Kevin Reddington defended his courtroom tactics after critics called his latest move a stunning reversal.
The veteran defense attorney, 75, faced backlash when he argued at a Tuesday hearing that prosecutors lacked proof his client Lindsay Clancy, 36, strangled her three children in their Duxbury home. Reddington had spent weeks at trial claiming Clancy suffered severe postpartum psychosis during the January 2023 killings, never disputing she caused the deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.
“What I did was argued exactly what I argued in my closing to the jury, exactly what I argued in motions for required finding,” Reddington explained on “Hot Mics with Billy Bush.” He pressed the same point in court Tuesday, asking Judge William Sullivan: “Where is the evidence that she did this?”
“This entire case is based on speculation,” the lawyer added in court. “She was told what happened. She had no memory of what happened. There’s no evidence that she admitted that she did this.”
Reddington said he filed the motion for a required finding of not guilty because the investigation itself troubled him deeply. “And this investigation was so horrific, so atrocious that it just defies, it boggles the mind why this investigation ended up the way it did, so I had to raise that issue on the motion for a required finding,” he said on the podcast.
He pointed to gaps he saw in the prosecution’s case: missing DNA and fingerprint evidence, an unfeasible timeline, and what he called an incomplete investigation. The motion marked his third attempt at such a filing, following two unsuccessful tries during the trial itself.
Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham pushed back hard in court, calling the evidence challenge “laughable.” Prosecutors have highlighted Clancy’s DNA on the ends of elastic exercise bands used in the strangulations, her status as the only adult present, and Apple Health data tracking her movements through the house that day.
Judge Sullivan said he would rule on the motion at a later date.
The trial itself collapsed after five weeks of testimony and seven days of jury deliberations. Sullivan declared a mistrial when the panel sent three notes indicating they were hopelessly deadlocked. Nine women and three men had heard testimony that Clancy struggled with mental health for months before the killings, visiting a psychiatrist, calling a suicide hotline twice, consulting two perinatal clinics, and spending nearly five days in a mental health facility. She was prescribed 13 psychiatric drugs, which Reddington argued worsened her condition.
Some jurors later revealed that 11 of the 12 panel members wanted to find Clancy not criminally responsible, with only one juror prepared to convict her.
Prosecutors have not announced whether they will retry Clancy on the same charges, downgrade the charges, drop them, or pursue a plea bargain.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.