Staff Reports
The spectacle outside the Plymouth courtroom this week was not a defense of a client — it was an attack on the jury system itself. After jurors deadlocked in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, defense lawyer Kevin Reddington publicly singled out what he called a lone holdout juror, filed an emergency petition with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, lost that bid, and then watched the judge declare a mistrial. The result: a juror’s name and safety could be at risk, the integrity of jury service was mocked, and the public got one more lesson in how zeal can look a lot like abuse.
Why singling out a juror is dangerous
Juries work when ordinary people can decide cases without fear. Calling a juror a thief who “stole seven weeks” of other jurors’ time is theatrics, not advocacy. That kind of language invites online sleuths, leaks, and harassment. It chills future jurors who might think twice about standing by their conscience for fear of being dragged through the press. If we want citizens to serve, we can’t let lawyers turn them into public targets.
Rules, rhetoric, and a weak ADA claim
The defense’s emergency appeal to a single justice of the state’s high court tried to force an inquiry into the holdout juror and included a claim of bias tied to disability law. The single justice denied the emergency relief and the trial judge declared a mistrial. That was proper procedure; what wasn’t proper was the post‑trial sermon aimed at one juror. Massachusetts bar rules limit extrajudicial statements and protect juror secrecy. Invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act in a broad brush against a single juror looked more like courtroom theater than a grounded legal theory. If the attorney crossed ethical lines, disciplinary steps should follow.
What this means for the case and for juries
The commonwealth now has to decide whether to retry the case — a painful, costly choice for the victims’ families and the community. Meanwhile, the larger damage is to public confidence in jury service. Judges and bar overseers should act quickly to defend juror privacy and punish misconduct. If lawyers can publicly shame jurors with impunity, jury independence becomes a joke and our system of trial by peers erodes.
Watch for the next moves — and for some accountability
Keep an eye on whether prosecutors seek a retrial, whether any disciplinary complaints are filed against the defense counsel, and whether courts take steps to shield the holdout juror. The spectacle of a lawyer attacking the very people who make the justice system work was ugly and unnecessary. We rightly expect advocates to fight for clients, but not by turning citizens into targets. If the bar doesn’t push back, juries will shrink — and then everyone will complain when verdicts don’t reflect the public’s sense of fairness. That would be a real miscarriage of justice.
