The attorney for Lindsay Clancy’s lone holdout juror says his client had zero doubt and a mountain of evidence, rejecting claims he refused to follow the law.
After seven days of deliberations ended in deadlock, attorney Edward Paltzik told Fox News that holdout juror Michael P. Desronvil never wavered. Eleven jurors were ready to find Clancy not criminally responsible. Desronvil alone held out for a conviction. Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Sept. 4.
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, admitted killing her three children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan, at the family’s home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023. The defense argued postpartum psychosis left her not criminally responsible. Prosecutors said she understood what she was doing and planned the killings.
Desronvil later said the physical evidence and witness testimony showed Clancy knew what she was doing. His lawyer is now answering a direct charge that the juror simply refused to apply the law on reasonable doubt.
Paltzik calls the accusation categorically false
In a preview interview for “Fox & Friends,” host Kayleigh McEnany asked whether Desronvil ever had reasonable doubt. Paltzik did not hedge.
Paltzik said his client stood on the record built at trial.
"Michael had zero doubt,"
he told McEnany. He added there was
"A lot of evidence, a mountain of evidence,"
The New York Post reported Paltzik went further on the claim that Desronvil ignored the law. “That is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard in almost 20 years of practicing law. It is categorically false,” Paltzik said. Clancy had confessed to strangling the three children with exercise bands, and Desronvil concluded the evidence showed she knew what she was doing.
The Washington Examiner likewise reported Paltzik’s account that the holdout juror relied on a mountain of evidence rather than any refusal to follow instructions.
Fox News reached out to defense attorney Kevin Reddington for a response to the accusations surrounding the holdout. Reddington chose not to reply to those inquiries.
Jury split left one man standing against an insanity finding
Breitbart reported the panel of nine women and three men deadlocked 11-1 for an insanity acquittal after more than 36 hours of deliberations across seven days. Female jurors broke down in court as the judge declared the mistrial. Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz said he will decide shortly whether to retry the case.
The jury foreperson sent Judge Sullivan a note accusing the holdout of failing to apply reasonable doubt as required. Per Breitbart’s account of the note, the holdout “has made statements acknowledging doubt, but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states.”
Reddington did not stay quiet in the courtroom aftermath. He blamed the deadlock on a single juror. “They know that they were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors,” Reddington said.
Readers following the case have already seen how the deadlock left other jurors describing a panel that fell short of what the defense wanted.
Just the News reported that Sullivan first said he would declare a mistrial over the defendant’s objection after roughly six and a half days of deliberation, then paused to give the defense one hour to appeal and seek a stay. The judge declined to remove the holdout juror. “Over the defendant’s objection, I’m going to declare a mistrial,” Sullivan said. A prosecutor told the court that nothing else was required at that point other than the mistrial declaration.
Pressure on the holdout did not end with the mistrial
More than two weeks after the mistrial, the fight over Desronvil’s stance spilled far outside the jury room. National Review described a sustained campaign by Clancy’s supporters to identify, expose, and attack the character of the lone holdout whose vote blocked an acquittal. Fellow jurors and press coverage helped put his identity into public view.
Noah Rothman wrote that the defendant’s supporters “have not let up in their campaign to ruin the life of the lone holdout juror whose confidence cost Clancy an acquittal verdict.”
That post-verdict pile-on fits a larger pattern already covered when the holdout juror described political targeting after his name surfaced.
Clancy is due back in court on Sept. 29. Prosecutors have not announced a final decision on a retrial, though the district attorney’s office has signaled it will weigh the next step soon. Local coverage has noted that the DA rarely cuts plea deals, even as outside voices float negotiation.
Separate from the jury fight, public figures have also weighed in on possible off-ramps. One recent report captured how prosecutors faced calls to work something out after the defense floated extraordinary relief.
The human cost remains the three children killed in their own home. Patrick Clancy has spoken about the deaths, forgiveness, and the online cruelty that followed, a reminder of the family wreckage at the center of every court date. His first major interview put that loss in plain terms while the legal fight continued.
One juror’s duty now sits under a public microscope
Desronvil’s lawyer frames a simple conflict. Eleven jurors accepted the postpartum-psychosis path to a not-criminally-responsible finding. One juror did not. The foreperson’s note cast that holdout as a man who would not apply reasonable doubt. Paltzik calls that charge false and points to evidence and testimony that, in his client’s view, showed Clancy understood her actions.
Jury service is supposed to protect exactly that kind of independent judgment. When a defense lawyer says one man “robbed” the others, and when supporters move from disagreement to a campaign against the holdout’s life and reputation, the pressure shifts from the proof in the courtroom to the person who would not join the majority.
Clancy still faces the charges. The children are still gone. The district attorney still has to decide whether a second jury will hear the same evidence. What should not be on trial is the basic right of one juror to look at the record, find it sufficient for guilt, and refuse to rubber-stamp an insanity result he did not believe the facts supported.
A justice system that treats the holdout as the problem, instead of testing the evidence again in open court, tells every future juror exactly how costly an honest vote can become.
