens, but it's up to the prosecutors to decide whether they will retry. And in this case, they almost certainly will. They've spent millions of dollars on this case. Years of investigating it. They're not just going to let this case go away. They're just not going to let that happen. And so we'll see what happens. Now, there have been a lot of questions about sequestration. Jurors are very rarely sequestered. Sequestered means you put them in a hotel, take away all their electronics, move it away. That almost never happens. Sequestration is very rare.

10:31When sequestration happens is in death penalty cases. Death penalty cases in most jurisdictions across the country, you have sequestration. As always, subscribe, like, comment, share. Let me know if you have any more questions about Lindsey Clancy.