Karen Read jurors say Lindsay Clancy mistrial reaction shows need for protections: "Juror safety is paramount"

Lindsay Clancy's Massachusetts murder trial has gained international attention, which has also put a spotlight on jurors in the case that ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. A legal expert and jurors who served on Karen Read's high-profile trials weighed in on the systems in place to protect jurors.

The judge who oversaw Clancy's case sealed the name of every person called for jury duty leading up to the trial.

In a filing, Judge William Sullivan wrote, "there have been identifications of jurors and their personal information without their permission ... There have been threats made to at least one juror," in justifying his decision.

Boston lawyer Katherine Loftus, who has followed the trial closely and provides commentary on her social media platform "Note My Objection," says recent reports about jurors in the Clancy case are threatening the jury system as a whole.

"Your entire life is going to be subjected to scrutiny" if called to serve on a high-profile case, she said. "If the police, the system, is going to allow your name to be put out there and for you to essentially be hunted – why would anybody want to serve on a jury?"

Lack of protections could have "chilling effect for jurors"

Jury duty is not voluntary, and Loftus says its integrity relies on the system protecting jurors. If that doesn't happen, "doesn't the whole system sort of crumble from within, because who's going to want to participate in that if there's no protection?" she asked.

Clancy's trial ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. Jurors who have chosen to speak out publicly since the trial's end – as is their right – have said they were hung with 11 jurors voting not guilty by reason of insanity, and one juror standing firm on a guilty vote. They communicated a similar message to the judge during the trial, even identifying a lone holdout juror and claiming he was not following the law regarding reasonable doubt.

Clancy is charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 deaths of her three children.

The impoundment order by the judge only means that court officials and lawyers involved in the case can't release the names of jurors. There's nothing prohibiting jurors themselves from speaking out, or from friends or family – or even fellow jurors – from speaking about their deliberations.

"We slowly but surely with each interview that we saw, we got more information," Loftus said, as she reflected on the alleged lone holdout juror being identified in media and online. "It was almost like breadcrumbs being dropped, and not that I think that anyone was intentionally doing that or meaning to harm anyone, but with each interview, we got these little breadcrumbs which ultimately led to the identification of the juror."

Loftus believes that a lack of protection for jurors who want to remain anonymous will discourage people from being willing to serve on juries in the future. 

"I think that's going to have a chilling effect for jurors moving forward," she said.

Karen Read jurors on why they remained anonymous 

WBZ-TV spoke with multiple jurors from Karen Read's two high-profile trials about their experience in the public light.

Two of the jurors have remained anonymous. Victoria George, an alternate juror from Read's first trial who worked for the defense team on her second, also spoke to WBZ.

"If jurors' identities can't be protected then trials may end up with juror votes being based on what the safest decision is in the court of public opinion as opposed to what was the right decision based on the evidence and the prosecution's obligation to prove beyond a reasonable doubt," said one anonymous juror, who was on the deliberating jury in Read's first case, which ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. 

On why they stayed private, this juror said, "I definitely didn't want to deal with the backlash more so for my family. Knew there were people with very strong opinions on both sides and didn't want to get in the middle of that publicly. Was tempted at times to speak up more when I heard what I believed to be inaccurate information or what seemed like problems with the system but the juice wasn't worth the squeeze at the end of the day."

"Juror safety is paramount if we want our legal and trial system to continue to work," the juror added.

Another juror, who deliberated in Karen Read's second trial, spoke to WBZ anonymously about safety. "Serving on a jury is a civic duty, it isn't an option, at least that's how I felt," this juror said. 

"I feel horrible that the mistrial happened," the Read juror said regarding the Clancy case. "Multiple terrible things exist concurrently in relation to the Clancy trial. Children were killed, a community devastated, a good woman's life is essentially over, a DA decided to prosecute a woman and traumatized a community. It's natural for people to try to put order to all these bad things. And placing blame on this [holdout] juror is something people feel like they can do. But all it actually does is undermine the system we have in place."

This juror said after their service in Read's trial, they stayed at a friend's house for a few days because some bloggers showed up to their house. 

"I chose privacy because I am a private person. And I have no desire to be associated with somebody else's tragedies. I also think that our society has a tendency to live more actively online than in their actual communities now. And once something is online and living on social media it takes on its own life," they said.

Impounding juror names

George, who was an alternate juror in Karen Read's first trial, did not opt for privacy.

She wonders if more judges will, like the judge in Clancy's trial, move to impound the names of jurors in the future.

"In high-profile cases especially, I think it will become increasingly common for judges to impound jurors' names indefinitely. Some jurors may choose to come forward afterward, while others may prefer to remain private, and both choices are perfectly acceptable," George said. "There is, however, a distinction between information protected by a court's impoundment order and information independently known to private citizens. If someone knows that a family member or friend served on a jury and chooses to contact the media, there are limits to what a court can or should attempt to control."