Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Could Teach Trump a Thing or Two About the Law
Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Could Teach Trump a Thing or Two About the Law
One holdout juror cost him a big win—yet he defended that juror’s decision. Imagine His Orangeness doing that.
Kevin Reddington’s media appearances this week Tuesday capped off a big summer for him. Reddington, who has practiced law in Massachusetts for 50 years, won sudden fame for his swashbuckling defense of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury nurse accused of killing her three children in 2023.
In a hard-fought trial, Reddington argued Clancy wasn’t criminally responsible for the murders because her mental illness had eclipsed her moral discernment. As the trial ended with the jury deadlocked 11–1, with the majority evidently voting not guilty, Reddington was also knighted on social media for his passionate defense of women’s mental health.
But what stood out in Reddington’s post-trial interviews has not been his advocacy for women. It’s his advocacy for civics. For him to promote the duties of citizenship, at such a low point for our constitutional democracy, was somewhat startling. You could almost find a shred of faith in the benighted American experiment.
What Reddington said that deserves our attention came in two parts. First, George Stephanopoulos pressed him on his earlier boast that he had “crushed” the prosecution. After the trial, Reddington had indeed flexed outside the courtroom. “That was bravado,” he said now. “I could have been more circumspect.”
This dialing back of his earlier bluster was not just good manners. It’s how due process works. The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Fourteenth Amendments to the........
