BS BULLETIN:

• Lindsay Clancy’s attorneys want a judge to investigate holdout juror Michael P. Desronvil’s alleged cellphone use and answers during jury selection.
• Another juror previously claimed Desronvil sometimes scrolled on his phone rather than engage during deliberations; Desronvil has disputed fellow jurors’ accounts of his conduct.
• The defense has now gone considerably further, asking the judge to dismiss the murder case altogether on double-jeopardy grounds.

The Lindsay Clancy mistrial is rapidly turning into a trial of what happened inside the jury room.

And now her lawyers want the receipts.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has asked Judge William Sullivan to investigate lone holdout juror Michael P. Desronvil, including whether he used his cellphone during deliberations and whether he truthfully answered questions before being seated on the jury.

The request comes after juror Nick Dargie told ABC News that Desronvil sometimes disengaged from the other jurors and scrolled on his phone while they were attempting to deliberate.

Massachusetts prohibits jurors from using phones during deliberations.

Reddington wants records showing calls and texts during the hours the jury was deliberating, data-session information and an independent examination of the device.

He also wants jury questionnaires preserved, courthouse video from outside the jury room and records concerning jurors’ phones.

But the defense isn’t stopping with the phone.

Reddington has asked the court to examine whether Desronvil truthfully answered his juror questionnaire and questions during jury selection.

Reporting after the mistrial revealed that Desronvil had previously faced domestic-violence allegations and had an active civil restraining order involving his nephew while serving on the jury. A previous criminal charge was dismissed.

The defense wants Sullivan eventually to question Desronvil about his questionnaire and voir dire answers, his sworn assurance that he was following the judge’s instructions and whether he used his phone or received outside information during deliberations.

No finding has been made that Desronvil committed misconduct or improperly used his phone.

Desronvil has publicly defended his vote and disputed accounts from other jurors.

“I didn’t have any doubts,” he said in a statement provided to ABC News through his attorney, maintaining that the physical evidence, witnesses and prosecution’s case convinced him Clancy knew what she was doing.

Eleven other jurors reached the opposite conclusion.

After seven days of deliberations, they were prepared to find Clancy not guilty because she lacked criminal responsibility, while Desronvil favored conviction.

Sullivan declared a mistrial Sept. 4.

Now Clancy’s attorneys are attacking that decision itself.

In a new motion Monday, attorneys Martin Weinberg and Reddington asked Sullivan to dismiss the charges on double-jeopardy grounds.

Their argument is that the court failed to sufficiently investigate whether Desronvil was following the law before resorting to a mistrial — thereby overlooking what the defense describes as a viable alternative to ending the trial without a verdict.

That raises the stakes considerably.

The question is no longer merely whether Desronvil behaved improperly.

Clancy’s lawyers are attempting to connect what happened with Juror No. 12 directly to their argument that there should never be a Trial No. 2.

Prosecutors have not announced whether they will retry Clancy.

The case returns to court Sept. 29.

MY QUICK TAKE

This case has taken one hell of a turn.

For weeks, the great mystery was how eleven jurors could listen to the same evidence and reach one conclusion while the twelfth landed somewhere completely different.

But being stubborn isn’t juror misconduct. Neither is being wrong. That’s exactly why the defense now needs something considerably more concrete than eleven people saying, essentially, this guy drove us crazy.

Phone records are concrete.

Answers on a sworn jury questionnaire are concrete.

An active restraining order that may or may not have been properly disclosed is concrete.

And that’s why this matters beyond the tabloid spectacle surrounding Juror No. 12. Clancy’s lawyers aren’t merely trying to embarrass the holdout anymore. They’re constructing a constitutional argument: the judge had another road available before declaring a mistrial and didn’t take it.

Whether that argument works is for Sullivan — and almost certainly appellate judges — to decide.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

• Associated Press — Clancy attorney asks judge to investigate holdout juror
• ABC News — Clancy lawyers seek juror inquiry and dismissal on double-jeopardy grounds
• NBC10 Boston — Defense seeks review of holdout juror’s record and alleged phone use
• Fox News — Defense seeks phone records, surveillance video and juror records
• Boston.com — Defense probes juror record and alleged cellphone use