BARD - Lindsay Clancy: Why the Defense Fought the Mistrial

So a mistrial is when, and it doesn't have to be necessarily when the jury is hung.

I've had countless mistrials before the case has even gotten to the jury.

And in fact, one case in particular, I won't mention her, the judge, because she's in the news right now for other cases that she's in.

But literally the last witness in the trial was a LAPD officer who, upon cross-examination, we found out that something that the prosecutor had hidden from us was in fact true, which is what I had been arguing the entire trial.

Last witness, I made the mistrial motion.

The judge granted it before the case got to the jury.

When I later asked her why, she said it was because you were going to win the case.

So A mistrial motion generally, if it's before the jury gets the case, means you do it over.

If a mistrial is after the jury is deliberated, 999 times out of 100, that means the same thing that the case is going to get retried again.

Well, I was going to ask specifically about that, which is, does that mean the case is going to get retried again? Because I think I would say that the majority, I'll say two things.

The majority of your cases where you've had a mistrial, you are usually leaning into that second trial retooling.

But I don't think that's true for the majority of mistrials when there's a hung jury that Usually, can you just give us globally what happens next after a mistrial? Because I would say that what you see generally is you would get a better plea offer for the defendant and the defendant kind of realizes, let me let me try.

Let me plead this out.

Let me do a little bit better.

And the prosecutor, because generally the prosecutor then finally learns what were the weaknesses in their case? How can they retool? And they know the defense lawyer's tricks.

Of course, there's better things for the defense as well.

But I just want to hear your perspective on generally what happens after a mistrial.

So if the jury has gone out.

Right.

If the jury is hung and a mistrial is declared, it's the common wisdom is that that's an advantage for the prosecution generally.

You have the most recent high profile mistrial before Clancy, which was Harvey Weinstein.

And the prosecution decided not to retry him on that case.

Your split was not even what were you nine to three for not guilty.

This was we

had our alternates to.