Lindsay Clancy’s attorney makes plea for pardon from Trump
Washington Examiner · RC · trust 60/100
Lindsay Clancy’s attorney urged President Donald Trump on Tuesday to give her a pardon before her murder case could head for another trial.
Clancy is a Massachusetts woman who admitted to strangling her three young children in 2023 but argued she should not be criminally responsible due to claims she was in a state of psychosis during the killings. A judge last week declared a mistrial in the case, after a 12-member jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether Clancy was in her right mind or psychotic when she killed 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan Clancy.
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In his first interview following the mistrial declaration, defense attorney Kevin Reddington called on Trump to give Clancy a pardon. The president called the murders a “horrible, horrible thing” as he mused about the hung jury on Friday.
“Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is, what she’s been through, and consider a pardon,” Reddington said during an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America .
Reddington’s request was unusual, as the president is generally considered to only hold the power to pardon federal crimes.
After being declared a mistrial, Massachusetts can decide whether to retry Clancy or offer her a plea deal, based on what Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz decides. Reddington said he is hoping for a plea deal after previously suggesting that the case could be headed for a fall retrial should Cruz decide against an agreement. The two sides are scheduled to meet in court again on Sept. 29 to determine the next steps.
“He’s a very hard-charging prosecutor, a conservative gentleman,” Reddington said of Cruz. “I hope, however, after sitting through this trial and seeing the evidence that was presented from the government as well as from the defense, that he would revisit that issue and hopefully would be able to work something out that would be acceptable to both sides.”
During the interview, Reddington also revealed that he believed the 11-1 jury favored a not-guilty verdict by reason of insanity. He sought to ward off criticism for partially disclosing the identities of one of the jurors in the case. Reddington has raised eyebrows for revealing the jury was deadlocked 11-1 in favor of a not-guilty verdict as it continued to deliberate , a highly unusual move viewed by critics as a breach of judicial confidentiality. He stoked further controversy by revealing the holdout juror as one of the three male jurors.
When pressed on whether it was a mistake to identify the male, Reddington said Tuesday that the juror’s sex had already been revealed “during the course of the SJC argument,” appearing to refer to a hearing on the juror that the defense and prosecution teams held with Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The juror’s sex was not disclosed during that emergency hearing.
“I know during the course of the SJC argument, I believe that the gender of the individual was revealed, and then I just followed through after that,” Reddington said.
The nearly six-week murder trial gripped the nation, highlighting the divide between those who framed a possible guilty verdict as an attack on women suffering from mental health problems and those who believed the evidence indicated Clancy was in her right mind when the murders were committed.
“I just am horrified at what women have to deal with postpartum,” Reddington said this week, defending Clancy as “a wonderful neighbor, friend, wife, mother.”
“Dealing with postpartum depression, dealing with, God forbid, postpartum psychosis, and the horrific actions that occur as a result of that,” he continued. “People do not understand or know what they are doing, and it is real, and it is frightening.”
The prosecution has maintained that Clancy’s actions pointed to a woman who knew right from wrong, googling information about hallucinations, methodically planning the murders, and plotting to send her then-husband away on errands while she killed her children. She was never diagnosed with the condition before killing the children. She was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, postpartum depression and anxiety, a major depressive episode, and insomnia.
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“I appreciate the fact that there are strong feelings and opinions tied to this case,” Cruz said outside the courthouse after the mistrial was declared on Friday. “However, our job is to set aside our feelings and focus solely on the facts. The facts are Lindsay Clancy killed her three children, and the evidence suggested to us that she was in control of her actions when she committed those homicides.”
Trump said of Clancy: “Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse. But you’ll find out what the price to pay is. There’ll be a price. It’s going to be [a] mental institution or jail or something.”
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