Lindsay Clancy's lone holdout juror had a mountain of evidence she was criminally responsible for killing her children, his attorney says, not a refusal to follow the law.
Edward Paltzik, counsel for holdout juror Michael Desronvil, said his client left the Lindsay Clancy murder trial with zero doubt she knew what she was doing when she killed her three children in Massachusetts.
In a pre-released Fox News interview with Kayleigh McEnany, Paltzik rejected claims that Desronvil ignored the law. He said the juror had “a mountain of evidence” supporting criminal responsibility rather than an insanity finding.
Desronvil’s lone stand produced a mistrial earlier in the month after seven days of deliberations. Eleven jurors were prepared to find Clancy not criminally responsible due to postpartum psychosis. He would not join them.
Clancy admitted killing her children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months, at the family’s Massachusetts home in January 2023. The defense argued she was not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis. The Washington Examiner reported Paltzik’s account of the holdout’s evidence-based stance.
That deadlock did not stay private. Other jurors went public and blamed the one man who would not yield.
Reuters reported that Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial after the panel could not reach a unanimous verdict. Foreperson Roni Carlson and two other female jurors said one male holdout blocked a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity result.
Carlson described a moment when she thought the case was over.
She said the holdout admitted he had reasonable doubt, and she began filling out the forms.
"He admitted he had reasonable doubt and I started filling out the forms, I was so excited," Carlson said. But she said the man then said: "I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity."
Another juror, Paula Devlin, called the holdout “very arrogant” and said he “really did not take anything that anybody said.”
The same jury had already hit trouble once before, when the Clancy murder jury was sent home after a second deadlock and the judge issued a rare last-resort instruction. The final split still ended without a verdict.
Defense lawyers told the judge the holdout was refusing to apply the law. The other eleven spent seven days trying to wear him down.
National Review compared the episode to the film 12 Angry Men, noting Hollywood trains audiences to cheer the lone holdout, and arguing this one does not fit the romantic script the defense preferred.
Desronvil has now answered through counsel. Just The News carried his statement, delivered by Paltzik, rejecting the idea that he sat in doubt while others reasoned from the evidence.
Paltzik relayed Desronvil’s words on what the trial record showed.
"I didn't have any doubts. As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence presented. Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presented, I thought it was enough proof that she (Clancy) knew exactly what she was doing and planned."
That is the opposite of a juror hunting for a loophole. It is a juror saying the physical evidence, the witnesses, and the state’s case showed knowledge and planning, not a blank check for a mental-illness exit.
After the backlash, the Clancy mistrial holdout juror hired former Trump attorney representation to answer the public assault on his vote. Paltzik’s media push is part of that defense of the record Desronvil says he actually saw.
Breitbart highlighted Paltzik’s core line on the holdout, identified as Michael Peguy Desronvil: he had zero doubt, and he had a mountain of evidence behind the refusal to sign off on not criminally responsible.
Paltzik put it plainly in the clip circuit.
"Michael had zero doubt.... A lot of evidence. A mountain of evidence."
Clancy does not deny the killings. Reuters reported she admitted strangling the three children in 2023 during what the defense called a psychotic episode. The legal fight is whether postpartum psychosis wipes out criminal responsibility.
Eleven jurors were ready to say yes. One said the evidence of knowledge and planning said no. That is how a murder case of this gravity ends in a hung jury instead of a clean verdict.
Prosecutors have not announced a final decision on retrial. The public fight over the holdout’s character filled the gap first.
Post-mistrial messaging from the defense side has also kept Clancy in the frame, including coverage of how Lindsay Clancy's lawyer reveals she constantly pleads for her children after the triple killing and the failed jury. Grief language and criminal responsibility are not the same question.
Jury dynamics in this case were always going to be watched closely, including earlier warnings that women jurors may be tougher on Lindsay Clancy than expected. What arrived instead was a gender-flipped split story: several women jurors attacking a male holdout who would not accept the insanity off-ramp.
High-profile holdout fights are not new, and conflicting after-action accounts often follow them, as in other cases where a holdout juror story collides with conflicting accounts. Here the conflict is stark and on the record: eleven wanted not criminally responsible; one said the proof showed she planned it.
A mother killed three children. She admitted the acts. The defense asked a Massachusetts jury to treat severe mental illness as the end of criminal responsibility. Most of the room agreed. One juror did not.
Fellow jurors called him arrogant and accused him of ignoring reasonable doubt. His attorney says he had no doubt at all, and a mountain of physical evidence, witness testimony, and prosecution proof that Clancy knew what she was doing.
Juries are not therapy circles. They are fact-finding bodies charged with applying the law to proof. When eleven jurors lean toward a mental-state escape hatch and one holds the line on knowledge and planning, the holdout is not automatically the villain of the piece.
If the evidence of planning was as strong as Desronvil’s camp describes, the pressure campaign against him looks less like guardianship of the law and more like frustration that one adult would not rubber-stamp the preferred result.
Criminal responsibility still matters when the victims are a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and an eight-month-old baby. One juror treated that as non-negotiable. The system should not treat that instinct as the scandal.