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Apparently, when your client murdered her three children, the next logical step is to ask President Donald Trump to ride in on the White House horse and make the whole thing disappear.
That appears to be the strategy of Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, who is now asking Trump to pardon his client after a Massachusetts jury managed to deadlock over whether she was criminally responsible for fatally strangling her three young children, 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan.
Appearing on “Good Morning America,” Reddington made his unusual appeal to Trump after the jury failed to reach a verdict in a trial that has generated a massive national debate over mental illness, criminal responsibility, and whether a person can be held accountable for horrific acts committed during an alleged psychotic episode.
“I’d like to say that perhaps Donald Trump, who felt compelled to speak out about this case … 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 told leftist host George Stephanopoulos.
There is, however, one tiny constitutional detail standing between Reddington and his dream of presidential intervention.
Clancy was charged under Massachusetts state law, not federal law.
Trump is president of the United States, not the governor of Massachusetts, emperor of New England, or the nation's all-purpose pardon dispenser.
The president's constitutional pardon power applies to federal offenses. It does not allow him to walk into a state criminal proceeding and announce, "You're free to go."
Even if Trump possessed the legal authority to pardon Clancy, there is another problem.
He has already condemned what happened. So if he flipped to her side, he would look like the main course at a Waffle House.
In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump described the killings as a “horrible tragedy” and indicated that he expected Clancy to face another trial.
“It’s a shame. It’s a horrible tragedy,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse.”
That's probably not the sort of presidential endorsement Reddington was hoping for. But my guess is that he wants to put the president in a precarious position, which he has no right to do.
In January 2023, Clancy took her three young children into the basement of their Duxbury home and strangled them one by one with exercise bands.
The defense does not dispute that she killed the children. Instead, Reddington has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and therefore was not criminally responsible for her actions. Unfortunately, her act and the publicity it has garnered has resulted in several copycat acts by other mothers.
That argument was apparently enough to leave a jury hopelessly divided after 38 hours of deliberation.
Trump said the case had been difficult to escape because of the enormous amount of television coverage surrounding it. He also predicted that Clancy would face consequences, whether that meant confinement in a psychiatric institution or prison. In my humble opinion, Trump should have completely stayed out of it altogether.
“There’ll be a price,” Trump said, adding that he believes prosecutors would bring the case to trial again and calling that scenario “too bad.”
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial Friday after the jury, consisting of nine women and three men, failed to reach a unanimous verdict.
“With a heavy heart, we report we cannot come to a unanimous decision,” the jurors wrote in their final note to the judge.
The most serious charges were three counts of first-degree murder, each carrying a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
For now, Clancy is expected to remain at Tewksbury State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital.
Reddington claimed he believed the jury was split 11-1 in favor of finding Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity. He seemed to implicate one of the three men on the jury which has led to several tons of controversy as the country has taken sides. The Left wants to excuse Clancy and the Right wants something called justice to be served.
Unfortunately for anyone hoping to turn that into a definitive legal fact, the actual vote remains unknown.
As of Tuesday, Reddington said he had not spoken with any jurors, and none had given media interviews.
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said Friday that his office remains committed to seeking justice for the three children, although he stopped short of announcing whether prosecutors would retry the case.
Does anyone have bets that Clancy will roll free?
“Our priority has always been to fight for Cora, for Dawson, and for Callan. The noise in this case may be louder than it is for other prosecutions in our county, but we have treated it the same as any other case,” Cruz said. “Children were murdered, and it’s our job to seek justice.”
That would seem like a fairly straightforward mission statement.
Three children were murdered.
The government is supposed to seek justice.
The defense attorney, naturally, has a different vision.
Reddington said he remains optimistic that he can negotiate some sort of deal that would prevent Clancy from facing another trial. He described her almost like a member of his own family, calling her a daughter and an “incredible person” with whom he shares a “strong bond.” [Imagine if your own daughter murdered your grandchildren.]
“I’m willing to listen to Tim [Cruz]. I’ve known Tim for 30 years. He’s a very high-charging prosecutor, conservative gentleman,” Reddington told ABC. “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.”
There is, of course, nothing wrong with a defense attorney doing his job. That job is to advocate for his client.
But asking the president to pardon someone convicted, or potentially convicted, of a state crime is roughly like asking the fire department to issue you a driver's license.
And perhaps that's the most fitting conclusion to this bizarre chapter.
Three children are dead.
A jury could not agree.
A retrial may be coming, as I believe it should.
A defense attorney wants a deal.
And somewhere along the way, somebody apparently decided the Constitution was an inconvenient barrier.
“Our priority has always been to fight for Cora, for Dawson, and for Callan. The noise in this case may be louder than it is for other prosecutions in our county, but we have treated it the same as any other case,” Cruz said. “Children were murdered, and it’s our job to seek justice.”
That would seem like a fairly straightforward mission statement.
Three children were murdered.
The government is supposed to seek justice.
The defense attorney, naturally, has a different vision.
Reddington said he remains optimistic that he can negotiate some sort of deal that would prevent Clancy from facing another trial. He described her almost like a member of his own family, calling her a daughter and an “incredible person” with whom he shares a “strong bond.” [Imagine if your own daughter murdered your grandchildren.]
“I’m willing to listen to Tim [Cruz]. I’ve known Tim for 30 years. He’s a very high-charging prosecutor, conservative gentleman,” Reddington told ABC. “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.”
There is, of course, nothing wrong with a defense attorney doing his job. That job is to advocate for his client.
But asking the president to pardon someone convicted, or potentially convicted, of a state crime is roughly like asking the fire department to issue you a driver's license.
And perhaps that's the most fitting conclusion to this bizarre chapter.
Three children are dead.
A jury could not agree.
A retrial may be coming, as I believe it should.
A defense attorney wants a deal.
And somewhere along the way, somebody apparently decided the Constitution was an inconvenient barrier.
I'd be happy to know what you guys think, so feel free to comment.
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Thanks for following Brain Flushings. Please take time to check out the sponsors on this page--it's one way to support my work and you don't need to purchase anything to do so. Of course, you can Buy Me A Coffee at any amount if you want to support me directly. And finally, don't be afraid to subscribe if you enjoy the blog--it's free, and worth the cost.
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