Kevin Reddington's pivot in the Clancy case is a legal error
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
By arguing that prosecutors failed to prove Lindsay Clancy killed her children, Kevin Reddington makes a tactical pivot that undermines his own defense of postpartum psychosis.
The law does not reward the pivot. A lawyer who spends six weeks telling a jury his client committed a crime builds a binding record. To later tell a judge the state never proved the act occurred is a departure from that record. He is gambling with his own credibility. Kevin Reddington is wrong to shift his strategy in the case of Lindsay Clancy. He has traded a medical defense for a factual void.
The Rule 25 gamble
Lindsay Clancy is charged with the January 2023 deaths of her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan. According to cnn.com, the trial ended in a mistrial in September 2026. At a subsequent hearing, Reddington filed a Rule 25 motion.
Under Rule 25 of the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure, a defendant may move for a required finding of not guilty. This motion asks the judge to enter an acquittal because the evidence is legally insufficient to convict. Reddington now argues there is "no evidence" that his client committed the acts. He claims the investigation was "horrific" and "ridiculous," pointing to "woefully deficient DNA" and fingerprinting.
This is a stark departure from the trial record. During the six-week trial, Reddington did not argue that Clancy was innocent of the act. Instead, he argued she was not criminally responsible due to postpartum psychosis. Postpartum psychosis is a severe mental illness characterized by a loss of contact with reality following childbirth. He told the jury a male voice instructed her to kill her children. He argued she had no motive because she loved them. By moving for a Rule 25 finding, he now denies the acts he previously sought to excuse.
The shift from excuse to existence
The defense's maneuver is distinct from the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. There, the defendant was acquitted of the 1994 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. The trial spanned eight months in 1995.
Such pivots are often framed as creative lawyering. In reality, they are attempts to find a loophole in a closing door.
The prosecution's case is not a void. WBUR reports that prosecutors cited "voluminous" evidence that Clancy strangled her children in the basement. They allege she then slashed her own neck and wrists and jumped from a window, leaving her paralyzed. Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham called Reddington’s new argument “laughable.”
This adjective is unnecessary where the holding will do. The Commonwealth must meet its burden under the standard established in Commonwealth v. Latimore. This standard requires the court to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. The judge must determine whether any rational trier of fact could find the essential elements of the crime. The state's burden is not to present a flawless investigation, but to present sufficient evidence to satisfy this standard.
The record versus the strategy
Reddington is now fighting a war on three fronts. He is challenging the evidence of the act. He is questioning whether Clancy was mentally competent to face first-degree murder charges. He is also filing a motion to dismiss based on double jeopardy.
The double jeopardy claim rests on the mistrial. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment protects a defendant from being prosecuted twice for the same offense. A jury deadlocked after 38 hours of deliberations. The record reveals that a single holdout juror resisted a verdict of not criminally responsible. This is a failure of consensus, not a failure of process. A mistrial declared because of a hung jury meets the standard of manifest necessity. Manifest necessity is the high constitutional standard required to declare a mistrial without barring a subsequent retrial.
Reddington claims he is unavailable for a trial before June. This convenience is a poor substitute for a coherent legal theory. He has spent months arguing that his client was a victim of her own mind. Now he argues she is a victim of a "ridiculous" investigation. He cannot have it both ways.
Judge William Sullivan will deny the Rule 25 motion. He will find that the circumstantial evidence and the medical record are sufficient to sustain a charge. The prosecution proved the act occurred and placed Clancy at the center of it. A lawyer may be creative, but he cannot wish away the evidence he already conceded to the jury.
The court will reject this pivot because the record is too heavy to move. Judge Sullivan will rule that the evidence is legally sufficient for a conviction. The case will proceed to a retrial or a plea, but it will not end with a finding of not guilty.