Kevin Reddington did not wait long. Four days after a Plymouth jury deadlocked on whether Lindsay Clancy should answer for strangling her three children, her lawyer went on Good Morning America and asked the President of the United States to wipe the slate clean.
I’d like to say that perhaps Donald Trump, who felt compelled to speak out about this case. Mr President, I hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is, what’s been through, and consider a pardon.
That is not a legal argument. That is a publicity stunt dressed as humility. And it treats three dead children as a footnote to a lawyer’s affection for his client. It also gets Reddington the additional headlines he seems to crave, keeping himself in the news with an ask he knows won’t work.
Trump Already Answered Him
Reddington acted as if the White House had not already spoken. On Friday, after Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial, President Trump told reporters he had been following the case because it was hard not to.
It’s a shame. It’s a horrible tragedy. 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, but I guess they’re going to go through another trial.
Just the News carried the same remarks. Trump did not call Clancy a wonderful person. He did not float clemency. He said there would be a price. That is the moral floor this case never should have been allowed to sink beneath.
There is a second problem Reddington skipped on national television. A presidential pardon reaches federal offenses. Clancy faces Massachusetts first-degree murder counts in Plymouth Superior Court. Article II does not let a president erase a state killing. Reddington has practiced law in Massachusetts since 1975. He knows that. The cameras did not care.
He’s not an idiot. He’s just feeding his own narcissism in hopes of being the main character in this story, even if it means pushing the memories of three murdered children aside.