Attorney Edward Paltzik says he will file a Massachusetts bar complaint against Lindsay Clancy's defense counsel, Kevin Reddington, after a mistrial left the high-profile case unresolved and the two lawyers trading sharp public attacks.
Paltzik, who represents identified holdout juror Michael Péguy Desronvil, made the pledge in a Fox News Channel interview with host Kayleigh McEnany that aired Sept. 28, 2026, one day before the matter was set to return to a Massachusetts courtroom. USA TODAY reported the remarks and the planned filing as the post-mistrial fight over juror conduct and double jeopardy heated up.
Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on Sept. 4 after a jury of 12 failed to reach a unanimous decision. Several jurors described an 11-1 split favoring a not guilty finding, with Desronvil as the lone holdout. Prosecutors have not announced whether they will retry Clancy, who is 36 and faced trial over the January 2023 deaths of her three children.
Prosecutors allege she strangled the children. The defense argued she was not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility because of postpartum psychosis at the time. That clash of theories now sits beside a separate conflict: defense motions targeting the holdout juror, and Paltzik's claim that Reddington's public posture violates professional standards.
On the Fox News Channel program, Paltzik did not hedge when McEnany asked whether he intends to file a bar complaint against Reddington.
"One hundred percent."
He framed Reddington's reaction to the deadlock as personal and unprofessional. A bar complaint, as described in the coverage, is a filing alleging an attorney has acted in violation of the standards of professional conduct set by a state's licensing authority for attorneys. Initial filings in Massachusetts are confidential, per the state's Office of the Bar Counsel.
Paltzik tied the dispute to the moment Reddington learned Desronvil would not join the majority path toward acquittal.
"Ever since the moment he learned that Michael was not going to side with him, I believe that Kevin Reddington lost his mind."
He went further on motive, casting the defense lawyer as frustrated by a near-win that slipped away. That line of attack echoes earlier public friction documented when the holdout juror's attorney defended his client after the deadlocked trial and rejected efforts to cast the dissent as illegitimate.
"Kevin Reddington is just upset that he lost out on his legacy moment. He was one vote away from winning a trial that would have been the capstone of his career and he didn't get it, and he lost his mind because of it."
Paltzik also said Reddington's "conduct is not consistent with the standards of professionalism that we expect from members of the bar." He called "everything" Reddington has said "completely outrageous," and said Desronvil had "zero doubt" Clancy should have been found guilty and had a "mountain of evidence" to support his position.
After the trial ended, Reddington filed several motions. One requested records related to Desronvil, referred to in filings as "Juror Doe," including in part that he turn his phone over to a neutral examiner after another juror said Desronvil was on his phone during deliberations. Another motion asked the court to dismiss the case on double jeopardy grounds.
Paltzik dismissed those requests in blunt terms, calling them "not even one percent reasonable." He argued the numerical split itself undercuts any claim that the deadlock should convert into a defense victory by motion practice.
"Those motions should be denied because 11-1 is not 12-0."
The case was set for a hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 29, where the motions may be addressed. Authorities have not publicly confirmed how Judge Sullivan will rule, and no public results have been released on the phone-records request or the double jeopardy bid as of the Sept. 28 reporting.
Paltzik also raised a structural concern about juror treatment after a non-unanimous outcome, a theme that tracks prior coverage of how the holdout juror's lawyer blasted the defense bid to investigate the lone dissent once the panel split became public.
"We're not going to have a criminal justice system if jurors are afraid of reprisals."
Reddington has not treated the criticism as a one-way street. In a previous statement to Fox News Digital, he told Paltzik he "ought to learn how to go into the courtroom and articulate his position rather than be a histrionic individual that's just mouthing off to the media."
He also rejected the popular label attached to Desronvil and defended the legitimacy of the post-trial filings.
"I think the biggest misconception is that this individual is referred to as the holdout juror. He, in fact, is the obstructionist juror."
Reddington added that "every motion that has been filed is legitimate." USA TODAY reached out to Reddington for comment on the newer Paltzik interview; the Sept. 28 report did not include a fresh quoted reply beyond the earlier Fox News Digital remarks.
Three males were seated on the jury of 12. Several jurors alleged Desronvil would not apply the reasonable-doubt standard, producing the 11-1 account favoring not guilty. Through a statement released by Paltzik, Desronvil disputed fellow jurors' accounts and said he did not have any doubt. The full verbatim text of that juror statement was not reproduced in the seed report.
Public identification of the holdout and the lawyer-driven messaging around him have been part of the post-mistrial storyline since Desronvil hired counsel and vowed to fight back against public attacks after the panel deadlocked.
The immediate procedural questions are concrete. Investigators and the court will need to determine whether any juror-phone claim supports compelled examination of personal records. The court will also need to determine whether double jeopardy doctrine bars a retrial after a mistrial declared when the jury could not agree.
Prosecutors still have not said whether they will put Clancy before a new jury. That charging decision sits outside the bar-complaint track Paltzik described, yet it controls whether the underlying allegations return to trial at all.
Desronvil's posture, as relayed by his lawyer, remains that he stood on a guilt finding. That account collides with other jurors' descriptions of an 11-1 lean toward acquittal and with Reddington's "obstructionist" framing. The seed reporting does not resolve those competing juror narratives as adjudicated fact.
Earlier juror-side messaging also described internal panel dynamics in stark terms, including claims explored when the holdout juror broke silence on how panelists pushed for acquittal during deliberations. Those accounts remain party and witness claims, not court findings.
Paltzik's planned bar filing would move the feud into Massachusetts attorney discipline channels while criminal motions remain before Judge Sullivan. The two tracks are related in publicity and timing, not in a single docket entry. Specific professional-conduct rule citations Paltzik may allege were not detailed in the Sept. 28 report, and the complaint had not been described as already filed.
Reddington practices in Massachusetts. Clancy's case returns there under the same trial judge who ended the first jury's work on Sept. 4. Courthouse city, county, and docket number were not stated in the available package.
The Sixth Amendment stakes around juror independence and defense investigation tactics have already been a flash point in this dispute, including when a holdout juror lawyer accused the Clancy attorney of attacking Sixth Amendment rights in the aftermath of the split verdict attempt.
What remains fixed is the institutional sequence: a mistrial after non-unanimity, defense motions aimed at the dissenting juror and at dismissal, a juror's lawyer promising a confidential-at-the-outset bar complaint, and prosecutors silent so far on retry. The Sept. 29 hearing was the next scheduled chance for the trial court to put some of those motions on the record.
When lawyers turn a hung jury into a professionalism war, the public is left watching process fights while the core questions of proof, retrial, and juror protection wait on the court's next move.
