On-air moment turns into the headline
During a CBS Mornings interview about the Lindsay Clancy trial, Gayle King asked juror Paula Devlin about the panel’s demographics and the lone holdout behind the mistrial. In a clip posted to social media by Media Research Center and NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck, Devlin said the jury included “one person of color, and then everybody else was white,” and confirmed there were nine women and three men.
King followed up: “And — one person of color — was the person of color a woman or a man?” When Devlin replied, “A man,” King asked, “Is the holdout juror a person of— a black man?” Devlin answered, “Yes.” King responded, “Whoa… I have to sit with that for just a second.”
Clip circulates; critics react
After Houck shared the segment, some online commentators criticized King’s reaction. Florida Voice’s Eric Daugherty wrote on X, “LMAO! CBS is utterly SHOCKED when a Lindsay Clancy juror reveals the lone male holdout that refused to cave was a black male.” He added, “Why would she have to ‘sit with that?’ Is it because her assumption was it’s a ‘racist, bigoted’ white male?” and, “God bless that hero, holding out for justice!”
Other X users posted similar takes highlighted by the source, including, “Poor Gayle King. She needs time to compose herself when she realized she couldn’t play the race card,” and “Black excellence.” One responder wrote, “The 11 unhinged leftwing jurors tried to bully the one holdout by using their white supremacy and white privilege to force him to agree with them. He’s a modern day Rosa Parks. A true American hero, a man with honor and integrity. He deserves a medal for his service.”
What juror Paula Devlin described
According to Devlin’s CBS interview, the jury’s age range was “70-ish to 22,” with “one person of color” and the remainder white. Devlin said “a lot of the jurors had children.”
Where the case stands
The source states jurors deliberated nearly 40 hours before Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial when they could not reach a unanimous verdict. The same account says the lone holdout reportedly favored a first-degree murder conviction. Prosecutors must decide whether to retry Lindsay Clancy, and a next hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29, according to the source.
Case background summarized by the source
The source reports that Clancy’s defense argued she experienced postpartum psychosis and had been prescribed a combination of psychotropic medications. The source also states that Clancy said she strangled her three children with exercise bands and then attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window, leaving her paraplegic.
