A Defense Attorney’s 180

In a Plymouth, Massachusetts courtroom on September 29th, Lindsey Clancy appeared with a demeanor her observers had never seen before. Accused of killing her three children—Cora, Dawson, and Callon—she was smiling, shaking hands, and talking to people as court was dismissed. Someone eventually had to wheel her out. The woman who during her first trial was defended on grounds of postpartum psychosis now had a lawyer arguing something entirely different: that the prosecution had presented no evidence she killed her children at all.

The Defense Reverses Course

Kevin Reddington, Clancy’s defense attorney, made a dramatic pivot from his earlier strategy. During the first trial, which ended in a mistrial, Reddington’s argument was that Clancy suffered from postpartum psychosis and didn’t know what she was doing when she killed her three kids—though he conceded she was the one who did it. “She knows that she killed these children,” he said then.

Now Reddington is citing Massachusetts Rule 25, arguing the prosecution failed to meet its burden of proof. “Where’s the evidence that she did this?” he asked in court. “Where is the evidence that she did this?” He’s now seeking to have the murder charges dismissed entirely, essentially arguing there should be no trial at all.