Kevin Reddington, the attorney for Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children, says he will ask a judge to throw out the case entirely, arguing the September 4 mistrial should never have been declared.
Reddington appeared on "CBS Mornings" Wednesday and announced he will file a motion to dismiss at a previously scheduled status hearing on September 29 at Plymouth County Superior Court in Plymouth, Massachusetts. His argument: the judge lacked what the law calls "manifest necessity", a legal requirement that a mistrial be genuinely unavoidable, and that declaring one without it means the Constitution's ban on being tried twice for the same offense now bars prosecutors from bringing Clancy back to trial.
If the motion succeeds, Lindsay Clancy walks free. If it fails, she could face a second trial for the January 24, 2023, deaths of her three children, Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months old, in their Duxbury, Massachusetts home.
The jury deliberated for more than seven days before Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial on September 4. The panel was apparently split 11 to 1, though that figure has not been officially confirmed by the court. Jurors had five possible verdicts to choose from: not guilty by reason of insanity, not guilty, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or manslaughter.
The day before the mistrial, on September 3, the jury foreperson sent a note to Judge Sullivan. Reddington told CBS News the foreperson wrote that the holdout juror "has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states."
That note is the foundation of Reddington's legal strategy. He filed a motion that same day asking Sullivan to dismiss the holdout juror. The judge denied it. The next morning, September 4, Reddington filed a second request, this time asking to question the jurors further. Sullivan denied that too, then declared the mistrial.
As we previously reported, the foreperson's note raised serious questions about whether the holdout was deliberating in good faith or simply refusing to follow the court's instructions on how to weigh reasonable doubt.
Reddington laid out his frustration on CBS Wednesday:
"I would defend that person's right to be a holdout for a month. That's what the system is about. But when the forelady indicated clearly and unequivocally in the jury question that this person had doubt, reasonable doubt, as we know now, and just refused to listen to the judge's instruction on the law, that's when I was upset, because that's why I used the expressions and the terms I did. It just wasn't right."
His core contention is straightforward: if the holdout juror acknowledged doubt but refused to apply the legal standard, then the jury's deadlock was caused by one person's defiance of the court's instructions, not by a genuine disagreement over the evidence. And if the judge could have resolved the problem by removing that juror or questioning the panel more closely, then the mistrial was avoidable. An avoidable mistrial, under double jeopardy law, can bar a retrial.
Not everyone from the jury room sees it the way Reddington does. The woman identified as juror No. 5 spoke to CBS Boston station WBZ-TV on Tuesday and offered a different picture of the deliberations.
"The majority of people, it doesn't matter what side they were on, were very firm in their stance and their belief from the beginning. The stand-alone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side."
That account complicates the defense's framing. If multiple jurors were entrenched from the start, not just the lone holdout, then the deadlock may have been less about one rogue panelist and more about a jury that was never going to agree. That distinction matters for the double jeopardy argument, because a genuinely irreconcilable split is precisely the kind of situation where a mistrial is considered necessary.
The full account from juror No. 5 suggested the deliberation room was more rigid on both sides than the foreperson's note implied.
Caroline Polisi, a CBS News legal contributor, explained the significance of Reddington's move. She noted that mistrials ordinarily do not trigger double jeopardy protections, meaning prosecutors can typically refile the same charges and start over.
But Reddington is arguing this was not an ordinary mistrial. Polisi described it this way:
"He's making a motion based on double jeopardy, based on this one juror who, apparently, had reasonable doubt but refused to apply his conscience to the law, and was a holdout."
She added that Reddington's position is that the judge "should have inquired further as to whether or not this juror could maintain his oath." Polisi called the motion a "long shot" but acknowledged it carries massive consequences: "If he wins that motion, she would go free."
Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz has not yet said whether he will retry the case. That silence leaves the September 29 hearing as the next decisive moment. If the double jeopardy motion fails and Cruz decides to prosecute again, the entire process, jury selection, weeks of testimony, deliberation, starts from scratch.
Reddington made clear on CBS that no plea deal involving prison is on the table from his side. He acknowledged that Plymouth DA Cruz could offer to reduce the charge to second-degree murder, but drew a firm line.
"I know enough to know it doesn't matter what I'd like. All I know is that I'm not ever going to agree this young lady do a day in jail."
He described Clancy's current state as "disappointed" and "sad," saying she "still has the same affect that she's had for three and a half years." Clancy is currently receiving psychiatric and medical treatment at a facility in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.
The defense has argued throughout the case that Clancy was not criminally responsible for her children's deaths, contending she suffered from postpartum psychosis brought on by overmedication. Reddington pushed that point again Wednesday, taking aim at the public impulse to punish rather than understand.
"It's so easy for people to say, 'Oh, come on, you don't hear voices. You're making that up. You're lying. You're evil.' Because it's easier to punish someone."
He also acknowledged the gravity of the crime itself: "No one is discounting the horrific loss of those kids, let alone Lindsay Clancy, who is well aware and lives with that every day."
Beyond the courtroom, Reddington has been working other angles. In an ABC News interview on Tuesday, he revealed he had asked President Trump for a pardon, a request that faces an obvious constitutional obstacle, since the presidential pardon power extends only to federal offenses, and Clancy faces state charges in Massachusetts.
Reddington was undeterred. He pointed to comments President Trump made from the Oval Office last week, when asked about the case:
"Look, she did a horrible, horrible thing. Can't be worse. But you'll find out what the price to pay is. There'll be a price. It's going to be mental institution or jail or something."
Reddington read those remarks as a sign of awareness, not hostility. He told CBS he hoped presidential attention could trickle down to the local level:
"The fact that the president of the United States made the comments that he did tells me that he is aware of the case. I also know that he's an individual that is surrounded by very, very smart people and can very easily say to one of them, 'Can you look into this for me and see what it's all about?' Trickling down to Tim Cruz, hopefully resolving the case."
When asked whether it would be appropriate for the president to reach out to a local district attorney, Reddington did not hesitate: "If it helps resolve this tragic case, I don't really care."
Reddington said he has not heard from the White House.
The double jeopardy motion forces a pointed question: did Judge Sullivan act properly when he declared the mistrial, or did he pull the plug on a deliberation that could have been salvaged? The foreperson's note, claiming the holdout admitted doubt but refused to apply it, suggests the problem was one juror's defiance. Juror No. 5's account suggests the problem ran deeper, with rigidity on multiple sides.
Meanwhile, the case has drawn attention far beyond Plymouth County. A prosecution psychiatrist stepped down from a hospital position in the wake of the trial, and the president of the United States has weighed in from the Oval Office. For a state murder case in a small Massachusetts county, the spotlight is unusually bright.
Three children are dead. Their mother sits in a treatment facility. The jury that heard the evidence couldn't agree. And now the question isn't just whether Lindsay Clancy is guilty, it's whether she can ever be tried again at all.
The American legal system promises that the government gets one fair shot to make its case. If prosecutors squandered theirs because a judge moved too fast, the Constitution has a word for what happens next, and it isn't a do-over.
