Josh Marquis - Did Juror Misconduct Derail the Lindsay Clancy Case?

Former District Attorney Josh Marquis joins Lars to discuss the mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder case and reports that the lone holdout juror recreated the strangulation of Clancy’s children with an exercise band during deliberations. Did juror misconduct derail the case, and what happens next?

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson show. About three decades ago, maybe two decades ago, there was a woman named Susan Smith who murdered her children, and most of America wanted to string her up by the uh neck uh at the nearest tree with the nearest rope. Uh these days, I guess things are a bit different. The Lindsay Clancy case really didn't catch my attention until the very tail end of the legal case against the mother who strangled the life from three darling little children and then demanded that her lawyer demanded that she be found not guilty. Uh and so I thought we'd talk out to our favorite prosecutor, former prosecutor, and that's Josh Marquis, uh former district attorney, and has been uh has served on the National DAIs Association before. Josh, welcome back to the program.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you, Laura. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

I'm glad to have you, and I know your voice is a little on the soft side, it usually isn't, but that's because Josh Josh had some medical challenges and he's been coming through them like a trooper. So uh I want to ask you about the Lindsay Clancy case, though, because uh to the public, the mainstream media has portrayed this as well, there were 11 sensible people on that jury, most of them women, who said we want to find her not guilty, even though we admit that she did strangle the life out of three little children, and it took three minutes to strangle each one, but we want to find her not guilty. And then there's this one troublesome man, you know how man always messes things up, and he's decided he's gonna stand up and say, no, I don't think she is not guilty. I won't vote for that. What should we make of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, what we should make of that, many people will remember a movie, a play, very famous, 1957 called 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Ponda. Uh and it's been remade, it's made in high schools. There's a set piece, it can be done with 12 people in a room. They now, by the way, call it 12 angry people, because it can't all be men. In any event, it's about one murder case and one juror who stands up for not guilty until he convinces all the others. He's a hero. So why isn't this man in the in this case in Massachusetts a hero for standing up what he believes? I mean, it's out this defense attorney, Reddington,'s behavior is so outrageous he should be disparred. Jurors who follow their oath and and say, look, I cannot vote either guilty or not guilty because my conscience doesn't allow it. We don't vilify people for that. And frankly, Lars, this went way too far. Once the judge found out which way the jury was going, should have been a mistrial right then. And and many of this stuff after the case.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

What would have been the thing the judge could have pointed to and said, that thing just happened, it's a mistrial, and throw the thing out to start. What would have been?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

I've had many cases in which um which the uh in which the uh the jurors come back and said, we we just can't make up our mind. And one of the things every judge has always said is before you say another word, I do not want to know under any circumstances which way you're you're voting. Just tell me, is it like you know, 10 to 2 or 9 to 3 or whatever? The moment a judge knows which way, and the and the lawyers know which way, that's it. The game is up because no one is supposed to know that ever until they reach a verdict, or don't.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

And in fact, in this case, the defense attorney actually wanted to remove this troublesome man who would not vote for not guilty. And he actually made that motion, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Absolutely. And and what's even scarier is he seems to have known uh in advance something that I have tried hundreds of jury trials, dozens of murder trials. I have had three or four hung juries in murder cases, and I've never known. I had one case that the jury was 11 to 1, and it turned out to be for guilty. When we retry the case three months later, the jury was 12 to zero for not guilty. You know, it's completely different according to the juror, the way the evidence comes down, you know, what the temperature is in the room. And if you and if you abide by the jury system, then you do not allow anything from outside, and clearly a lot of things from outside affected this jury.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Now, I want to ask you about this. There's been a lot made of the fact that three of these jurors who've gone public, they've done interviews, three of these women who are on the side of not guilty. They said, Well, we presented to this man who is standing in the way of not guilty, and he admitted that he had some reasonable doubts, and therefore he should have just simply voted for not guilty. What should we make of that? Because I find that kind of strange.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Well, what we should be making much more of is the other interviews the same or other parts of the same interviews, where many of these women admitted, well, we we've brought in information that we knew, or we've brought in information from the city.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Oh, because they were nurses, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah, it that is absolutely forbidden. It's one thing for someone to say, well, to themselves, in my heart, I know, blah, blah. It is totally beyond the pale to say, well, I'm gonna tell exturser something I know. Like, I know the the the uh refutation of, say, a witness, or I know something that wasn't the whole idea.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Or let's say you're uh you're you're on a murder case involving a shooting, and you say, Well, I'm a gunsmith, and I know that what was presented in in trial said this, but as a gunsmith, I know that's not possible. Well, maybe you do and maybe you don't. Are you allowed as a juror to in effect testify to your fellow jurors?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Absolutely not. Because what happened is then that we are allowing extrinsic evidence from outside the trial that is not subject to cross-examine and not subject to the judge making the decision whether it's admissible. So that kind of information by itself is the basis for a ms.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

So at this case, uh, do you think they're just gonna keep on vilifying this one juror who I consider a hero for standing up for the right thing?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I think they will, but I think what they're doing is they're trying to put pressure on Tim Cruz, who I happen to know, who's the former president of the National DA Association, who's the the elected DA there in Massachusetts, and pressure him into not retrying the skates. And from what I know, Tim is the only Republican DA in an otherwise all Democratic uh masses.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

So And by the way, I I gotta tell you something. I I thought of you when I heard his comments where he said, we've got to remember not the name of this woman, Ms. Clancy. We've got to remember the real victims here are not Lindsay Clancy. They're the three children who had the life strangled from them. And he was the guy who was reminding the public and the media remember the real victims in this case. That's former district attorney Josh Marquis talking about the Lindsay Clancy case. Your calls are welcome. 866, hey Lars. You're listening to the Lars Larson Show and the Radio Northwest Network.