Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney went on national television on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, to ask President Donald Trump for something the president has no power to give: a pardon for his client, days after her Massachusetts murder trial ended in a mistrial.
Kevin Reddington, a longtime Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer who has handled Clancy’s case from the start, made the appeal during an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” A president’s clemency authority, though, extends no further than offenses charged under federal law. Clancy, 36, was tried by the state in Plymouth Superior Court, and for that reason Trump cannot pardon her.
In Massachusetts, the power to grant executive clemency belongs to the governor — Democrat Maura Healey — who must also secure the advice and consent of the Governor’s Council. Petitions are reviewed by a state Advisory Board of Pardons, which issues recommendations. A second problem exists as well: a pardon is an act of clemency, and Clancy stands convicted of nothing. Because her first trial produced no verdict when the jury deadlocked, she would be ineligible in any event. A White House official said the president can pardon only people convicted of federal crimes.
Asked on the program what lies ahead for his client, Reddington lowered his head and turned toward the camera. He said he wanted to address Trump, who had felt compelled to comment publicly on the case, and appealed to the president directly, asking him to weigh the kind of person Clancy is and everything she has endured, and to give thought to a pardon, Reddington said.
One Legal Analyst’s Assessment
Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law attorney and Fox News contributor, said on Tuesday that Reddington knows a president cannot pardon someone facing state charges, and he questioned why the lawyer raised it at all. Turley put the chances of a Trump pardon at “about the same as my coaching the Chicago Bears this season.” His verdict on Reddington’s work was mixed: the defense, he said, had done a better job than the prosecution, though he criticized the lawyer’s closing summation.
Clancy pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children — Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan — who were killed at the family’s home in Duxbury, a Boston suburb, on January 24, 2023. A former nurse, she acknowledged killing the three children but rejected the claim that the killings amounted to murder. Her lawyers maintained throughout the trial that postpartum depression had left her overmedicated, that the drugs she had been prescribed brought on psychosis, and that she acted on hallucinations and was therefore not criminally responsible. Prosecutors countered that she understood what she was doing and had mapped out the killings in advance. Clancy tried to take her own life afterward and survived, left paralyzed and permanently in a wheelchair.
What Trump Said at the White House
Trump raised the case unprompted on Friday, September 4, the day the mistrial was declared, telling reporters at the White House that he had been watching the trial on television. He called the case a tragedy, said nothing could have been worse than what Clancy did, and predicted that a price would be paid. “It’s going to be mental institution or jail or something, but I guess they’re going to go through another trial,” Trump said. He did not offer a pardon or suggest he intended to intervene, and the White House pointed back to those remarks after Reddington’s appeal.
A Jury That Could Not Agree
Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial at Plymouth Superior Court on the afternoon of September 4, after a jury of nine women and three men deliberated more than 37 hours following five and a half weeks of evidence. Reddington’s last-minute bid for an emergency order pushing the panel into one more round of deliberations failed.
Reddington said that to his knowledge the split was 11-1, with 11 jurors favoring a verdict of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility and a single holdout who wanted to convict, though he stressed he has not spoken with any juror and does not know the breakdown for certain. A note from the jury foreperson indicated the holdout, a male juror, had doubt but would not apply the law of reasonable doubt as the judge instructed, he said. He defended the juror’s right to hold out indefinitely as part of how the American system works, while arguing that the juror had not followed the law. Under Massachusetts jury instructions, the burden falls on prosecutors to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that, when the alleged crime took place, the defendant was free of any mental illness or impairment.
George Stephanopoulos, who conducted the interview, pressed Reddington on his remark after the mistrial that he had crushed the prosecution. Reddington called that bravado at the end of a long and emotionally charged trial. He said he does not regret it and believes the defense was strong, but allowed that he could have been more circumspect about Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz. He also said he knew little about postpartum depression before taking the case. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists treats postpartum psychosis as an emergency requiring immediate psychiatric attention.
What Comes Next in Plymouth
The commonwealth must now decide whether to retry Clancy or offer a plea deal. Speaking outside the courthouse on September 4, Cruz declined to announce a decision, saying prosecutors have to put opinion aside and weigh only the evidence, which he said showed Clancy was in control of her actions when she killed her children. Reddington, who has known Cruz for 30 years, said he is willing to listen and hopes the district attorney revisits the issue so the two sides can reach something acceptable to both.
Lawyers for Patrick Clancy, the children’s father and Lindsay Clancy’s ex-husband, who testified at the trial in July, said in a statement on Tuesday that online sleuths and true-crime content creators had waged a campaign of misinformation, including publishing falsehoods that he was somehow involved in his children’s deaths. Both sides are scheduled to appear in court on September 29 to determine the next steps.