Why Lindsay Clancy’s Verdict Came Down to One Person

Tony Brueski (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

Well, we've all watched weeks of anganizing testimony, and this last Friday, a stunning 11 to 1 deadlock, leaving everyone without closure. It's a pure emotional whiplash for the families and the public who followed every minute of the trial, and we're going to break it down. What happens next? We're going to break down the actual human mechanics of the hung jury and what dragging everyone through a second trial actually means. With us to do that, Bob Motta, host of the podcast Defense Diaries, and of course, Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent, Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. Well, as predicted, we had a holdout. We just watched the jury grind for seven days, only to hang on the one single holdout who said, yeah, no, I think she's guilty no matter what. According to Reddington, someone who was not following the instructions of the judge to the jury. That I think is where a lot of us get lost, Bob. Take us into that jury room. They're given instructions. The instructions here, you have to determine if she is not guilty by reason of insanity. And it's the state's job to prove it. In this case, it's not the other way around. And the jurors basically telling the judge, we don't think this one juror is following your instructions in that specific realm.

The jury instructions also talk about following your convictions and what you think is right. I mean, it ends up being confusing, to say the least. After an hour of instructions, to expect everyone to walk out of that space and go, oh, I get it. I'm going to be perfect on this, I think is a bit of a task with hour long instructions.

How do you think this went down in that jury room now that we've had a weekend to kind of soak this all in?

Bob Motta (2:15)

Well, I think that to try to kind of understand it, obviously, we're speculating.

But inside that room, I think that the first thing that we have to try to understand is that by day seven of the deliberations, in my estimation, nobody is arguing about evidence anymore. They're arguing about each other. The 11 that have already walked the holdout through every exhibit, all the experts, every instruction. Then when that fails, the room stops being about a deliberation and it becomes kind of like a siege, where it's 11 versus 1

The majority is cycling through persuasion and they're frustrated and they're angry. They're exhausted. I mean, 40 hours of deliberation or damn near 40 hours is exhausting. You're coming in day after day. And, you know, try to imagine being... And forget about sides in terms of which side is which side right now. Just imagine being 11 people on either side trying to convince one, and it's like smashing your head against a brick wall day after day after day after day. So you can imagine that would get very frustrating, right?

Tony Brueski (3:36)

Yeah.

Bob Motta (3:36)

It would be exhausting. So ultimately, the foreperson in the case apparently sends the note telling the judge that the holdout... And the word that the judge used, the kind of the phrase is that the holdout acknowledged doubt but was refusing to apply the law as to reasonable doubt.

And at that point, you know...

Tony Brueski (4:04)

What is that? Right there, right there. What refusing to apply the law to reach reasonable doubt? I think that's where a lot of confusion comes in and understanding because we're talking about individuals who have convictions, which is another very loose term.

I mean, applying the law to determine if there's reason... What if someone just says, fuck it, I don't care. She killed the kids.

Bob Motta (4:32)

Yeah, I mean...

Tony Brueski (4:33)

That's their conviction. That is following the judge's instructions, but it's also not applying the law. Right.

So at the same point, again, this is where it gets so muddy with the damn instructions and muddy with, what are we expecting out of 12 human beings to really come up with here? We're wanting the human aspect of a person giving what their core beliefs are on something and applying it as a juror, but we're also saying you better follow this to a T, even if following it goes against your own conviction. I mean, we're asking them to basically become a computer to a certain extent, while still maintaining their human abilities. Why don't we just have AI do it? At this point, you might truly get what you're asking for then, because I don't think you're going to get it out of humans. I mean, let's talk about that for a second.