The newest filing in the Clancy case does not wait for a second jury. It goes after the first one. On Friday, September 18, with the papers becoming public early this week, defense attorney Kevin Reddington asked Judge William Sullivan to open a limited inquiry into “Juror Doe,” the holdout now known as Michael Desronvil. The motion, reported by the ᴀssociated Press, BBC, People, NBC Boston, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News, asks the court to obtain call, text, and data records from roughly 8:00 or 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on every deliberation day between late August and September 4, and to place the device with a neutral examiner. Reddington also wants the confidential juror questionnaire preserved and reviewed, along with any statewide domestic-violence registry entry, probation material, and an answer from prosecutors as to whether this man ever appeared in their files as a defendant, complainant, or subject dating back to January 2021.

He wants hallway surveillance outside the deliberation room and cellphone sign-in sheets for the full panel and the alternates. Then he wants the judge to question the juror on the record about three points: whether the questionnaire and sidebar answers during selection were truthful; whether the sworn ᴀssurance given on September 3 that he would follow the legal instructions was honest; and whether a phone or any outside information reached him while the panel was supposed to be sealed with the evidence. A fellow juror has already said the holdout scrolled during talks.

That allegation, if proven as prohibited contact rather than idle use, would be the kind of taint that can collapse a hung jury into something more serious than ᴅᴇᴀᴅlock. If the questionnaire omitted an arrest, a restraining order, or pending eviction, the defense will argue he never should have been seated. Sullivan has already impounded the memorandum and exhibits attached to the request. He has not ruled. Paltzik answered the filing in the register of public combat, calling it a Looney Tunes attack on a citizen who did his duty.

That is the political temperature. The legal temperature is colder. Jury questionnaires in Mᴀssachusetts ask about arrests, charges, lawsuits, and household criminal history, and willful lies can carry a penalty, but the forms are designed to stay confidential and are often destroyed after service. Sullivan separately sealed juror names indefinitely after finding a real and present risk of harm, noting threats, unauthorized posting of personal information, and an arrest of a woman who filmed jurors leaving court. He sealed the larger venire list and, for a shorter window, the questionnaires themselves. Those orders protect people who wanted silence. They also make the defense hunt harder. Reddington is not claiming he can prove misconduct yet. He is asking the court to look before the September 29 status hearing hardens the case into a retrial track. The question hanging over Plymouth is no longer only whether eleven people outvoted one. It is whether the one vote was clean.