Judge William Sullivan rightly rejected Kevin Reddington's motion

By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta · October 2, 2026

By denying the defense request to ignore the record, Judge William Sullivan upheld the integrity of the legal process against Kevin Reddington's tactical shortcut.

"There was evidence introduced, both physical and circumstantial, that would permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the charge of murder," Judge William Sullivan wrote.

With those words, the court denied the defense motion. Judge Sullivan did the only thing a judge can do when a lawyer forgets the record. Kevin Reddington is wrong. He attempted to treat a trial record as a rough draft. He tried to move the goalposts after the first game ended in a draw.

In the law, the process is the only thing that keeps the result from being a guess. When a lawyer abandons a conceded fact to chase a procedural shortcut, he risks the legitimacy of the court.

The danger of the tactical pivot

The motion at the center of this dispute is for a required finding of not guilty. In Massachusetts, this is a request for the judge to rule that the prosecution's evidence is too weak for a rational jury to convict. It is a high bar. It is not a request for the judge to weigh the evidence. It is a question of whether any evidence exists at all.

According to reports from PBS and WCVB, the defense now argues that the state offered no proof that Lindsay Clancy killed her children. Kevin Reddington asked the court, "Where does she say she did this?"

This is a startling question. During the first trial, the defense did not argue that someone else committed the crimes. They argued that Clancy was not criminally responsible.

In Massachusetts, a finding of "lack of criminal responsibility" is the legal term for not guilty by reason of insanity. It means the defendant committed the act but lacked the capacity to understand its wrongfulness. WCVB reports that in April, the defense offered to admit to the killings in writing. They argued the only live issue was Clancy's state of mind.

To pivot from a concession of the facts to a denial of the evidence is a procedural shortcut. Shanan Buckingham, the assistant district attorney, called the claim "laughable." She noted that the record is "voluminous" as to the fact that Clancy did this. The record includes Clancy's DNA on the exercise bands used to strangle the children.

The law does not allow a lawyer to stipulate to a fact for strategy and then deny it when the strategy fails. If we allow the record to be rewritten based on the mood of the defense, we no longer have a record. We have a script. If the prosecution tried a similar pivot, the defense would rightly cry foul. We must test every shortcut against the day our opponents hold the tool.

The boundary of criminal responsibility

The defense's original theory was based on postpartum psychosis. This is a medical diagnosis. But a medical diagnosis is not a legal holding. Judge William Sullivan understood this distinction. He wrote that "mental illness alone does not preclude a finding of criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt."

The legal test is whether the defendant lacked the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the law. The Commonwealth introduced evidence on the nature of the killings and the demeanor of the defendant. This evidence suggested that Clancy knew what she was doing.

This struggle is the same mechanism found in the eventual trial of Andrea Yates, which involved Michael Mark Welner, an American forensic psychiatrist and chairman of The Forensic Panel. In both cases, mothers killed their children during a severe mental health crisis. In both cases, the legal battle was not about who held the weapon. It was about whether a medical crisis erased legal capacity. The law requires a strict line between a clinical diagnosis and a legal excuse.

The split in the first Clancy trial shows that the jury struggled with this line. A lone holdout juror wanted to find her guilty. That holdout is the reason there is a mistrial. Kevin Reddington has since requested an inquiry into that lone holdout. This is a common move. It is an attempt to find a procedural error to avoid a second trial.

The cost of the shortcut

The defense's shift in strategy is a gamble. By arguing that there is no evidence of the crime, Reddington is trying to end the case without a retrial. If Judge Sullivan had granted the motion, the case would have ended. But the judge is required to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution.

When the evidence includes DNA on the murder weapons and a history of the defendant's actions, the "no evidence" argument fails. It fails because it is not based on the record. It is based on a desire for a different result.

The tragedy of the deaths of Cora, Dawson, and Callan in January 2023 is immense. But the court's job is not to manage the tragedy. Its job is to apply the law to the facts. The facts are that Clancy is accused of a horrific act. The process requires that those facts be tested by a jury.

By attempting to bypass the jury through a required finding of not guilty, the defense has weakened its own position. They have moved from a sympathetic argument about mental health to a desperate argument about the absence of evidence. The former asks for mercy and understanding. The latter asks the judge to ignore the DNA.

The legitimacy of the court depends on the rules being the same for everyone. A rule that only works when you are winning is not a rule. A strategy that requires the court to forget the trial record is not a legal strategy. It is a trick.

The Plymouth County District Attorney's office will likely proceed with a retrial on the first-degree murder indictments. They will decline to offer a plea or dismiss the case. This is the only path that respects the evidentiary record. Kevin Reddington may file an interlocutory appeal or push the double jeopardy motion on November 2. These are the tools of a lawyer who has run out of facts. The prosecution will rely on the "voluminous" record that the defense tried to pretend did not exist. The case will return to a jury because the law does not reward those who treat the truth as a tactical option.

Judge William Sullivan rightly rejected Kevin Reddington's motion

The danger of the tactical pivot

The boundary of criminal responsibility

The cost of the shortcut

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