The fourteen-day seal on the Lindsay Clancy jurors’ names was supposed to run out this week. It will not run out at all. In an order dated September 14, Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan extended the impoundment of the jury list indefinitely, finding a “real and present” risk of harm to the jurors and to the integrity of their service. He cited the livestreamed trial, daily social media commentary, the arrest of a person accused of secretly recording jurors as they left the courthouse, and the fact that jurors’ personal information “had been identified and shared without permission through other sources.” At least one juror asked for the extension.
The order lands in a week when the lone holdout juror, whose apparent identity was published by a blogger on September 12, is the beneficiary of a GiveSendGo fundraiser called “Stand with the Juror” that had passed $150,000 by Monday night. Those two facts, a court sealing names for safety and a crowd paying one of the named, describe the problem Massachusetts law has with jurors in 2026 better than any statute does. This piece explains what an indefinite impoundment order can and cannot do, the case that sets the rule, who can challenge the order, and what a six-figure gift to a juror means for the retrial.
What the order does
It keeps the jury list, the document in the court file identifying the deliberating and alternate jurors, out of public view until further order of the court. The original fourteen-day order, entered after the September 4 mistrial, was set to expire around September 18. The new order has no end date. Anyone seeking the list, a newspaper, a party, a member of the public, now has to move to vacate the impoundment and persuade the judge that good cause no longer exists.
It does not reach information already published. The three jurors who appeared on national television, the four who gave interviews, and the name a blogger attached to the holdout on September 12 are outside the order’s power. Impoundment governs the court’s own records. It does not govern what a juror chooses to say or what a third party has already said. That is why the order’s practical effect is on the jurors who have stayed silent: the ones the public does not yet know.
The rule: names are public unless there is good cause
The governing case is Commonwealth v. Fujita, 470 Mass. 484 (2015), which arose when the Boston Globe sought the jury list after the murder trial of Nathaniel Fujita. The trial judge had proposed to release only the names of jurors willing to talk to the press. The Supreme Judicial Court set that aside. “It is beyond debate,” the court wrote, “that, absent extraordinary circumstances, the identities of jurors empanelled to serve at criminal trials are presumptively public under long-standing Massachusetts law, practice, and tradition, even in high-profile and contentious cases.” The court traced the practice back to the Boston Massacre trials of 1770.
The rule has one exception, and Fujita defines it: “Only on a judicial finding of good cause, which may include a risk of harm to the jurors or to the integrity of their service, may such a list be withheld.” Fujita also held that a judge may not restrict what the press does with names once released; that was a prior restraint forbidden by the First Amendment and article 16.
Sullivan’s order tracks the exception word for word. He found a risk of harm and a risk to the integrity of service, and he grounded both in specific events: an arrest for recording jurors, documented leaks of personal information, and a juror’s own request. The order is written to survive a Fujita challenge, and it probably will, at least for now. The question a court would ask on a motion to vacate is not whether the case is high-profile, since Fujita says that is not enough, but whether the specific risk has receded. With a retrial pending and the holdout’s name circulating, that argument is hard to make this month.
Who can challenge it, and how
A news organization, as the Globe did in Fujita, by motion in the Superior Court and then by petition to a single justice of the Appeals Court under G.L. c. 231, § 118. The Commonwealth or the defense, if either had a reason to want the list public, which neither has expressed. A member of the public with a stated interest. The Uniform Rules on Impoundment Procedure require the judge to make written findings and to tailor the impoundment to the need, and an indefinite order is the broadest form. The most likely challenge is not to the order as written but to its duration: a motion, after the retrial is concluded, arguing that the good cause has expired.
Nobody has filed such a challenge, and the order’s findings, taken together with the events of the last ten days, make it unlikely one would succeed before the retrial.
The fundraiser
The “Stand with the Juror” campaign, hosted on GiveSendGo, is directed at the person a blogger identified as the holdout who kept the jury from convicting. The identification has not been confirmed by any court or newsroom, and we have not repeated the name. By Monday night the campaign exceeded $150,000, according to Boston 25, with some donors describing the juror as a hero.
There is no Massachusetts statute that prohibits giving money to a juror after a trial has ended. The bribery laws reach payments made to influence a juror’s vote; a gift after the verdict, without an agreement beforehand, does not fit them. The juror intimidation statute, G.L. c. 268, § 13B, reaches threats and harassment, not reward. The juror is under no legal obligation to refuse the money and no legal obligation to accept it.
The problem is the next jury. Pierre Bergeron, a retired Ohio appellate judge who has written on the subject, put it to Boston 25 this way: “we don’t want them thinking they’re going to be rewarded or punished based on my decision.” A retrial jury in Plymouth County will be drawn from people who know that the last holdout was named, threatened, and then paid a sum larger than most of them earn in a year. Every one of them will be asked in voir dire whether they can decide the case on the evidence. Defense counsel will ask whether they fear being the next holdout. The Commonwealth will ask whether they hope to be. The fundraiser is a reason the retrial’s jury selection will take longer and reach further, and it is a fact both sides will use.
What the seal means for the people already named
Nothing, legally. The jurors who chose to speak waived their own anonymity, which they were free to do. The person named by the blogger was not protected by the original order in any way that the order could enforce against a third party who did not obtain the name from the court. If the identification is wrong, the remedy is defamation, which belongs to the person misidentified. If it is right, the remedy for harassment is criminal, under the witness and juror intimidation statute, and it runs against the harasser, not the publisher. We set out what that statute reaches in our report on the identification.
What to watch
The status conference on September 29, where Judge Sullivan will take up the defense’s renewed Rule 25 motion and its double-jeopardy motion, and where the jury question for a retrial may first be raised. Whether any news organization moves to vacate the impoundment. Whether the GiveSendGo campaign draws a response from the court, which has no direct power over it but has power over the conduct of the retrial. And whether the Commonwealth, which has said nothing about the fundraiser, seeks any instruction or inquiry about it at jury selection.
Common questions
Are the Clancy jurors’ names public?
No. Judge Sullivan impounded the jury list after the mistrial and on September 14 extended the impoundment indefinitely, citing a real and present risk of harm to the jurors. Jurors who chose to speak publicly did so on their own.
Is it legal to seal juror names in Massachusetts?
Yes, but only on a judicial finding of good cause, which may include a risk of harm to the jurors or to the integrity of their service. Commonwealth v. Fujita, 470 Mass. 484 (2015). A high-profile case alone is not enough.
Can the order stop people from repeating a name already published?
No. Impoundment covers court records. It does not restrain third parties, and Fujita holds that a court may not restrict what the press does with names it lawfully has.
Is it legal to give money to a juror after a trial?
There is no Massachusetts statute prohibiting a gift to a juror after the verdict absent a prior agreement to influence the vote. The concern is its effect on future jurors, which will be explored at the retrial’s jury selection.
When is the next court date?
A status conference is set for September 29, 2026, on the defense’s Rule 25 and double-jeopardy motions.
Order details as reported by Boston 25 News, September 15, 2026; the order itself is filed in Plymouth Superior Court. Fundraiser figures and the Bergeron quotations from Boston 25, September 14 and 15. Commonwealth v. Fujita, 470 Mass. 484 (2015), verified against CourtListener and quoted from the slip opinion. The identification of the holdout juror has not been confirmed by any court or newsroom and is not repeated here. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.