What Was On The Phone Outside Lindsay Clancy's Courthouse

0:00This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Bruski and Robin Dree. The Lindsay Clancy trial continues to be one of the most heartbreaking and emotionally exhausting cases we've ever covered. Right now, we're watching a jury struggle in real time deadlocked after days of deliberation. By the time you're watching this, we very likely will have an answer and that answer may be a hung jury. And to untangle the devastating reality of postpartum psychosis versus premeditated murder. Renaissance takes inside the courtroom, if they weren't high enough, the circus outside just breached the perimeter of 56 year old woman was arrested outside the Plymouth courthouse this week, accused of secretly filming the jurors as they left. She told reporters she just wanted to see Lindsay. Police found deleted videos of the jury on her phone. Eric Fattis is with us, defense attorney, former prosecutor to help us discuss this along

1:02with Robin Dreeck, retired FBI special agent chief of the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program. It's a madhouse. I don't know another way to put it. Every time we see the coverage outside every trial these days, it reminds me of my days working in radio outside of a concert where you'd have your tent outside and sometimes you'd have a promotion going, come by, win a t-shirt, it feels like that. And that's weird to me when you're talking about three dead kids and this atmosphere, but it is what it is. I mean, we can criticize it all day. People are very up in arms about this. They're passionate. Passion's not a bad thing, but when it gets misdirected, when it gets crazed, when it gets dangerous, when it gets exposed to torture. You're a story of people who are just trying to do their jobs like jurors showing up for their duty, being filmed. It gets a little scary. The immediate threat, the deadlock, Eric, this jury was already struggling towards a potential deadlock and feeling the immense weight of this case before this one was arrested in the

2:06parking lot. The judge actually had to question them one by one about before they could resume deliberations. Practically speaking, I mean, how does an outside disruption like that push an already fragile, exhausted jury towards a decision of some sort? And I mean, we'll get to the fallout of what that could possibly mean, depending on what that decision is. But how do you react to that as either a prosecutor or a defense attorney when something like this occurs? Sure. So there are a number of issues that play one is possible during timidation. Another is a jurors perception that someone might be intimidating them, even if that wasn't the original intent. Look, these jurors, it's such a high stakes case. We have three dead children and they've got a horribly difficult decision to make. They didn't sign up for this. And they want to keep their identities anonymous because think about the backlash that could come from their decision.

3:07Either way, there's extremists on both sides who could lodge threats and God knows what. And so I think it's a significant intrusion into the integrity of the jury system. And I worry that these jurors might be concerned for their own safety. Who's going to out me? Who's going to post a video of me online? And then if I let this lady off, if somebody could come to my door and not be too happy about that, those are some very real concerns. And I think they also give rise to a possible appellate ground if there is a good view. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering about. I mean, the judge immediately asked them all, pulled them all, basically, you know, said did this woman's, did she affect you in any way, shape, or form? I mean, basically a line of questioning was done and swore them all back in after the event. They all have answered that are back in the jury room. No, we're good. That's lovely and all, but does that make a damn bit of difference? Should whatever verdict comes out here?

4:10I mean, let's place some scenarios. Let's play the scenario. They find her guilty. Let's say they find her guilty and three weeks later, two weeks later, a day later, whatever, sometime later, one of those jurors does an interview with somebody and something comes out of their mouth to the effect of, yeah, I voted for that because I was afraid for my safety. And for whatever reason that that, they've thought that decision would actually keep them as safe as they could. May not be what they fully believe, but they were pressured into it because of that action. Wasn't another juror? Wasn't Becky Hill going to another pre-sinct and then weighing in. It was this event. And even though they told the judge, I'm okay. I really did feel this way. What does that do to a verdict, even though it's already rendered and they're sworn in? I think that is likely an automatic reversal. The jurors cannot base their determination on any information or force or dynamic outside

5:14of what happened when the evidence was presented within that courtroom. And so if they felt some kind of pressure and that contributed even to a very slight degree in their final determination, and even if they said before under pressure when you're being basically interrogated by a judge in this very serious case and they said, no, I'm fine. That doesn't necessarily alleviate the potential of pellet concerns if there is a conviction and a juror did feel pressure. And that's a very real concern in this case. Those jurors in the back think about how I cramones it can be like a work meeting. When you have like 30 minutes and you're trying to come to a decision, these people have been doing it for days and days and days and that pressure is very high as it is. Do you think it was, I know logistically, it's challenging, especially for three to five weeks of your life? Should they have been sequestered during this? sequestration, I think there's been a trend away from that. It's so burdensome for the jurors who again didn't sign up for this.

6:17They're just doing their civic duty and to put them in a hotel where they can't typically can't have much contact with family friends, work, things like that. I think that that is a bit overkill and I think that the risks and costs of that process probably outweigh the benefits in my mind. What is the bar of these, because you don't see it that often these days, sequestration where they're in the hotel like that. If people don't understand what that means, it means you're not going home. You're not hanging out with your friends and your family, you're not watching. They're really, really making sure you're not getting access to this. And that's what the bar that's keeping it is control. What is the bar though these days? What kind of case is what does it take to qualify for sequester jury? The judge has a ton of discretion there. The judge is kind of the steward of the jury. The judge has to look out for the jury and also has to make sure they're not being improperly influenced. Usually that threshold is just the judge's subjective opinion in terms of is there a risk

7:21that outside information and influence could creep in to this jury process during this trial? Is that risk high enough to justify the burdens of sequestration? And I think judges are trending away from that. And I really haven't, I can't recall the last time I've actually seen a judge decide, hey, yes, we need to sequester for this entire trial. And so that just goes to shows how difficult it is to obtain them. Unless you're in the reality show, jury duty, that's on. That's true. There you go. Did you sequester him in that? That was a good one. I want to go back to the, what if scenario here? Okay, so we talked about if a juror comes back on somebody's podcast and says, I felt pressured and this is why I voted this way or that way. But more so, I mean, it would be more effectual if it was I voted guilty. What happens here though, if no jurors has anything at all, I mean, does Reddington have

8:24a card to play regardless because of this incident, if they have to go to appeal, if they were to be in that sort of a situation? That's tougher. I think that would be much more difficult for the defense. And usually what often happens in a case like this, if there is a guilty verdict, defense will ask to interview each one of those jurors. Thing is though, Tony, these jurors do not have to subject themselves to this, to an interview with defense council or anyone. In fact, they're given an instruction at the end of this trial that basically says, hey, if you don't want to talk about this, man, you don't have to. And no one's going to force you unless there's like a hearing in your subpoena. But so you really need something from the jury. You can't just say like, oh, there was the appearance of outside influence because that lady tried to film them. That probably isn't enough. You probably need some morsel at least from a juror saying, yeah, I noticed that. And yeah, I think it did have no effect. What if, because again, going to what Reddington has in his tool bag in case it doesn't go

9:27the way he wants it to go, and you don't have a juror saying that. But since he, they had the mistrial request, you know, when they were invoking religion and religiosity in that, can he go back and use that as a throx? Even though it was sustained and the jury was given very strict instructions by Sullivan, not to listen to those words. Can he still then claim it had an impact as it was heard by the jury and use that as a grounds for appeal? You can certainly argue, but at the appellate level, there is a presumption, a legal presumption that the jurors will follow the instructions of the court. So if the court said, hey, I know you all heard this. Can't unring that bell, but you can't consider it. There's a presumption that the jury will not consider it. So you have to, as defense counsel, try to unearth some kind of contrary evidence to that that you know, they did consider it. And you know, if they're talking on a podcast later and they're talking about how significant they thought that religiosity issue was, that those kinds of things might be enough.

10:31So are jurors then, after cases, especially like this one, given really clear and good instructions by the court on about what they should or shouldn't do or what they're allowed to do or not allowed to do and is it legally binding? Do you mean before the deliberations or after the case, like after the case is done, like we're talking out all these hypotheticals on what jurors could or potentially say, either to news, podcast, something like that, which could actually upend and flip things around or bring attention to things. In other words, just on this case, on this one with, you know, invoking, what was this statement, not wrath of God or moral sin. moral sin, the moral sin statement. You know, so are they instructed about how to conduct themselves after and is it legally binding if they are? It's, it's, it's in every trial I've done, I've done more than 60. The, the, the judge has a very limited instruction at the end of the jurors saying, thank you so much for your service. If you want to talk about this with somebody, you can't. And if you don't, you don't have to. And if someone is, is pressure on you to do something you don't want to do, like talking

11:32about the case, bring it to the judge's attention. That's pretty much it. So that's pretty broad that allows the jury kind of to, it's in their hands, they could do what they want. And some jurors want to talk about it. Others want to get it behind them. And jurors, I mean, in a high profile case like this, the reality is going to be there is a potential payday there for any one of them. If they like it to be, I can guarantee. If you want a book deal, you'll get a book deal if you want. There, there, I mean, it is what it is. And, and I, I don't know if there's anything necessarily wrong with that. I guess it probably depends on on how one is, is using that, whether it's, you know, in a way of trying to, you know, spread a message of, of some sort of awareness for, for the greater good or just to, to cash in on the death of three children, there's two kind of lanes there that that could take. But the possibility is there. So we're, inevitably we're going to hear from some of them.

12:35And I mean, it'll, it'll be fascinating. When we do hear from, from some of them, Eric, just pure conjecture, what do you think that conversation's going to be like? What do you think we're going to hear? Really from any of them when they're, they're describing what was going on over these, however many days, roughly 30 some hours in that jury room. I can't even imagine, like, go back to an example of like, let's say, you at work are trying to decide on what you're going to have for lunch. And there's like three different positions and someone's like, no, I want pea sons. Like, no, that's unhealthy. Let's get Japanese or whatever. You know, that, that, it's something that's hard to reach consensus on something as simple and trivial as that. And that could take, you know, 10 minutes or something like that. With amount of time that these jurors have been going back and forth with each other in, in what I'm sure is an emotionally charged environment with deeply held beliefs that implicate

13:35ideas of motherhood, of mental health, of women's health, that those, people have strong positions about those things. And I bet that many of them are, are vocal about just how zealously they believe one thing or the other. So I bet it is, you know, that's not the right, I was going to say a different word, but it's definitely a difficult, difficult scenario back there. Tense, acrimonious at times I imagine. I can't even imagine the mental exhaustion there under right now. When, so the biggest energy draw in our entire bodies, believe it or not, is the brain. And when you actually keep exercising your brain that hard for that long, for that's the same period of time. I can't imagine how emotionally and mentally exhausted these people are. I know people are putting in a comment too and we've all said it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't pay anything to be on this jury. You know, at the very end, so I'd love to be part of this kind of see everything's going on. No, freaking way. I really had, hats off to them on this one. This is a rough one to be part of because it's impacting them for the rest of their lives

14:38like as if we know what it is, but also just the emotional toll this has taken. No doubt. Actually, I don't think so, but I'll just throw it out to you anywhere. Do they offer counseling to jurors after things like this? I mean, they have seen some really horrendous things. They've been through some a lot of trauma just going through deliberations on this. I'd imagine much more so than if you're on a jury for a traffic stop. You know, if there is such one, obviously, probably not, but you know, there's a lot they're going through, a lot they're exposed to, you know, you're getting only a sense of it by looking at people are breaking down in the courtroom, but this is a lot for a human being to go through. And this wasn't something they've even volunteered to go through anything offered to them as counseling or anything? Not to my knowledge. It's not something the government would pay for. Is there a need for it? Is there a reason for it? Probably, but to my knowledge, I've never recorded. We're just, we're kind of playing the like what if scenario game has everyone just curious,

15:38completely kind of off topic, but has anyone ever raised a claim against a state for putting them through a trial that like scarred them emotionally and their like mental health medical because I mean, it seems like it could be a logical one for some of the shit that a jury has to endure. Oh, sir. I mean, I've never, I've never heard of such a claim. And I think the government would have significant protection and immunity. Part because it's part, it's enshrined within the laws that the jurors have to do this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I said, I mean, it would, it would be, I mean, a very, very different scenario, but would it be akin to almost a law enforcement officer or someone in the armed services coming back and ensuing the police department or the army because while they were doing their, their sworn duty, they encountered things that were, were traumatizing. You don't really see that, but it doesn't really exist. Is this kind of in that same vein because it is a duty as a citizen that were asked to

16:42participate in so that kind of washers the hands of whatever the government exposes you to. It's like good luck. You know, yes and no, Tony, I, I, I, what then it comes to mind is the Vietnam war. So, so there was a lawful draft. So the law said these folks had to participate. And then some of them over there were exposed to agent orange were, were exposed to other noxious chemicals that could in their position have a lasting physical impact. So the, the, should a piece alone, I think probably doesn't get to any sort of viable claim. But, but it would be unprecedented for someone who was engaging in lawful activity required by the government and who sustained an injury to then try to make a claim after that as many Vietnam vets did. And, and in fact, many of them were, were not in my mind treated fairly after that in terms of what they're exposed to. So, yeah.

17:42So suing the Commonwealth, no, not in any realistic way. But counseling, yes, just for your fact of pleasure. Massachusetts built this in in 2022. The trial court launched a first in a nation program free short term professional counseling for jurors distressed by service. Three hour sessions by phone or video with the dedicated counselor. If they need more, the counselor refers out. The judge can also offer it to people who sat in on the pool and got wrecked by, um, void dire. I can pronounce that anymore. After all, the homicide trial several jurors from the same panel have used it. So, Massachusetts does offer it. Hey, the more you know, but, um, so after the witch trial, they cancel you for the witch trial. Yeah, that's great. They gave you some candy. So, uh, bring your trick or treat bag and they fill it up. That's interesting. No, I'm glad we asked that question. Yeah. The the true crime tourist epidemic, uh, is is we've talked about it a bit. I mean, it exists. It's going to be there.

18:43Are have the courts, um, are they prepared? Uh, do do do they need to be treating the outside security parameters and what goes on, uh, when the jury goes to their car with more security and safety than they, than they have, um, obviously it's very different outside a courthouse and it was in 1996. And it still seems that a lot of the, you know, the security measures in many cases are still about there. We've seen some that are, are really stacked up very well. But is that something in your opinion, uh, that that could, could lead or could use a little catching up to today's culture and obsession with, with true crime, Eric? Uh, are you kidding me? Absolutely. I've seen some clips from outside of that courthouse where things appear to be basically pandemonium and, and, um, that is a real concern in terms of the effect it could have

19:44on the jury. Uh, it's a real concern for the safety of the proceedings. And then what they got to do is, is, uh, the security measures, but also balance that with the, uh, folks rights to a public trial, to free speech, to, to, to, uh, voice their opinion outside of the courthouse. And so you have a lot of competing interests that were hard to balance for like a courthouse security team, you know? And so kind of a herculean effort with how much things have ramped up in this new era. Yeah. That would, um, it's scary to think about how one individual could very dramatically, uh, up end of trial. I mean, this one may have, I mean, look at what Becky Hilded with her things. This one woman outside of the courthouse just trying to take a picture. I mean, I mean, I mean, if, people can do far worse than a camera. Um, and this, this case has such emotional vitriol connected to it. Uh, are you, are, were you surprised that a person got that close to a juror was able

20:47to take pictures of the jurors getting to and from their cars? I mean, I know it's a courthouse. It's a public building. It's not like they have secret underground tunnels and a secret passageway to load people in and out of. But I don't know, more fencing. I mean, this, they, they, we're several weeks in here. We, we do know the fact this case has been having, uh, on the country, uh, the fact that somebody even got that close is that, I don't know. Are you surprised? Yeah. I, I was surprised in part because, um, uh, I recently attended the, I guess it was last year, but the trial and Colorado for the dentist, Daniel Craig, uh, who was convicted of, uh, of, uh, cause of death this way. And, uh, when you're sitting in the gallery, uh, if you even bring out your phone, if you just bring it out of your pocket, security will ask you to leave. You cannot even be brandishing a phone, um, within the vicinity of that trial. And so the fact that this person got close enough was able to have her phone. It's operational. She's taken, uh, allegedly photos and videos.

21:50Um, that seems like a bit of a breach to me. You know, I think there can be other measures taken like, hey, this is a public trial. And if you want to watch it, cool, man, but you can't have your phone with you. Like, uh, things like that. Those are reasonable restrictions that could be placed, but, but it appears had, I thought we saw that though. Didn't we see? I'm that, that, that was my question at the onset of this, you know, cause I, I watched, I, I think I watched every single minute of this trial and they did a lot of panning of the gallery. I'm pretty sure I saw people with their cell phones, matter of fact, some people that come on our show. I mean, cause I saw, I thought I saw like reporters, podcasts is actually taking their notes and everything. And I was really curious because I know when I've gone to court in my own county, you got to leave that crap in the car. And, and even writing to now, granted, I know he's, you know, one of the attorneys, but he's got his cell phone up on the, on the table there with him as well. Yeah. What, you know, I guess what the hell? I mean, are, were they allowed not allowed? I mean, cause it's like, how do you, how do you control that if you're allowing one guy to have it or a multiple people to have it to not actually do a pan around?

22:50I mean, how am I? My experience, it's, it's almost like a tiered structure of allowances. So folks who had press credentials in the Daniel Craig trial, they were allowed to bring their laptops, they could have their phones with them. I don't believe they could take their phones out though. Whereas me, I did not have press credentials at that time. So I could not have my phone out. I could not have a laptop. I had to have an old school pen and paper to be taken stuff down. The attorneys themselves, they're allowed to usually keep all of their tech and there's just little concern that they're going to violate the rules. But it's kind of a tiered structure in that sense in my experience. Some of us, there's too much of an honor system to play these days. And, and it feels like what used to work, people just, you know, don't chase down the jury and take their pictures. Is the strong suggestion of it is no longer working. It's scary. Your thoughts in the comment section on sub-stack and YouTube as we continue to discuss the Lindsay Clancy case.