Kevin Reddington knows Donald Trump cannot pardon Lindsay Clancy. That is precisely what makes his decision to publicly ask the president for one so revealing.
Clancy’s murder trial ended September 4 without a unanimous verdict on whether she was criminally responsible for killing her three children. The reported 11–1 split favored the defense, but it was not an acquittal, and prosecutors remain fully entitled to try her again.
Four days later, Reddington appeared on Good Morning America and asked Trump to consider Clancy’s character and suffering before requesting that he “consider a pardon.” It was an intervention the president has absolutely no constitutional authority to provide, as Reddington well knows.
The legal position is straightforward. Presidential clemency applies to federal offenses, while Clancy is being prosecuted under Massachusetts state law for the deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan.
Trump cannot dismiss those charges, prevent another trial or substitute his judgment for that of Massachusetts prosecutors. This is not some obscure constitutional technicality that an experienced defense lawyer could reasonably misunderstand.
Nor is the problem that Clancy has not been convicted. Presidents can pardon federal offenses before conviction or even indictment. The obstacle here is much simpler because the crimes charged against Clancy fall entirely outside presidential pardon power.
Reddington’s later explanation made the purpose of the exercise considerably clearer. Speaking to WBZ, he suggested Trump could approach Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz and invoked their shared Republican affiliation as a reason Cruz might listen.
His spokesman separately acknowledged that Reddington knew a presidential pardon was unavailable, characterizing the request instead as a broader appeal for mercy. That admission removes any possibility that this was merely a lawyer misunderstanding the limits of presidential authority.
There was therefore an intelligible objective behind the legally meaningless request. Reddington was trying to use presidential attention to place pressure on the prosecutor who must decide whether Lindsay Clancy faces another jury.
The White House showed little enthusiasm for joining the campaign, referring reporters back to Trump’s earlier comments condemning the killings and anticipating either psychiatric confinement or prison.
There was no promise of intervention, no indication Trump intended to contact Cruz and no suggestion that the president believed he possessed some extraordinary authority over a Massachusetts murder prosecution.
Reddington invited national politics into the case anyway, creating exactly the kind of partisan spectacle that could make an already difficult retrial even harder to conduct fairly.
That episode also deserves to be considered alongside Reddington’s behavior as the first jury collapsed. He sought the removal of the holdout juror after allegations that the juror was refusing to apply the court’s reasonable-doubt instructions.
A defense lawyer is perfectly entitled to raise a genuine concern about juror misconduct. Reddington’s belief that the holdout juror was wrong, however, did not give him the right to decide which jurors deserved to remain in the room simply because one stood between his client and the result he wanted.
After the mistrial, he went further by publicly criticizing the juror and boasting that District Attorney Cruz had been “crushed.” It was an extraordinary victory lap after a trial that produced no verdict at all and left every murder charge against Clancy intact.
The pattern is difficult to ignore. First came an attempt to remove the juror standing in the way of the defense result Reddington wanted, followed by public attacks on that juror and claims that prosecutors had effectively been defeated.
Now comes an appeal to a president with no jurisdiction over the case, coupled with a suggestion that partisan affiliation might help persuade the district attorney not to continue. Reddington knew Trump could not pardon Clancy before he ever made the request, which makes the publicity generated by asking more significant than the request itself.
Taken together, it looks less like ordinary post-trial advocacy and more like an effort to reshape the environment surrounding any retrial. A murder prosecution is being pushed toward becoming a national political controversy before the next jury has even been selected.
Governor Maura Healey’s response brought the discussion back to reality. Massachusetts clemency is a state matter, Clancy has not been convicted and the case is not at a stage where a pardon is available.
There is also little reason to believe Trump will rescue Reddington from that reality. His previous comments about the killings hardly suggest sympathy for abandoning the prosecution, while sharing a political party with Cruz creates no obligation for either man to turn a state murder case into a partisan favor.
Clancy deserves a fair defense, while Cora, Dawson and Callan deserve a process decided by evidence and law. Reddington should make his case before another jury if prosecutors seek a retrial, not try to nobble the next one through presidential publicity and partisan pressure.
