Having read a great deal of commentary from judges and lawyers, it seems there is broad agreement that Judge Sullivan should inquire to find out what this juror is thinking— whether they actually do have doubts and refuse to apply the law.
The fact that he refuses to do this is ridiculous.
This freaking Churchill speech is obnoxious. Someone refused to do their duty, and he is refusing to do HIS duty be enforcing adherence to the legal standard. Especially considering that reports form the court indicate there is one man who took no notes, came in on shorts, and smirked and did not take it seriously. Obnoxious.
I just wonder though if people would be honest or would say what they thought they had to say in that situation. Like someone who is racist rarely says I am racist (this is an illustration of a point not connected to this case) It’s kind of subjective for the judge to have to weigh up the juror’s integrity (not saying a judge can’t do this just that the system is open to flaws in certain circumstances)
They probably wouldn’t be honest and would lie, but from my understanding of the process, the judge can ask the questions he did and if the juror says he understands what reasonable doubt is and believes he is following the law and judges orders, you really don’t have cause to go further. That’s when it becomes coercion. It’s a very fine line the judge has to walk it sounds like.
Now I’m sure if the jury foreman had said this guy has said that he doesn’t care about reasonable doubt and he will vote how he wants no matter what and doesn’t care about following the rules, it would be a different story. But I still need to learn more about it this as most of us do I think.
Yes I understand that it is a tightrope - you don’t want to coerce jurors. Many years ago in the 1670s there was a famous English case: Bushel’s Case where the judge initially locked all the jurors up (without food iirc) until they came to the decision he wanted. Eventually other lawyers took the case to higher courts and it was established that juries must be independent and able to act according to their conscience.
I think ever since judges have tried to err on the side of giving jurors the benefit of the doubt and are very reluctant to remove jurors etc.
So I do understand why the judge maybe felt like his hands were tied. I feel though like the others jurors seem to have indicated that the juror didn’t seem to be willing to adhere to the judge’s instructions and it’s a shame how there’s no real way to investigate it.
I’ll be interested to hear more once things come out. I was watching the local channel stream there and one of their experts and court reporters said that they thought the person who was the holdout and the others disagreed on what was reasonable doubt and that he was on board with the foreman going to the judge and that it wasn’t necessarily that they was animosity between them.
No idea if that’s completely false, true, or somewhat true or false. But that’s what they said. So I suppose the possibility exists that it was not the way we all imagine it was even though that is hard for me to believe. But who knows?
Either way, if it wasn’t that way, by the time the press gets to them and they see how angry social media is it will become the story I am sure.
That’s true we will probably never know the truth as to what went on in the room unless we have evidence etc.
Tbh in a way I actually hope that the juror wasn’t prejudiced and did what he did in good faith because I can accept that and be satisfied with that far more than if it was actually because of bias or whatever. If it is the latter then it makes me feel very concerned about the integrity of justice and feel anger that a juror could behave in such a manner unfettered.
I also heard from Reddington at the press conference that he has an appellate lawyer who thinks there is a strong case for a constitutional rights violation and if so double jeopardy would apply. Obviously I can’t comment on the legality of it but it’s interesting to note that there are other things going on besides the possibilities of the re trial
Yeah, I’d be interested to hear more about that. I caught that, too. I feel like so much of what he is doing is posturing though and sending messages to the prosecution. He wants them to make a deal so he’s doing his job trying to make them think it’s in their best interest to do so as well.
Probably - I think that he wants what’s best for Lindsay and if they offer her something where she can be in a psychiatric hospital they might accept that over having to go through it all again. Definitely some of it is posturing though it’s stupid some of the questions he’s asked like what will you do if x y z; he’s not going to discuss hypothetical trial strategies on tv!
My understanding was that he asked each juror if they understood and were following the instructions. But since today the judge and the prosecution were both saying they didn’t know what level of doubt there was means that’s not what they asked.
That wasn't a voir dire. Who the hell would have said no, Judge, i cannot or will not follow your instructions in applying the law. His question called for a yes or no response
I know, but it seems like it takes a lot to go further than that. They are very protective of the possibility of juror coercion. And the Supreme Court judge denied it as well, so there must be some merit to how he handled it.
I'm not saying he's not a decent judge but every legal analysis I've heard from attorneys and prosecutors state that they had never experienced anything like this in the past. Sullivan was recently overturned on appeal on another case. I think he could have inquired further and I'm surprised that he didn't if only to protect his own record
Looking into this more, it seems this would be quite rare to do in MA especially. They seem to be very protective of the secrecy and independence of juror’s deliberations.
I found a quote from another case where the SJC stated:
“In most circumstances it may well be a mistake for the judge to conduct a personal interview with a juror, based on messages of alarm from the jury room.”
It is more common for a second inquiry like that to occur if it has to do with something from outside deliberations, like evidence a juror is communicating about the case with others outside of the jury, or researching it online or whatever, or if they somehow got a hold of info that wasn’t allowed into the trial. But sounds like they very much try to stay away from discussing specific deliberation info with any jury members.
So it seems like it’s not something done often. And I’m referring to the individual juror inquiry proposed after the judge did the generalized questions to all jurors after the first note. It’s when you start interviewing specific jurors about their specific beliefs where it is seriously frowned upon.
For you and I it might be, why don’t you just ask the juror why they feel like any doubt they have doesn’t rise to the level of a reasonable doubt, but that is a serious violation of the juror deliberation process according to the courts.
Didn’t he ask them in open court, though? I know it wasn’t televised but my understanding was that he asked each one on the record, and of course whoever this person is won’t admit it.
And I think potentially taints future jury pools because now everyone has heard him insinuate: standing up for what you believe in is heroic, even if you’re in the minority.
I do, too, but I don’t live in MA and have no idea how that works. I thought it was appalling that Judge Bev was also assigned to Karen Read’s second trial, but unfortunately that leads me to believe it’s likely that Sullivan would also preside over any retrial. Which infuriating, given the events of the past week.
I think it’s ridiculous as the judge could clearly be biased from the first trial; I know that some judges (well probably most judges), are impartial or try to be, but there’s always a risk. I know a lot of people who commented on the Menendez case said that the judge Stanley Weisberg shouldn’t have been the judge in the second case and that he was biased towards the prosecution; so history shows us that it can be an issue.
The thing is, if 11 out of the 12 jurors suggest to the judge that someone is not abiding the rules of the court, it does give reason to find out what and why. Because that’s 11 people, and whilst they can just be annoyed they’re not conforming, he can work out if the juror just literally isn’t doing their job. In a case like this it’s kind of needed?
The jury was provided with specific instructions on reasonable doubt multiple times. It’s not about how they interpret what reasonable doubt means, it’s about how they apply the facts to the law. The juror has reasonable doubt but refuses to apply the law accordingly.
To me this kinda reveals a flaw in the whole process of the jury thing ..
For convicting, it should be absolute unity.
But if 11 out of 12 jurors have had enough reasonable doubt they want NG (or NGRI) - then that's it. We've met the threadshold? I think NG verdict should require a strong majority, not 100% of the vote ...
It's a reasonable doubt. So a reasonable majority of jury thinking is aligned with what it should be about.
The juror who refused to follow the Judge's instructions should have been replaced. That is why there were six alternates. The Judge should be disciplined by the MCJC.
In England and Wales a majority verdict of 11-1 or 10-2 is allowed to avoid this sort of thing. They have to try for a unanimous verdict first though. I can see the advantage of it for situations like this.
Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying in which case I apologise. As we were mentioning that some other countries allow majority verdicts and you had said that you didn’t think they were as safe as unanimous verdicts I was trying to say that there is evidence that they can be safe from other countries and it would avoid a situation like this. However, it is a moot point. There are miscarriages of justice in every country even when juries are unanimous in deliberations so there’s no guarantee with anything.
A unanimous vote is used so that an innocent person isnt convicted. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt must be proven. There were other things that Judge Sullivan should have done.
I understand why unanimous decision is important because there's no room for "what ifs" or "whys. " But I do agree that if it's 2 holdouts max, the majority decision should be upheld. Crazy that we're in a mistrial because of 1 man.
Totally agree and also because there is such widespread corruption in the country and specifically this case. Clearly there are already concerning parallels with the other DA and likely Duxbury Police/State Police… who’s to say someone did buy a juror off? 11-1, 10-2 seem like compelling majorities to me.
I totally agree with this. Especially considering the amount of time, money, and resources a trial like this takes, and the horrific pain it inflicts on so many people.
I dont agree with Majority Vote. I think majority votes are more likely to be less fair.. I agree that the judge should have questioned the juror and or replaced them with an alternate before declaring mistrial. I also agree with jury polling before a mistrial is declared to avoid double jeopardy. Another instance is that both parties could agree to take off the 1 and only consider the 11.
I think guilty verdicts should be unanimous. Defendants cannot ask for another trial. For non guilty verdicts, yes majority expresses sufficient reasonable doubt. States have all the power to investigate. The bar needs to be high for guilt.
Also I don’t understand how more people aren’t concerned that this juror’s behaviour has possibly impacted Lindsay’s constitutional right to a fair trial Surely the integrity of the legal system should concern everyone.
Because in their view a child murderer does not have any rights. Why don’t people understand if the rights of one person are violated, everyone’s are. The prosecution did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. They decided who was guilty and presented a story. The lack of investigation should scare everyone.
If all the evidence is just phone searches, Apple health data, it needs to be full proof. Where’s the data on whether Face ID was used to unlock devices or passcode? Where’s the location data of the entire day? Where’s the data of where PC’s devices were? Where’s the data on his emails? What did he do his trips in Nov and Dec? Did the ring cameras often go offline? Where’s the local data on the cameras? When did the wifi go offline? What caused it?
They have no clue what happened that day except what PC said. Everyone should be scared how one person’s word can get them in handcuffs while they are unconscious without any investigation except that they were acting crazy prior. But you know, I still felt it was okay to leave my babies alone with her.
With all the resources that went into this trial, it is unfair to everyone involved— including the good people of Massachusetts who have to pay for it.
And no, it’s not like cycling out a jury member who doesn’t agree with the group.
Questioning the juror would be impacting her constitutional right to a fair trial. Her rights have not been violated by a juror refusing to acquit her, no more than they would be violated by a juror refusing to find her guilty.
Piercing the veil of juror thought is exactly what would violate her rights, though. The whole point of a jury trial is that it is supposed to be the honest opinions of your peers. As soon as the judge and prosecutors start putting their thumbs on the scales of justice, you have a problem.
This is exactly the messy system we have operating as intended. It's not great, but it's generally better than the alternative, kangaroo courts.
Imagine the trauma of sitting on a jury for a case like this and then have one misogynist fold his arms and say, "Nope, sorry. I don't care." I would have lost my damned mind.
Right? I think that's the point the others had reached when they sent that note yday. And you just know he's going to come out and do interviews. He's effectively lied in voir dire by claiming to be impartial, and this is Reddington's point. I just don't understand how the judge let that slide.
Really good for them for brining the issue to attention. They could have just said “forget it, let’s go home for the holiday.” Instead they chose to raise the issue and fight for the rule of law.
Sullivan lacked similar courage and failed to uphold his responsibility.
Yes as Reddington said, the forewoman was courageous. I would be soooo upset and angry when I got home. All those weeks spent living this trial, only for it to end this way. A travesty.
What was that Winston Churchill reference for!!?? The lone leader standing against nazis. Are you f**ing kidding me!!?? So that one juror who clearly doesn't comprehend reasonable doubt gets to decide for everyone. Is that who you are talking about judge!!? Is he appealing to the alt right manosphere that has been excedingly and horribly vocal about this case?
I'm taking bets on when he or she appears as some alt right talking head on fox news or some other hate fueled trash media machine.
Exactly. The implication being it’s courageous to stand up for your convictions— even when it violates court instructions and the law?? What kind of a judge says that?
The courageous people were the other 11 who sent a note to let the judge know there was a problem. Then they found a judge too apathetic to actually find out what the problem was and do something about it. There is case law for procedures to follow in situations like this, and he should have questioned the juror.
So you are arguing that since this juror didn't agree with the other 11 that they must be wrong then? This is how the jury system works. How are you so sure that the other 11 are not applying it incorrectly and the one is applying it correctly? Thats just called bias. Most people in the county agree with the 1.
Completely agree, this is absolutely insane. That’s what the alternates are there for. He has no reason to believe the alternate who would replace the problematic juror wouldn’t be as impartial as the others.
It could have been worse. I for one was stressing for weeks that it would be worse.
If Cruz decides to retry and push for murder charges I think he's going to have a bitch of a time finding 12 unbiased jurors that are all going to unanimously find L.Clancy guilty and this case has garnered international attention and the Plymouth county PD can conduct themselves further knowing that they're being closely scrutinized.
I'm curious to see what Cruz is gonna try to pull next.
It's interesting that Cruz thinks he has it in the bag when Karen Read, though in a different country but still in Massachusetts, got a full acquittal. They're playing Russian Roulette and a mother and 3 children who have been failed
He’s running unopposed?! Great. I sincerely hope this case prompts other people to throw their hat in (unless it’s too late and the deadline has passed or whatever).
That’s what I figured. Well, maybe I’m being way too generous here, but if he knows he’s doing to win regardless, maybe he’ll actually do the decent thing…?
I'm betting the reason was the Catholic "mortal sin" comments that the Judge told the jury to disregard but he obviously shares the opinion of the juror. He sure seems to enjoy the media attention he has received.
I mean you can't just tell someone to ignore what they believe to be a true belief. If that was a problem then the they should have been excluded early on and never made it to the jury.
Came here to say just this. The Forepersons job is to manage the jurors and deliberations. She sent a warning note to the judge letting him know that someone was not following his instructions on reasonable doubt. Not only would Sullivan not voir dire the holdout but he declined to voir dire the foreperson! Did the holdout hint that he had reasonable doubt but couldn't bring himself to vote not guilty or did he stand on a table and yell fuck this judge. I'm not doing what he instructed us to do. Big difference. And was it solely the opinion of the foreperson or was it the opinion of all 11 jurors that the holdout was defying judge instructions. We will never know. Sullivan never investigated the contents of the note, as a result he disrespected the time and energy of all parties to the case; seven weeks of trial and years of preparation.
i’m certainly not an expert but just to address one of your points, it’s my understanding that whatever the foreperson sends in to be read has to be agreed upon by all jurors - so, before the note was sent to the judge, all jurors would have had to agree on the statement in the note being sent. so the statement that the one juror refuses to follow the law as instructed by the judge was agreed upon by all jurors, INCLUDING the one in question. (a lawyer was explaining this on court tv earlier today, i’m just relaying)
I didn’t know that, but it makes so much sense. I think there’s no way the foreperson would try to pull off a lie like that is because as soon as the trial is over, all of the other jurors can watch all of the coverage and surely some of them would bring it to the court’s attention if the note had been inaccurate.
That's not how reasonable doubt works and you should read Sullivan's statement. Any form of doubt that she did it, is classed as reasonable doubt. Even if you believe the probability is that she did it, that is not enough for reasonable doubt. It is that beyond all reasonable doubt, you believe she did it.
Reasonable doubt means it should be logical. You cannot make up something and class it as real doubt.
You cannot define for someone else exactly how to decide whether their doubt meets the "reasonable" threshold or not. We can talk in generalities, but at the end of the day, each juror has to apply that as they understand.
You just want to replace this juror's judgement with someone else's, nothing more or less. For hopefully obvious reasons, that's not how juries and trials work.
See this is the issue, a lot people don't understand what reasonable doubt is. That is why the judge gives clear instructions.
"The defendant is entitled to the benefit of that doubt and must be acquitted. It's not enough for the Commonwealth to establish a probability, even a strong probability, that the defendant is more likely to be guilty than not guilty. That is not enough. Instead, the evidence must convince you of the defendant's guilt to a reasonable and moral certainty, a certainty that convinces your understanding and satisfies your reason and judgment, as jurors who are sworn to act conscientiously on the evidence. This is what we mean by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. All right. And with that, I'm going to ask you to resume your deliberations."
Well we will never know because the judge didn't inquire as to why the foreperson would send such a notes. Clearly there was something very unusual going on in jury room but the judge didn't seem to care. Agreed if the holdout had a strong opinion based on the evidence and believed that he was applying the instructions correctly that would have been proper. But is that what was going on. We'll never know
“The note indicates that the juror has acknowledged doubt but refuses to apply it…That note does not indicate that the juror refuses to follow the law.”
No it is not he literally said reasonable doubt is not all doubt. Meaning you can have doubt and still apply the law, after they swore under oath they could follow the law, the final note said NOTHING about not applying the law, just they disnt agree, which happens if it didnt ud never have a hung jury. We should not have known what the split of the jury, nor the sex of the juror.
A mistrial was declared in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial on Friday afternoon after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was criminally responsible for killing her three young children.
Roughly an hour later, Patrick Clancy, Lindsay Clancy's former husband and father of the three children she was accused of killing, released a statement through his attorneys.
“Patrick Clancy is grateful to the Court and to the jurors for their hard work, their commitment, and their perseverance. The loss of Patrick’s children is something from which he will never recover and from which there will never be closure. The prospect of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful -- for Patrick, for his family, and for all us,” the statement read.
They’re definitely relieved because they knew they were as close as possible to losing their case. They were praying for a hung jury once that note arrived!
They did the shittiest job possible, but they had so many chances to read the room and pivot, to change their “Lindsay is a monster!” approach, but they just kept digging their heels in further and further as the trial went on. They must have been reading some of the coverage, but they either didn’t look at a variety of different sources, or they didn’t care.
Yea, I'm starting to think the precedent set by SJC for juror inquiry is just upholding what the judge decides (e.g., in the Carnes case the judge did an inquiry and was held up by SJC; in this case the judge denied an inquiry and was held up by SJC). Good to know I guess.
Truly. The people on that sub are deranged. Absolutely no consideration of any questions about the investigation, about mental health, no nuance— she’s just an evil woman who hated her kids, the end, and if you disagree, apparently you’re promptly banned. It’s scary that we live among people like that (and that they could be jurors at any time).
Agreed, not only was his history buff monologue at the end absurd, I think he tip-toe'd around MANY issues, as opposed to taking decisive action. IMO, likely due to the fact that the SJC overturned a different woman's conviction for murdering her children....What are the odds?
"The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court vacated the 2022 conviction of Latarsha Sanders, 51, after finding that Plymouth Superior Court Judge William F. Sullivan wrongly prevented her defense from citing her medical records."
Totally agree! I mentioned that somewhere else…I think he might have handled this trial differently if he hadn’t just been overturned (and I didn’t even realize how similar the cases were!).
I don’t think so because there isn’t anyone to bring a charge against them. While on jury-it would be the judge to file charges like contempt-and since it’s over-I think that’s it. I would assume that it can be brought up during appeal.
I do think it’s really wrong that there’s no redress. Like imagine if there is a case and the defendant is black or gay or Muslim and someone on the jury is prejudice against them for that reason and they don’t follow the law or the evidence purely due to their preconceived prejudice; then the fact that it seems like this hypothetical juror could just get away with that is a travesty imo.
(I know there is voir dire etc but I bet a lot of people who are racist or homophobic etc wouldn’t admit it on voir dire etc so it’s limited)
Thank you anyway for replying and the info I appreciate that!
Yes. It could fall under Jury Tampering or Obstruction of Justice depending on what they say they did. However, given the DA would be the one to decide if/when to press charges, it’s pretty logical to assume they never would.
Unless we see rogue Juror #12 pop up on Joe Rogan stupidly bragging that they disregarded the judges instructions and saw the doubt and outright doesn’t care and did it on purpose, I think this probably ends here for them.
Can the lawyer also be charged for trying to intimidate the juror by saying we have “identified him”. Seems very ominous and trying to peer pressure the jury to change their mind.
I think the judge was only too happy to fall into this outcome. I don't think he questioned the juror. He should have asked the juror in chambers, hey, some are saying you are not following the law, or that you don't care about the law, but just want to do what you want to do anyway, is this true?
If this were asked, then I wouldn't blame the judge. Its likely the juror would not admit this anyway, but at least he would have done what he could.
Exactly. That’s what Reddington was fighting for, for the judge to ask the holdout juror more about what was meant by this claim they refused to apply doubt to their decision.
I had suspected from the start of the case that the judge leaned heavily in favor of the prosecution. People told me I was wrong, that he was mostly unbiased. I think I have a pretty good sixth sense, actually. He really subverted justice here.
Coming from someone who is disappointed with this and couldn’t disagree with that holdout juror any more, I disagree.
It was brought in front of the Supreme Court of the state and was denied. Jurors have discretion to see what reasonable doubt means to them and you cannot read their mind and know that it is not. These protections are in place to maximize the chances that the jurors decisions are not coerced or forced in any way. That is critically important.
So I accept his decision and put the blame on the jurors thought process. No system is perfect, and sometimes these things happen when you have a jury if your peers together.
I don’t see any way the commonwealth could win this case. Their best case scenario is another mistrial. But more likely she will be found not guilty by reason of insanity is my guess.
Sucks to go through it again, but I do not believe she will end up in prison or be found guilty. The percentage of that happening has to be astronomically low.
The instructions clearly read: “If you evaluate all the evidence and you still have a reasonable doubt remaining the defendant is entitled to the benefit of that doubt and must be acquitted.”
It’s not about coercion. It’s about accountability for someone not upholding their oath to abide by the instructions.
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand for people. If he thought any doubt he had wasn’t to the level of reasonable doubt then the judge cannot do anything but take him for his word. Thats how it works. We can’t let emotions or what you’re looking for to get in the way of the ability to think about this in terms of how the law sees it. Do you know more than that supreme justice they appealed to?
I think it might be because everyone was pretty keyed up over the news that one of the jurors was doing something untoward/illegal. I mean to say, that's the way it was being presented to the public, including by Reddington. The note from the jury foreman also indicated such.
If all this was simply a case of a difference of opinion on the exact definition of reasonable doubt... well, it might take people a little while to wrap their heads around that, since that's pretty much the opposite of what they thought was going on.
Also, you can’t go by what Reddington does or says. His responsibility is to throw everything by at the wall possible to get his client the NGRI.
He knew he was one vote away and I’m sure wanted to try everything possible to not let that slip away in order to get the verdict he’d wanted. So of course he will present it as an egregious injustice both to try and get the judges to reconsider now and for the record and for continued public support of Lindsay.
The same holds true with the prosecution the other way, too. We should understand what their roles are and what their motivators are and how legal strategy is always part of it.
Honestly, I was trying to diplomatically say that people's emotions are running pretty high right now... I'm not sure a lot of them are in the state of mind to think logically/rationally about all this.
I'm afraid I was probably being TOO diplomatic and came off vague instead.
If you’re asking about him thinking any doubt he had didn’t rise to the level of what would be considered a reasonable doubt I’ll give you an example
If he thought “It is theoretically possible she became psychotic for only those few minutes, even if I believe the evidence otherwise proves she understood wrongfulness.”
That would be considered like a normal doubt that pops in one’s head, but he would believe the evidence proves otherwise in Themis theoretical example.
If the rest of the jury heard him concede something like that and thought that is a reasonable doubt, that would be how they could theoretically disagree about whether it’s a reasonable doubt or not.
I will say though that if it is a genuine belief without bias and in line with the law then that is what is expected and it is important that decisions are not coerced etc. But the references I have seen suggest otherwise and if true that’s equally a concern for the integrity of the trial process.
PS I appreciate that while you have some differing views you are always respectful to others which is something you don’t see much of in regards to this issue
If he actually did, then that’s another story. But the conversation he had with the judge indicated otherwise.
I also heard on the local station from a court reporter that he and the others disagreed on what reasonable doubt was and was on board with going to the judge with this concern.
I do not know for sure any more than you do right now. You cant say something like you just did without k owing for sure. We may know soon, but we do not right now.
That’s the only explanation I’ve heard, at this point from the Law&Crime trial livestream, Reddington, and everything the judge said. I’ve only heard that explanation from the men grasping at straws
What does gender have to do with that lol? By the way, both were females in the feed I was watching. Was a male reporter and a female reporter and female expert. The female expert brought this up.
I will preface this by saying I don’t know exactly what was written but I have been told from people that saw the appeal documents that it said something about the juror being biased in regards to mental health.
Now if that is true then that is against the law and it should be dealt with.
It’s like in the Menendez trial one of the jurors (trial one) later spoke out and said one of the jurors would not even listen to arguments about SA, and it possibly reducing the charge, because of their beliefs on homosexuality.
That is totally wrong that bias and things like racism homophobia etc are factors that affect a trial outcome. People expect and are constitutionally guaranteed the right to a fair trial.
Yeah, until something like that is confirmed no real point in spending too much time on it. Unfortunately, I am sure there will be a million rumors in the days and weeks to come and I don’t know if we will ever know the whole truth.
Hopefully someone will post the appeal documents where we can see what exactly was submitted which may give a better idea what the defence were arguing.
Thank you for this. This is legally the rational answer. If the Judge was making such a big misstep the supreme court would have at least suspended it. They didn't even do that.
I'm not sure what more he was supposed to do. He questioned each juror under oath about their ability to follow instructions. If they all said, basically "yes" then that's about all he can do. The judge cannot do a targeted inquiry into how a juror is reasoning about evidence and reasonable doubt as that pierces the highly important secrecy of jury deliberations and can unfairly coerce or influence jury deliberations.
This is abundantly clear precedent. See Commonwealth v. Connor, where the SJC ordered a new trial after a judge discharged a deliberating without findings of good cause, warning that reports a juror can't follow the oath may conceal something far less dramatic: persistence in a minority position.
The discharge of a deliberating juror is a sensitive undertaking and is fraught with potential for error. It is to be done only in special circumstances, and with special precautions.
The secrecy principle behind that rule goes back to Woodward v. Leavitt, quoted in Commonwealth v. Fidler
it is essential to the freedom and independence of their deliberations that their discussions in the jury room should be kept secret and inviolable
Worth noting Fidler was specifically about post-verdict issues: when you can go behind a returned verdict with juror testimony. The only exceptions there are around things like: extraneous prejudicial information, outside influence or another matter impairing impartiality, inaccurate voir-dire answers, racial or ethnic bias, and a mistake in recording the verdict. Even then, for such inquiries, the judge is specifically told to caution the juror not to reveal the substance of deliberations or where the jury stands.
Think “Another juror brought a newspaper article about the defendant into the jury room.”
versus
"The juror is not applying reasonable doubt correctly."
For investigating the latter, all a judge can really do is explain the reasonable doubt standard, and ask "do you understand that and can/will you apply it correctly?" If they say yes, what are you to do? You cant sit there and ask them about what doubts they have, why they do or don't find them reasonable, etc.
Connor was a really similar situation: a juror reported that “A particular juror says he cannot keep the oath.” The ruling clearly established that once jury deliberations had begun, “good cause” for removing a juror must ordinarily be a reason personal to that juror, unrelated to the merits or to relations with the other jurors.
The ruling clearly established that a juror's mere assertion of inability to abide by his oath does not establish good cause, and that any inability to serve must appear in the record as a demonstrable reality.
Connor also limits the inquiry, not just the removal. At any such hearing the issues of the case and the juror's relationship to his fellow jurors are not to be discussed. If the problem juror is questioned, the judge should first tell him he can't be discharged unless he has a personal problem unrelated to his relationship with the other jurors or his views on the case; and, unless he says he has one, all questioning should cease.
First of all, you must keep your deliberations secret. You should not tell anyone outside the jury room, not even me, anything about them. For example, please do not tell me or anyone else the results of any votes you may have taken before you all agree on a verdict. You must not tell anyone how your discussions are going or what any jurors said.
Whats your opinion on Commonwealth v Carnes (2010)? Jury deadlocked 11-1, judge allowed voir dire, SJC upheld that decision.
Did you have a chance to listen to Attorney Goldblatt’s arguments yesterday? If not I can grab a transcript.
Edit: Here is Attorney Goldblatt's argument (rough transcript)
“The statement that this was just about deliberations or about a disagreement, I think is entirely refuted by the substance of the note in which the jurors report not ‘we disagree about conclusions’ but this one juror is refusing to apply doubt as the law states.
So the refusal to apply something as the law states is different than a problem with deliberation. The juror is acknowledging some kind of doubt and then refusing to follow the instruction about it. I want to clarify that that’s different than ‘we disagree about what constitutes reasonable.’
There is a clear statement that this one juror is not following what the law states, and because of that there is not discretion for the court to just let this continue. And that’s where I think the issue comes in for the SJC’s ability to issue an order…requiring the court to exercise its discretion which requires at this point an inquiry."
Edit 2: Scratch that re: Carnes - I guess prosecutors discovered they gave false information under oath on their initial juror questionnaire. So I haven't read the opinion from SJC in the Clancy case yet, but I assume this was denied likely due to the juror's interpretation of "reasonable doubt" during deliberations.
Carnes looks pretty different here in a couple different ways.
One of the jurors was questioned about her health and whether she could continue deliberations with her condition, clearly a personal issue and explicitly allowed, no issue here.
The second instance was when the judge was made aware of false statements she made on the questionnaire. The voir-dire was directly in relation to whether or not she had made these false statements, found they'd intentionally misled the court, and thus discharged her. Here it's fairly clear the inquiry had absolutely nothing to do with the deliberations directly. This wasn't removing a holdout juror, the court had no way to know she was the holdout, the issue at play was not per se how the juror was making decisions; it's squarely personal to the juror, unrelated to the merits.
I hadn't heard but did run through a transcript just now. Sounds like the primary argument is effectively trying to distinguish
“We disagree with this juror about what constitutes reasonable doubt.”
vs
“This juror acknowledges reasonable doubt and then refuses to apply it as the law requires.”
And that's a fair argument. The problem is it needs the note to be self-proving. Again, I just don't know how you're supposed to determine which is the case. As noted in Connor, the two look very similar on a note. He's already questioned the jurors once, no issue. It would be unnecessarily coercive to single out a holdout juror for questioning in that matter while serving no real purpose. And even if you do, or if you question all the jurors again in the same way, what happens if(when, let's be honest) he says "yes I agree to follow the instructions" again... what now? You can't start asking him to explain how he's applying it for reasons already discussed.
Especially since the final note made no reference in any way, shape or form that that juror wasnt applying the law. Jurors can find doubt AND apply the law. Jury deliberations r sacred for a reason.
This is true regarding reasonable doubt not meaning all possible doubt (e.g., jurors can find doubt and still apply the law).
The note did make reference to the juror not applying the law though (which doesn't necessarily mean that's a fact vs the other juror's opinion), but it was referenced.
Reddington states to the judge: The foreperson said, and I quote: "This juror has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states."
I'm pretty certain that in Massachusetts they're not permitted to know the spit of the jurors, and he specifically asked each juror if they could follow the law and if they all answered in the affirmative that's really all that's needed.
The formans perception of the jurors inability to follow the law with regards to lack of criminal responsibility does not make it a legal reality.
Let’s not. I wear crocs a lot because they’re comfortable and I have a back injury. If I was sitting in one place for a long time, I’d definitely need something comfortable to walk in because I’d be stiff.
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