The judge overseeing the Lindsay Clancy case declared a mistrial Friday after only a single juror prevented a unanimous verdict, purportedly because he was willing to convict the self-admitted baby killer. In a seeming bid to discredit the juror, Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, appeared to suggest the holdout juror might be bigoted against disabled persons.
“I further raise the issue of the American[s] with Disabilities Act. I believe that this is a situation where there is a clear and present danger that this individual, for some reason — what it is we don’t know — but is, is taking a position that’s intractable, regardless of proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Reddington said.
To be clear, there is no evidence that the holdout has anything to do with the fact that Clancy is in a wheelchair (a result of her jumping out the window and paralyzing herself after slaughtering her kids). There is a good chance the juror is holding out because he finds murder wrong. But that matters naught. Reddington’s bizarre suggestion is the reality of livestreaming hearings.
Clancy is on trial for murdering her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months in 2023. Neither party disputes that she strangled the children with exercise bands before cutting herself and jumping out of a window. Her defense team has argued she should be let off the hook because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
The jury could not reach a unanimous decision after several days of deliberations, resulting in a mistrial. Reddington then seemingly tried to insinuate the holdout juror is bigoted toward disabled people. But this performative statement was only encouraged by the spectacle that cameras in the courtroom created. The trial was broadcast, and there were constant clips circulating on the internet. Those clips helped divide the internet into two camps: the Clancy is guilty camp and the Clancy is the victim camp. While attorneys once were only focused on appealing to the jury and judge, now it seems like attorneys had a third audience: social media and maybe Netflix true-crime producers.
Reddington himself seemed to relish in the celebrity-esque status that cameras in the courtroom gave him, having been seen in videos posing for photographs with supporters of Clancy outside the courthouse. Reddington also reportedly has “slammed a stack of papers” and “raised his voice” during the trial, according to the BBC. He also has a history of creating “courtroom spectacles,” as the BBC reported. Reddington reportedly once “threw a pair of ninja stars across the courtroom” during a 1989 case in which he defended a woman accused of killing her boyfriend.
And while lawyers are of course trying to zealously advocate for their client, livestreaming creates an incentive to say things that are outlandish but good for clipping purposes.
As The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood wrote, televised congressional hearings have turned what should be serious proceedings into “performative slugfests.”
“Representatives and senators alike aren’t focused on debating great matters of public policy so much as they are trying to one-up one another and grab coveted soundbites for cable news and social media,” Fleetwood wrote. “There is no reason to believe putting cameras in the courtroom would yield a different result.”
The dramatic outbursts of Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney are further confirmation of this conclusion.
