The press is obsessed with the race of the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy mistrial — and that obsession is the scandal. A Duxbury mother strangled her three children, the jury deadlocked 11-1, and the only thing CBS's Gayle King wanted to know was whether the lone holdout was Black. When juror Paula Devlin confirmed he was, King paused and said, "I have to sit with that for just a second." Sit with what, exactly?
The racial framing is a shield. It lets the media avoid the questions that matter: How did the mental health system fail Lindsay Clancy so completely that she murdered Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months? How did 11 jurors conclude she was not criminally responsible while one man — after roughly 38 hours of deliberation — refused to budge? And why did the foreperson send a note to Judge William Sullivan alleging the holdout was "refusing to follow the law on reasonable doubt," as the New York Post reported?
Devlin told King the jury started at 8-2-2 and moved to 11-1 in favor of not guilty by reason of insanity. She said the holdout "felt attacked" and that there was "no way to not do that." The holdout reportedly showed some doubt after watching a video of Clancy's interview, according to the Post, but he still wouldn't join the majority. Devlin believed Clancy was "failed by the system" — overmedicated, drowning in postpartum psychosis, with "nothing but good said about Lindsay" from every witness.
Prosecutors saw a planner: a woman who sent her husband on errands, researched how much time she'd have, and strangled her children with exercise bands before jumping from a window. The holdout juror agreed with prosecutors. That's his right. The jury system is designed for exactly this kind of standoff.
But conservative commentators, as Breitbart noted, pounced on King's reaction — and they're right to. Florida Voice's Eric Daugherty asked the obvious question: "Why would she have to 'sit with that?' Is it because her assumption was it's a 'racist, bigoted' white male?" King's visible discomfort wasn't about the dead children or the failed system. It was about a narrative violation. The holdout didn't fit the script.
Here's what the script misses: Clancy herself was a product of institutional failure — pumped full of psychotropic drugs, according to her defense, while suffering postpartum psychosis. Devlin said forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick's testimony on "altruistic filicide" — where a parent believes killing children is best for them — was "really impactful." Patrick Clancy's testimony moved jurors too; Devlin said prosecutors "tried to nudge Patrick to say something derogatory and he wouldn't."
The mistrial means nobody won. Clancy faces a possible retrial on Sept. 29. Three children are dead. The system that prescribed those drugs, that failed to catch the psychosis, that couldn't get 12 people to agree on what happened — that system is what Gayle King should be sitting with.
Instead, she's sitting with the race of one juror. That tells you everything about who the press is protecting.
