Clancy Trial Holdout Juror Had Domestic Violence History, Investigators Find

The lone juror who refused to vote guilty in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial was living under circumstances that should have disqualified him from service, according to court records and family interviews uncovered by NBC10 Boston Investigators. The juror, a Plymouth County resident whose name remains shielded because the jury list is impounded, carried an active restraining order issued by his teenage nephew while he was sitting in deliberations. He also faced a pending eviction after failing to pay rent for six months, with a judgment of more than $12,000 already entered against him.

The restraining order stemmed from an incident last year in which the juror allegedly pushed his nephew to the ground and punched him repeatedly in the face. According to the teen's affidavit, the juror then told him, "You ruined my life," for calling police, and added that the assault had been a long time coming. That court order was still in force when jury selection occurred for the high-profile Clancy case.

But the restraining order was not the juror's only brush with the legal system. In September 2021, he faced criminal assault charges in Brockton District Court after his 13-year-old nephew called 911 to report that he had grabbed his wife by the throat and thrown her into a dresser. Police records captured his mother screaming "You're evil!" as officers arrested him. The couple divorced following the incident, and the criminal charge was later dismissed. His ex-wife told investigators this week that she had declined to testify because she feared losing custody of her daughter.

Michael Coyne, NBC10 Boston's chief legal analyst, said the juror's presence on the panel raises fundamental questions about jury vetting. The standard Massachusetts juror questionnaire explicitly asks whether someone has been arrested, charged with a crime, or served with a court order. "I don't see how they would've allowed him to be a member of this jury," Coyne said. "I don't see how, if those questions had been answered correctly, one side or the other would've taken the chance with allowing him to be seated."

The financial strain on the juror was mounting as the trial proceeded. Housing court records show he had not paid monthly rent since March. By the time jurors began deliberating last week, his landlord had secured a judgment and was moving forward with eviction proceedings. When the trial ended in mistrial, other jurors described the holdout as refusing to engage in deliberations, calling his behavior "arrogant" and "shocking." None of his family members knew he had been selected for the case; one relative described him as a "narcissist" who should never have served in such an important trial.

Coyne said prosecutors will likely need to review the juror's questionnaire to determine whether he answered truthfully about his arrests, charges, and court orders. "It is, in fact, a crime not to do so," he said. However, juror questionnaires are not public records, and it remains unclear whether the document still exists or was destroyed following the mistrial. The Plymouth District Attorney's Office and Clancy's defense team both declined to comment on the investigators' findings.