Lindsay Clancy's Defense Has An Option That Changes Everything

0:00This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dree. The Linsley Clancy trial is reaching its climax. A hung jury appears to be increasingly likely a mistrial, which means the charges remain. The evidence remains in the woman at the center of all of it is still sitting at Tukesbury Hospital waiting to find out what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts plans to do. It looks like nobody is going to get a clear verdict from this trial. If that's where it goes, not the public, not the families, not Linsley Clancy herself. Today we're joined by defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Fattis to walk us through the potential road ahead if a mistrial is in fact declared. How quickly we'd know if there's a second trial, whether the defense has options nobody's talking about, and what a plea deal even looks like in a case where the whole argument is that the defendant wasn't responsible for what she did. Eric, if a mistrial is officially declared in the jury is sent home,

1:00what happens to Linsley Clancy? Is it true to just go back to Tukesbury and they figure out what happens next or until the next hearing or trial? What are the possibilities there? Is how quick does a DA decide we're going to try this again? Go back to the hospital or you're free. Sure, so I don't think it's going to be a you're free outcome. I think what's going to happen if there is a mistrial, there are a number of steps that are going to take place. First, the judge is, unless the prosecution already made the decision as to whether or not to retry, the judge had probably set a hearing like a week after the mist trial. Say, hey, prosecutor, you got a week, think about this. Are you going to seek a retrial or not? If a retrial is sought, then Linsley Clancy throughout that week and throughout the pannancy of the retrial would probably remain in custody. My understanding is that she's at some mental health facility but under like law enforcement supervision.

2:01And so she couldn't ask for a bomb. She could absolutely ask for a bomb. And in Reddington, could go to the judge and say, hey, look, this case, just shows how many weaknesses there are in this case. You know, they have all of this time. They couldn't bring it together. They couldn't get a conviction. Because of these weaknesses, you should have less concern about Linsley Clancy. She is probably going to prevail in the second trials with Reddington would argue. Therefore, you should give her a bomb. You should let her be out of custody. She's already gone through this crucible. That's what defense would argue. I think a judge would be hard pressed to release Linsley Clancy pending a new trial. Now, if no new trial is sought, then there is no case pending. And in that instance, Linsley might be free. But what about her care? I guess is the question. She's already stated before this trial. You know, I want to be essentially in state care and a mental hospital for the rest of my life. That's kind of where that sits.

3:02Let me ask you this from a strategic standpoint. If we do have a hung jury, yes, Reddington could come say, you know, and ask for bond. That could get Linsley out of Tukesbury. I don't know that Linsley wants to be out of Tukesbury. Or at least out of a environment where she is getting that sort of round the clock care. And right now it's state sanctioned. It's state paid for. If you're out of that, guess what? You better have the money to pay for that care for the rest of your life. And the optics. Because if this does go to another trial and she's out on bond, half of the argument has been, look, she doesn't want to leave the mental hospital. If she left the mental hospital between trials, that kind of takes that argument away that actually does play in her favor. Wouldn't she be better off remaining in the psychiatric facility, at least through some sort of determination here in legal.

4:06In legal sense versus bonding out for a time being. If we were to go to a second trial. I think absolutely. It would be in her best legal interest to be there. In part, because it preserves that argument that hey, she's doing everything she could. She's seeking all the treatments she can seek. Like she's trying her darned us to get a grasp on this. It preserves that argument for defense later on. And you know, if she were released from the facility but wanted additional care, you can always seek to commit yourself. You can say, hey, I think I'm a danger to myself and others. Stayed helped me. And sometimes you will be accepted into programs sometimes not. So there are ways for her to remain in there if she wants to. But probably not forever, unless that is the result of a legal proceeding. Interesting. And I'm looking up the stats on the probability of getting bail bond after this anyway too.

5:07So, Stanley comes in. Yeah. There's obviously, you know, the jury is signaling deep divisions here. The judge read them. Tuy Rodriguez, a charge which essentially tells the jury that no future panel will hear better evidence than they did. Okay. I mean, neat. If I'm on the jury and I hear that, I'm like, yeah, no shit. And they're still struggling. I notice is how it's done there in Massachusetts reading that charge out to them. Does it make a difference? Does it, does that? Hey, guys, ain't going to get better than this? Does it, does it ever like, does it put weight on a jury to make a decision? Or is it just like another, no shit moment for the jury? That is such a concern. It is the potential course of effect from such an instruction. So, let me give you an example. Let's say back there, there are 11 not guilty and one guilty. And this one guilty just firmly believes, hey, she is guilty.

6:08I mean, this is my determination as a juror after hearing everything. Well, if the jury then goes to the judge and says, hey, we're deadlocked. And the judge says, keep trying and go back. And then they come again. And they say, hey, judge, we're still deadlocked. We tried. It's not changing. And the judge says, why don't you go back? You're going to have to finish this. The jury doesn't necessarily know that if they go back a third time, a mistrile is likely to be determined. Instead, maybe that one hold out who thinks they're guilty just says, how am I getting out of here? I'm not getting out of here unless I change my position. We're going to be here. Who knows for days, weeks on end. I've already been here for weeks and weeks and weeks. I'm going to cave. I'm just going to jay. I've got to go on with my life. And that is the very real concern. I think for both sides in terms of the possible course of effect on that instruction. How do you avoid that? I mean, so help me understand what this and what's the thing that he invoked? The judge is that that that that to the two expiry. Yeah, that's a very rare rig is yeah.

7:08Yeah. So what exactly is that? And what are the consequences to the jurists at this point, if any? Sure. So yeah, so what that what that means, Robin, is that the jury goes and says we're deadlocked. The court says, hey, I get it guys. This is tough. But no one is in a better position to decide this case. And what you should do is you could you should reconsider your views. You should be open minded to other people's expression of their views. And you should not relinquish any strongly held beliefs if you firmly believe one thing or the other. So it's kind of just like, hey, keep thinking about it, bro. And you know, how helpful is that? And what effect could that have on jurors who like I said, they're not advised that if they come back a third time deadlocked, it's likely a mistrial. They don't even know that that that that could be the outcome. And so the jurors are probably back there thinking they're not going to let me out of here unless unless somebody caves. And I got to get on for life. And that would only be a perversion of the jury system in my mind.

8:09And so that couldn't be used by Reddington. But I'm learning from Eric. So that could not be used from Reddington as a reasons for appeal unless there's evidence that it actually did influence one of the other words. As long as they they came back and they did all agree. Reddington has no appeal unless through a podcast interview or something one of the jurors says, yeah, you know, when he came in the third time, I felt the pressure. And I just wanted to get out of there. Is that then enough for reason for appeal? And they would probably need some kind of statement from some juror, however limited that said, hey, you know, I changed my mind in part because of these of the pressures that I felt associated with this instruction associated with this process. So I'll riff on that one one deeper say there's a juror that is completely or a couple completely sick to death of being here the stress, the time, the agony, the contentiousness that says, hey, I'm going to end this right now by agreeing.

9:11And then in their mind, they said, and then I'm going to go public with it so they can retry and get my way. That would be a pretty thoughtful, I share in terms of forward thinking and in terms of a plan. But yes, a juror could choose to do that and then sort of up in the whole thing we've seen cases upended by jurors statements after trials before. Has that happened? I mean, have you seen that happen intentionally? I can't say that I have, but there's gazillions of trials and I've only aware of a very small percentage of them. Yeah, I mean, that could, I mean, it would, I mean, it's not, it couldn't truly be a strategy because I mean, if there was an attorney that was seen being involved with trying to get a juror, we ask you that, a juror after the fact, not not influencing the juror during the process. But after the fact, you're the, you're the attorney for the client and you happen to get there's a juror that comes to you from the last trial and says, you know what?

10:16I think this is bullshit. I want to speak out about it. And I, I just went along with this because this was my plan all along. Does exactly what Robin just said. And you're the attorney for the other, what do you do with that information? Do you run with it? I mean, you're not the one who's, who had this strategy, this juror decided to go rogue and try to take the law into their own hands and control the whole trajectory of this damn thing. I mean, does that, does that just throw their credibility out, you know, immediately if they're doing that or what, I don't know, this is, this seems like it could be a very common scenario considering the way that the, the world is viewing true crime and the fervor that people have for it. The juror misconduct is one of the most frequent grounds on which convictions are overturned. And so in juror has some rules that they have to base their decision on the evidence and not on some strategy, not on some personal pay off that I get to get out of here.

11:17Not on some, you know, thought that, oh, I'm going to get some attention or whatever after this. If I do this kind of weird thing. I think it would qualify as juror misconduct and would likely result in some kind of reverse. Yeah, so they're misconduct, their goal of it would mean could there be charges for a juror that just admits to doing something like that? I mean, are they really doing anything illegal? Other than just be a flexionaire, be a hindrance to society. Right. That's not always, that's not always a crime. I've got some friends who are major hindrances. Yeah, you're free. But, um, you know, I think, uh, I can't think of any sort of criminal action. It wouldn't be tampering. Yeah. It wouldn't be tampering with a juror because it's yourself and you're not exerting influence over somebody else. I don't, I don't see a crime in that. I don't know. I'm still looking up the last of my A.I. is running slow on this because I'm asking all about these, these crazy questions about the juror intentionally undermining the process so they could get go home finally.

12:25So they could actually reverse it the way they wanted. So it's actually coming in right now. So keep going Tony. One more question. Are we going if this jury does come back? Do we find out the final count or does the judge decide if that information gets out? Um, I, I would be doubtful that the public would find out sometimes when there is a, um, a huntery, both sides want to know what the count was. was, you know, if it was 11 not guilty, one guilty, that may cause a DA to not retry the case whereas if it was 11 guilty, one not guilty, that'd be a good grounds to retry it. So it's pretty common for the attorneys to learn the split if the judge permits it, public not so much. Interesting. And so here's what I found out. Holdouts get worn down. They do this like we just described. What happens in those cases? Almost nothing because once a verdict is taken and the poll is clean, courts will not let a juror undo it by saying, I caved or I planned to talk later.

13:29That is no imp- that's the no impeachment rule internal pressure fatigue wanting to go home. That stays inside the room. So it wouldn't work. It happens though. They try. They try. Yeah. Fascinating. What ifs aren't there? It is. A lot of what ifs. That's the choose your own adventure version of the case today. The choose your own. Right. All right. That'll wrap it up. Your thoughts in the comments section on sub-stack and YouTube links are in the description. Be sure to check out Robyn's master class. It is available. Now the link is going to be in the description. Robyn. Yeah. It's masterclass.com. Backslash. Robyn Drick is all about behavior assessment and becoming the people everyone trusts. So if you're interested, check it out. All right. Check that out. Eric Fattis, defense attorney for a prosecutor. There's always thank you so much for being on and giving us your insight on Thursdays as always. Until next time for Eric, for Todd and myself and Tony Brusky, we'll talk again real soon. Want more on this case and others?

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