Eleven Massachusetts jurors were ready to let a mother who strangled her three children go free.
One juror refused to sign off, and now he is being smeared as a lawbreaker.
His own attorney just revealed exactly what happened behind those jury room doors.
Who Is Michael Desronvil, the Lindsay Clancy Holdout Juror
His name is Michael P. Desronvil.
For three weeks he sat through testimony about a mother who strangled her 5-year-old daughter, her 3-year-old son and her 8-month-old baby with exercise bands.
Eleven of his fellow jurors wanted to send Lindsay Clancy home with a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Desronvil said no.
For 38 hours across seven days, he held the line while eleven other jurors pushed him to change his mind.
Prosecutors told jurors Clancy planned the killings so carefully that she waited until her husband, Patrick, left the house on an errand.
He was gone 25 minutes.
Judge William Sullivan finally declared a mistrial on September 4 rather than force a verdict that didn't exist.
Within days, the jury's foreperson went on television and accused Desronvil of refusing to follow the law.
Now Desronvil's attorney, Edward Paltzik, is fighting back on Fox & Friends.
"Michael had zero doubt," Paltzik told host Kayleigh McEnany.
Ask him for evidence, and he doesn't hesitate.
"A mountain of evidence," Paltzik said.
What Reasonable Doubt and Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity Actually Mean
The foreperson's version aired on NBC10 Boston days after the mistrial, and CNN picked it up within hours.
She claimed Desronvil privately admitted he had reasonable doubt about Clancy's sanity, then refused to acquit her anyway.
She quoted him saying he's still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity.
That single line has driven headlines for three weeks as proof one man broke the rules.
Paltzik says that's not what happened in that room.
Legal reality backs him up.
Federal appellate courts have already settled this exact scenario, and it isn't misconduct.
A jury that agrees a defendant committed the killing but splits on an insanity claim is, by definition, a hung jury.
That's not a broken juror.
That's the system working exactly the way it was built to work.
Clancy's own defense team understands this, which is why her lawyer complained bitterly the moment the mistrial was declared.
He said his client would have walked free if not for one man's refusal to bend.
Translate that. Eleven strangers were prepared to let a child killer go home, and one person in that room said absolutely not.
This case was never really about jury instructions.
It's about a legal system that keeps building softer landings for people who kill their own children, as long as a lawyer can find the right diagnosis to hang a defense on.
Clancy strangled Cora, Dawson and Callan with exercise bands, then jumped out a window when she was finished.
Eleven jurors heard every detail of that and were still prepared to walk her out the courthouse door with no consequence at all.
It took one holdout willing to be called arrogant and lawless on national television to stop that outcome.
This exact fight has played out before.
In 2001, a Texas mother named Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub, and the first jury that heard her case flatly rejected an insanity defense and convicted her of murder.
An appeals court later threw out that conviction over an unrelated testimony error, not because the jury got the facts wrong.
A second jury, hearing the same drownings five years later, went the other way and found her not guilty by reason of insanity.
Same woman. Same children. Same crime. Two juries, two completely different outcomes, decided almost entirely by who was sitting in those twelve chairs.
That's the gamble Michael Desronvil refused to take with Lindsay Clancy's jury.
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz faces a status hearing on September 29, where he must decide whether to retry Clancy, offer a plea deal, or let the case quietly disappear.
If prosecutors still have any leverage left at that hearing, it's because one juror wouldn't hand over an acquittal just to end a hard conversation.
Sources:
- Stepheny Price, "Attorney for lone holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy mistrial pushes back on claims of refusing the law," Fox News, September 27, 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "Lindsay Clancy juror admitted 'reasonable doubt' but still refused insanity verdict, foreperson says," Fox News, September 8, 2026.
- Stepheny Price, "Massachusetts mom offers to admit killing 3 children as prosecutors push back on move that could dodge prison," Fox News, April 7, 2026.
- Stepheny Price, "Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her 3 children seeks insanity defense," Fox News, December 2024.
- U.S. Courts for the Ninth Circuit, "Model Criminal Jury Instructions 6.4 – Insanity," Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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