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Lindsay Clancy Attorney Takes on New Murder Defense Case

10 sources · updated 2026-10-02
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0 left · 1 center · 1 right

What happened

On Thursday, Massachusetts Judge William Sullivan denied a motion by Lindsay Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, for a required finding of not guilty on murder charges in the 2023 strangling deaths of her three children—5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan—at the family’s home. Clancy’s first Plymouth County trial ended in a mistrial on September 4 after the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal; during that trial, defense attorney Kevin Reddington did not dispute that Clancy killed the children and argued she was not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis. After the mistrial, Reddington argued prosecutors had not proved she committed the killings, a claim prosecutors called “laughable.” Sullivan wrote that physical and circumstantial evidence would permit a rational jury to find the elements of murder beyond a reasonable doubt and that, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the evidence was also sufficient on criminal responsibility. Clancy is due back in court on November 2; no retrial date has been set.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 6 articles

5 of 6 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 5 of 6
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Judge William Sullivan, William Sullivan, Massachusetts Judge William Sullivan, Marianne Shelvey, Maureen Hogan and The Berkshire Eagle
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 4 of 6
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: court ruling, court hearing, court filing
Credits another outlet 0 of 6
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 0 of 6
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 1, 16:10 UTC by Daily Wire, naming its source. First document in the first report, from Daily Wire (court ruling).
Not counted 0
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Left-leaning coverage of the denied acquittal never mentions Clancy’s own civil lawsuit, in which she described strangling the children. A reader of only that coverage would not know that the new claim prosecutors failed to prove she killed them sits against her prior account. The Guardian reports that Reddington had not disputed the killings at trial. It also reports that the judge found enough evidence for a jury. Right-leaning coverage in the Daily Wire, writing about the same order, includes the civil-lawsuit acknowledgment. Right-leaning coverage in Fox News airs the charge that Reddington was "moving the goalposts." Left-leaning coverage in the Washington Post instead calls the same strategy "routine." Did the judge find enough evidence that Clancy killed the children, enough that she was criminally responsible, or both?
Bottom line

You can read the Guardian on the denied not-guilty motion and never learn Clancy had described the strangling in a civil lawsuit, a fact the Daily Wire puts in its account of that same order.

The receipts — 2 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Judge Sullivan found the evidence sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt on the essential element of criminal responsibility legal rulingin Daily Wire · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Judge Sullivan wrote that physical and circumstantial evidence would permit a rational trier of fact to find the elements of murder legal rulingin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets treated the filing as a conventional sufficiency challenge after a hung jury. The Washington Post reported that Reddington says prosecutors “didn’t prove she committed the crime,” and that legal experts describe the strategy as “routine, and unlikely to succeed.” The Guardian focused on Sullivan’s ruling that there was adequate evidence for a jury to decide, the prosecution’s “laughable” characterization, and the first-trial contrast in which the defense sought a not-criminally-responsible verdict while prosecutors acknowledged months of psychiatric treatment—including a hospital stay—but argued Clancy knew what she was doing.
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets framed the denial as a “major blow” and the motion as a reversal of the trial theory. Fox News highlighted “The View” co-hosts saying Reddington was “moving the goalposts,” with Sunny Hostin calling it “a terrible take” to argue there was no evidence of the killings after a postpartum-psychosis defense, and contributor Jonathan Turley saying he was “crafting a criminal defense like the 1985 screenplay of ‘Clue’ with different endings for different audiences.” Gregg Jarrett said Reddington had “lost all credibility” by contradicting a trial concession that Clancy strangled the children. The Daily Wire noted that in a civil lawsuit against former medical providers Clancy described strangling the children with exercise bands in a “dream-like state,” and Fox and Daily Wire reported that lawyers for holdout juror Michael Desronvil said they would file a bar complaint over Reddington’s public statements about their client.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is procedural: a post-mistrial motion testing whether the evidence could support a conviction is ordinary practice; Washington Post–quoted experts called it “routine, and unlikely to succeed,” matching Sullivan’s application of the light-most-favorable-to-the-Commonwealth standard. The right’s strongest argument is inconsistency: after a trial that did not dispute the killings and a civil filing in which Clancy described strangling the children, asking “Where is the evidence she did this?” is, in Hostin’s and Turley’s terms, a self-undermining change of theory. The central unresolved tension is whether that sufficiency challenge is a legitimate use of criminal procedure after an 11-1 deadlock, or a contradictory shift that undercuts the defense’s own prior case.

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