A Lindsay Clancy juror went on Good Morning America Thursday and described the lone holdout taking one of the exercise bands from the evidence bag, tying it around an empty water bottle, and pulling. “I was just so shocked that he did that,” Nick Dargie said. “We’re not in here to play detective. It’s not a game of Clue.”
Dargie, a 25-year-old military veteran and the first male juror to speak publicly, also said the holdout scrolled his phone while others were talking, would not engage at times, and never pointed to a witness or an exhibit to support his position. Asked to explain himself, the holdout reportedly said: “I don’t know if the prosecution or the defense proved their case.”
The reaction online has been immediate and mostly the same: that was misconduct, and it should mean something. Under Massachusetts law it almost certainly was not, and it almost certainly means nothing, for reasons worth walking through because they explain why the mistrial will stand.
The experiment
The exercise bands were exhibits. They went into the jury room because the judge sent them there, and jurors are permitted to examine exhibits. The question is whether tying one around a bottle and pulling crossed from examination into an improper experiment.
The Supreme Judicial Court has answered a version of that question, and the facts were stranger than these. In Commonwealth v. Greineder, 458 Mass. 207 (2010), a murder juror wearing a pair of dotted-grip gloves that were in evidence picked up a banana at lunch, noticed the pattern the grips left, and brought the banana back so the jury could compare the marks to stains on other exhibits. They did, and they convicted. The SJC held the experiment was within the scope of the admitted evidence and was not an extraneous influence on the verdict.
A juror wrapping an exhibit band around an object already in the room to see how it behaves is a smaller step than the banana. It used nothing from outside the trial. Whatever one thinks of the taste of it, the law treats it as a juror examining evidence, which is the job.
The phone
Phone use in a jury room is a different category, but only if the phone is used for something. A juror who researches the case, looks up the definition of reasonable doubt, or reads news coverage during deliberations has brought extraneous material into the room, and that can be grounds for removal or a new trial. In Commonwealth v. Olavarria, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 612 (2008), the Appeals Court upheld the discharge of a lone holdout who had done outside research, brought definitions of reasonable doubt into the jury room to argue her position, and could not assure the judge she could set them aside.
Dargie described scrolling. Nobody has said the holdout researched anything, and there is no suggestion in any account that he brought material from the phone into the discussion. Rudeness is not an extraneous influence. Under Commonwealth v. Torres, 453 Mass. 722 (2009), a juror’s disagreement with the others, and even an expressed desire to go home, is not a ground for discharge.
Why the jury’s note went nowhere
Dargie said the holdout’s inability to point to evidence “is why we ultimately sent in that note.” The note, sent by the foreperson on the afternoon of September 3, reported that one juror refused to follow the law on reasonable doubt. Kevin Reddington asked Judge William Sullivan to remove the juror. Sullivan refused, twice, and we explained at the time why the law required him to.
The short version is that a deliberating juror can be discharged only for reasons personal to that juror and unrelated to the case, and the SJC reversed a conviction in 2019 where a dissenting juror was removed to break an impasse. Sullivan said he could not “side with one side or the other,” which is exactly the rule. Dargie’s account, taken entirely at face value, describes a juror who reasoned badly and behaved badly. It does not describe a juror who was biased, incapacitated, or exposed to outside information, and those are the only doors.
The rule that makes all of this unusable
There is a deeper reason Dargie’s interview will not change anything in court, and it is the same reason the earlier juror interviews did not. Massachusetts does not let jurors impeach their own deliberations.
The governing case is Commonwealth v. Fidler, 377 Mass. 192 (1979). A court may hear juror testimony to establish that an extraneous matter reached the jury, such as a juror telling the others a fact about the defendant that was never in evidence. A court may not hear juror testimony about what went on inside the deliberations: who argued what, who was persuaded by what, who misunderstood the instructions, who was scrolling. The SJC’s own words are that proving such things “would require probing the minds of the jurors,” and the law forbids it. The federal rule, upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Tanner v. United States, is at least as strict.
Everything Dargie described falls on the internal side of that line. A holdout who mishandled the burden of proof is a holdout who reasoned badly, and the rule exists precisely so that eleven jurors cannot report the twelfth for reasoning badly. If they could, there would be no such thing as a hung jury.
What it does to Reddington’s motion
Reddington told CBS Mornings on Tuesday that he will file a motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds at the September 29 hearing, arguing there was no manifest necessity for the mistrial because the jury had “a lone holdout” who acknowledged doubt but would not vote to acquit. We set out the law on that motion, and why the Karen Read decision runs against it, in our update on what happens next.
Dargie’s interview hurts that motion, not helps it. The test for manifest necessity is whether the judge had a reasonable basis to conclude the jury was genuinely deadlocked, judged on what the judge knew at the time. A juror now confirming on national television that the twelfth vote was immovable after a week is the strongest possible evidence that the deadlock was real. And to the extent Reddington wants to argue the holdout was disqualified rather than merely stubborn, Fidler bars him from proving it with the only witnesses who saw it.
Whether the interviews themselves are a problem
They are not, for the jurors. Discharged jurors may speak publicly, and Massachusetts permits lawyers to contact them after a verdict or mistrial under Rule 3.5 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, with five business days’ notice to the other side and no inquiry into the deliberative process. The jurors’ names were sealed for a limited period, which we covered in the fourteen-day sealing order, and nothing prevents a juror from identifying himself.
The practical effect of four jurors now having spoken is on any retrial rather than on this one. Every prospective juror in a second trial will know how the first one split and why. We covered what that does to jury selection in why picking a second jury is the hard part.
Dargie’s own prediction: “I would think if they tried the trial again the way they did, I think nine times out of 10, I think a jury would come back with not guilty by reason of insanity. No doubt in my mind.” One note on the phrase. The Massachusetts verdict is not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, and a defendant who receives it is not released but committed for evaluation under chapter 123. We explain the verdict in our guide to not guilty by reason of insanity.
Was it misconduct for the holdout to tie the exercise band around a bottle?
Almost certainly not. The bands were exhibits, and the SJC held in Commonwealth v. Greineder that a juror experiment confined to admitted evidence is not an extraneous influence on the verdict.
Can a juror be removed for scrolling a phone during deliberations?
Only if the phone is used to bring outside information into the room, such as researching the case or the law. Inattention or rudeness is not a ground for discharge.
Can the other jurors’ accounts be used in court?
No. Under Commonwealth v. Fidler, jurors may testify that extraneous matter reached the jury, but not about what happened inside deliberations, including how a juror reasoned or whether he followed the instructions.
Does this help Reddington’s double jeopardy motion?
No. A juror confirming that the twelfth vote could not be moved after a week supports the judge’s finding that the deadlock was genuine, which is what manifest necessity requires.
Are jurors allowed to give interviews?
Yes. Discharged jurors may speak publicly. Lawyers who wish to contact them must give the other side notice and may not inquire into the deliberative process.
What is the next date in the case?
September 14 is the deadline for a renewed motion for a required finding of not guilty. The status hearing is September 29, when Reddington says he will file his motion to dismiss.
Juror statements as reported by Good Morning America, NBC Boston, The Boston Globe and Boston.com, September 10, 2026. Reddington’s statements as reported by Boston.com from CBS Mornings, September 9, 2026. Case law verified against CourtListener. The account of deliberations is one juror’s; the holdout has not spoken and has not been identified. Charges against Lindsay Clancy remain unproven and she is presumed innocent. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.