Lindsay Clancy’s attorney is asking Trump for a pardon after her mistrial, but legal experts say the unusual move may serve a different purpose.
MASSACHUSETTS — Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney is making an extraordinary appeal to President Donald Trump after her murder trial ended in a mistrial, but legal experts say the pardon request may be aimed at influencing the case rather than securing clemency.
Attorney Kevin Reddington publicly asked Trump to consider pardoning Clancy, who is accused of killing her three young children in 2023. The request came days after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict following lengthy deliberations.
The unusual request immediately raised a basic legal question: Can the president pardon someone facing state charges?
The answer is generally no.
Trump cannot pardon state charges
Clancy’s case is being prosecuted under Massachusetts state law, meaning the president does not have the constitutional authority to pardon the charges against her.
Legal analysts have therefore questioned why Reddington would direct his appeal to Trump in the first place.
NBC Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne described the request as more of a political maneuver than a legal strategy, arguing that it could be an attempt to draw presidential attention to the case and influence the broader public conversation.
That distinction could be significant because Clancy’s case remains unresolved following the mistrial.
Prosecutors have not yet abandoned the possibility of another trial, leaving the defense with a strong incentive to shape the narrative surrounding Clancy before the next stage of the proceedings.
Mistrial leaves Clancy’s future uncertain
Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, was accused of strangling her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — at their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home in January 2023.
She later attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window and suffered severe injuries that left her partially paralyzed.
Clancy did not deny killing the children. Instead, her defense argued that she was not criminally responsible because she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis.
The prosecution presented a different account, arguing that Clancy understood her actions and that the killings were deliberate.
After more than 38 hours of deliberations, jurors remained deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial.
Reports indicate the jury was split 11-1, with one juror refusing to acquit Clancy on the grounds of insanity despite expressing reasonable doubt.
Defense focuses on mental health
Reddington’s appeal to Trump centered heavily on Clancy’s mental health and the circumstances surrounding the killings.
The defense has argued that Clancy experienced a severe psychotic episode and that medication and postpartum mental illness played a role in her behavior.
A defense psychiatrist testified during the trial that Clancy was “frankly psychotic” at the time of the killings, while prosecutors challenged the idea that she was incapable of understanding what she was doing.
Reddington has also publicly criticized aspects of the jury’s deliberations and maintained that the defense presented a compelling case.
The mistrial, however, means none of those arguments resulted in a final verdict.
Could the pardon plea be strategic?
Because Trump lacks authority over Massachusetts criminal charges, the pardon request is unlikely to provide Clancy with a direct legal escape.
Instead, experts say the public appeal could have other objectives.
One possibility is to elevate the case to the national political stage and generate additional attention around the defense’s argument that Clancy was suffering from a profound mental health crisis.
Another could be to create pressure around any decision by Massachusetts prosecutors to retry the case.
The defense may also hope that Trump’s interest in the case could encourage broader public discussion about criminal responsibility, postpartum psychosis and the treatment of women experiencing severe psychiatric illness.
Trump has already commented publicly on Clancy’s case, describing the killings as horrible while suggesting that Clancy could ultimately face prison or institutionalization.
Retrial remains a possibility
The mistrial does not mean Clancy has been cleared.
Prosecutors must now determine whether to pursue another trial, negotiate a resolution or take another legal path. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29 to address the next steps.
A retrial could present challenges for both sides.
For prosecutors, the first trial demonstrated how difficult it may be to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt when the defense is built around severe mental illness.
For Clancy’s defense, a second trial would mean once again putting her mental state, medical history and actions before a jury.
The defense’s decision to make a direct appeal to Trump adds another layer to an already extraordinary case.
While the president cannot simply erase Clancy’s Massachusetts charges, the attention generated by the pardon request could give her legal team another way to influence the debate surrounding the case.
For now, however, the central question remains in Massachusetts: whether prosecutors will seek another trial and whether a future jury will reach the unanimous verdict that the first jury could not.
