Judge William Sullivan impounded the names of the Lindsay Clancy jurors for fourteen days after the mistrial, and told them why: people had been arrested for filming jurors in the courthouse lot, and the defendant’s own lawyer was receiving exercise bands in the mail. The order expires around September 18. It has already stopped mattering, because the jurors undid it themselves.
Three of them were named on national television. Four have given interviews. On Wednesday, juror Paula Devlin told Gayle King on CBS Mornings that the lone holdout was “a Black male in his 30s” and that “everybody else was White.” On Thursday, NBC reported that the holdout had a dismissed 2021 assault charge in Brockton District Court and an active restraining order obtained by his nephew, without naming him. On Friday the New York Post reported that another juror, Kellie Farina, had been an active member of a “Free Karen Read” Facebook group. By Saturday morning, the holdout’s identity was being traded on X.
Nobody has done anything illegal, as far as the public record shows. That is the problem the law now has, and it is worth being precise about what the rules protect, what they do not, and which of this week’s revelations actually matters in court.
What the impoundment order did
Juror names in Massachusetts are ordinarily public after a trial. Sullivan’s order sealed them for a defined period, which we covered when it issued in the fourteen-day sealing order. It bound the clerk, the parties and the press. It did not bind the jurors. A discharged juror may identify herself, may describe the deliberations, and may name the others, and three did, on NBC’s national broadcast: foreperson Roni Carlson, Paula Devlin, and Kellie Farina.
The order also could not stop what it was designed to stop. Once eleven jurors were described by sex, age and race and the twelfth was the only one who differed on all three, the seal protected a name that everyone could work out. The juror himself has not spoken and, according to NBC, declined to.
What the jurors’ own histories mean legally
Farina’s Facebook posts mean nothing. The Post found that she had posted in a “Free Karen Read” group, called the lead investigator in that case a “POS” and the prosecutor a “freaking joke,” and celebrated Read’s acquittal. Those are opinions about a different case, expressed by a private citizen, before she was summoned. They are not misconduct. Every juror arrives with opinions, and a juror who thinks Massachusetts prosecutors overreach is as eligible as one who thinks defense lawyers do. The question at voir dire was whether she could decide the Clancy case on the evidence, and there is no report that she was asked about Karen Read or answered falsely about anything.
The holdout’s record is a different category, and only if he was asked. The standard juror questionnaire, issued under chapter 234A, asks whether the prospective juror has been arrested, charged with a crime, or been a party to a court order. The statute says the questionnaire is confidential, that the juror declares its contents true, and that “a wilful misrepresentation of a material fact therein is a crime,” punishable by a fine of up to $2,000. Beyond the questionnaire, the judge and counsel questioned every juror individually.
NBC reported a 2021 assault charge, dismissed after the juror’s wife declined to testify, and a restraining order obtained last year by a nephew that was in effect through the trial. If those questions were asked and answered no, the juror committed the misdemeanor the statute describes, and, more to the point, was seated on false information. Michael Coyne, NBC’s legal analyst, put it plainly: had the answers been accurate, “one side or the other would’ve taken the chance” and struck him. The questionnaires are not public, and NBC could not confirm how he filled his out.
Why this is the exception to the rule we described last week
We wrote after the first juror interviews that nothing they said could be used in court, because Commonwealth v. Fidler bars inquiry into what happens inside deliberations. That is still true of everything Dargie and Devlin described about the holdout’s reasoning. But a juror’s dishonesty during selection is not a deliberation. It is a question about whether the juror was qualified to sit at all, and the Supreme Judicial Court has treated it that way since Commonwealth v. Amirault, 399 Mass. 617 (1987). A colorable showing that a juror concealed material information at voir dire entitles a party to a post-trial inquiry, with the juror questioned by the judge, and the remedy for a proven, material nondisclosure that would have supported a challenge is a new trial.
Which raises the question of who wants one. There is no verdict to set aside. A new-trial motion is a remedy for a convicted defendant, and Clancy was not convicted. The Commonwealth cannot move for a new trial on the ground that a juror who voted its way was disqualified. The party with a live motion is Reddington, and his motion is the opposite: that the mistrial itself was improper and the case must be dismissed.
The nondisclosure evidence cuts in an odd direction for him. His double-jeopardy theory is that there was no manifest necessity for a mistrial because the deadlock was caused by a juror who should never have been seated, and that the Commonwealth and court, not the defense, bear the consequence. The manifest-necessity standard asks what the judge reasonably knew when he declared the mistrial. Sullivan did not know about the restraining order on September 4; nobody did. A juror’s undisclosed record, discovered a week later by a television station, does not make the judge’s decision unreasonable when he made it. It may, however, give Reddington a factual hook for the argument that the jury was not a lawful jury, and it will be in his papers on September 29.
The harassment question
Massachusetts law protects jurors from retaliation after service. Chapter 268, section 13B makes it a felony, punishable by up to ten years, to willfully threaten, injure, intimidate or harass a person “who is or was” a juror, or a family member, with intent to retaliate for the juror’s service. The exercise bands sent to Reddington’s house, and the messages telling him he would “burn in hell,” are the same statute applied to an attorney. A spectator was charged earlier this month for filming jurors in a restricted lot.
Identifying a juror is not, by itself, a crime. Publishing his court record is not a crime; the records are public. Calling him a hero or a villain on X is not a crime. What the statute reaches is what happens next, and the pattern from the Karen Read case, where jurors’ addresses circulated and one was threatened, is why Sullivan sealed the names in the first place.
The other jurors have described the room as emotionally punishing and the holdout as isolated. Devlin said of the eleven: “I felt very bad for them because they felt attacked.” The twelfth is now the most identifiable anonymous man in Massachusetts, with his race, age, employment, eviction and family disputes reported by a national network, and he has said nothing.
Update, September 12: DeSantis, and a name that is circulating
Late Friday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis posted that “a man objected to allowing a woman to kill her three young kids and get away with it, so NBC is trying to smear that juror, whose identity should be protected,” and added: “If the juror is being harassed, Florida will provide asylum. I’m sure he’d be welcomed and appreciated.” The Boston Herald and The Hill reported the posts Saturday. Asylum is a term of immigration law with no application to a Massachusetts resident moving to Florida; the offer is political, and it puts a sitting governor on the side of the argument that the juror is being punished for his vote.
By Saturday night a full name for the holdout was circulating on X from anonymous accounts. No news organization has published it, the jury list remains impounded, and we have not verified it. We will not print a name that has not been confirmed by a court record or a news organization that has confirmed it, and readers should treat any name they see on social media accordingly. The same accounts have circulated claims about posts by Reddington’s wife that we could not confirm from any published source.
What to watch
September 18. The impoundment order lapses. Whether the clerk releases the list, and whether any outlet prints the twelfth name, is an editorial decision, not a legal one.
September 29. Sullivan hears Reddington’s required-finding motion and the double-jeopardy motion. Expect the juror’s record to appear in the filings, and expect the Commonwealth to answer that it was unknown to everyone and irrelevant to manifest necessity.
A questionnaire inquiry. If either side asks the court to examine the juror’s questionnaire and question him, that is an Amirault hearing, and it would be the first proceeding in this case in which the holdout speaks.
Has the Clancy holdout juror been named?
Not by any news organization. The jury list is impounded until about September 18. Other jurors have described him as a Black man in his 30s, the only person of color on the jury, and NBC has reported his court history without naming him.
Is it illegal to identify a juror?
No. Threatening, intimidating or harassing a current or former juror in retaliation for service is a felony under G.L. c. 268, § 13B. Naming one is not.
Does a juror’s Facebook history disqualify her?
No. Opinions about other cases, expressed before jury service, are not misconduct. The question is whether the juror answered voir dire truthfully and could decide the case on the evidence.
What if the holdout lied on his questionnaire?
A willful misrepresentation of a material fact on the juror questionnaire is a crime under G.L. c. 234A, § 22, punishable by a fine of up to $2,000. A proven material nondisclosure at voir dire can also support a post-trial inquiry under Commonwealth v. Amirault.
Could this get the case dismissed?
Unlikely on its own. The manifest-necessity standard for a mistrial looks at what the judge knew when he declared it, and the juror’s record was unknown to everyone on September 4. It will be argued anyway on September 29.
Could it lead to a new trial?
There is no verdict to vacate. A new-trial remedy for juror nondisclosure applies to a convicted defendant, and Clancy was not convicted.
Juror statements from CBS Mornings and CBS News, September 10 and 11, 2026; NBC Boston, September 11, 2026; the New York Post as reported by The Western Journal, September 9 and 11, 2026; The Boston Globe, September 8, 2026. Statutes read at malegislature.gov; Amirault verified against CourtListener. The holdout juror has not been named here and has made no public statement; the court records NBC described are allegations and a dismissed charge, not convictions. Charges against Lindsay Clancy remain unproven and she is presumed innocent. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.