Lindsay Clancy’s outspoken defense lawyer made a startling appeal to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, asking [1] the president to consider pardoning the Massachusetts mother following a mistrial in the case involving the deaths of her three children.
Attorney Kevin Reddington delivered the extraordinary request during an appearance on “Good Morning America.”
He asked Trump to consider “this young lady,” referenced “the type of person she is and what she’s been through,” and urged him to “consider a pardon.”
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There is one rather large constitutional problem with the request.
Clancy faces state charges, and presidents possess no authority to pardon defendants for state crimes, no matter how passionately a defense attorney pleads on national television.
Reddington, 75, did not explain how he expected Trump to intervene in a prosecution outside federal jurisdiction.
He also offered no details about whether he wanted presidential pressure to prevent another trial or protect Clancy if a future jury convicts her.
Instead, the veteran lawyer said he hoped Trump would address the matter because the president had “felt compelled to speak out about this case.”
Apparently, the constitutional limits on presidential pardon power did not receive a similar invitation to the morning show discussion.
Trump commented on the case last week and made clear that he regarded it as both horrific and deserving of consequences.
“It’s a horrible tragedy,” Trump told reporters while discussing the deaths of Clancy’s three children.
“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 [a] mental institution or jail or something,” Trump stated.
The children were Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was only 8 months old.
Clancy’s case ended in a mistrial Friday after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict, leaving prosecutors with the option of pursuing another trial.
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Reddington made his pardon request near the end of a brief interview that also featured glowing praise for his deeply divisive client.
He called Clancy “a wonderful, wonderful person” and portrayed her in terms likely to anger those focused on the three young lives lost.
“Just a wonderful neighbor, friend, wife, mother,” Reddington said.
He then added, “I do feel a very strong bond with Lindsay,” reinforcing just how personally invested he has become in her defense.
The attorney also revisited his boast that his legal team “crushed” District Attorney Tim Cruz during the lengthy trial.
While acknowledging that he perhaps should have been more “circumspect,” Reddington did not retreat from the chest pounding that followed the mistrial.
“That’s just bravado,” he said with a smile, attributing his language to the “emotions” surrounding the conclusion of a trial that lasted roughly six or seven weeks.
“I don’t regret saying it at all,” he insisted, although he conceded that he could have simply said he “did a good job.”
Reddington also attempted to answer criticism over his public comments about the lone juror who refused to join the other eleven.
The jury split 11 to 1, and his aggressive focus on the holdout prompted outrage from observers who viewed the comments as an attack on the jury process.
“I would defend that individual’s right to be a holdout for forever, that’s part of our judicial system. I respect that and I would certainly defend his right to do that,” Reddington said, seeking to distinguish respect for the juror’s authority from frustration with the reasoning involved.
Reddington said he did not believe the holdout was living out a “12 Angry Men” scenario.
His concern, he explained, came from a note by the jury forelady stating that the juror “had doubt but would not apply reasonable doubt” when voting on the verdict.
“That’s not right, and that’s why I was upset,” Reddington said.
Whatever comes next, another state trial remains a matter for Massachusetts prosecutors and courts, not the White House, despite one lawyer’s remarkable attempt to place Trump in the middle of it.