I was surprised to hear on a flight this week that Lindsay Clancy’s defense counsel, Kevin Reddington, had unleashed a torrent of criticism of my commentary on the trial. In the interview with Fox News reporter Bryan Llenas, Reddington even suggested that we meet and debate these issues. I wanted to briefly respond to Reddington’s criticisms.
I actually praised Reddington’s handling through the end of the trial, until I felt he blew the summation to the jury. I was also critical of his motions to substitute a holdout juror with an alternate as running against the overwhelming authority in the area. However, what triggered Reddington was not my commentary on his trial performance, but what he did outside of the courthouse when he attacked the holdout juror. It was a repugnant and unprofessional venting by counsel who should be reaffirming the right of every juror to stand with their convictions against not just the other jurors but the world.
Reddington responded to my characterization of his conduct in front of the courthouse as “reprehensible” by calling my criticism reprehensible and adding, “maybe Jonathan Turley should check out the record before he makes his accusations.”
The “record” supporting this criticism is, in fact, his self-aggrandizing performance outside of the courthouse when he first said that the hung jury was “no time to gloat” and then gloated about how he “crushed” the prosecution in securing an 11-1 result. Yet, my objection was not to chest-thumping. It was a tad ungracious but unfortunately not entirely uncommon. Rather, it was the targeting of the holdout that left me floored as a fellow criminal defense lawyer.
Reddington had previously lit up the courtroom (which was being aired nationally) with his attacks on the juror. Reddington only knew that the other jurors were unhappy with the juror and said that he refused to follow the law. That is a common complaint against a holdout juror. This case turned on the credibility of the defendant and almost visceral reactions to a case where three innocent children were strangled by their mother, who planned the killings by sending her husband on errands.
I was mildly critical of the courtroom attacks, but I give leeway to a defense counsel who is fighting zealously for his client in seeking an acquittal. It was taking that rage outside the courthouse that crossed the line for me.
Reddington slammed into the juror who was already identified as one of just three males on the jury. He knew the juror’s name would likely be disclosed in time, given the anger over the trial’s outcome.
We clearly disagree on what lawyers are expected to do in high-profile cases. This is not what I teach my students about the professional standards that govern our conduct as officers of the court. Most of those expectations are not directly enforced by bar or court proceedings. Rather, much of what we do is the result of self-regulation; seeking to reinforce the noble ideals of our profession.
Instead of reminding people that our system is based on this core belief in the right of any citizen to stand alone against the majority, Reddington shredded the juror as presumptively anti-disability and akin to a racist on the jury. In front of the cameras, he declared, “I hope that guy can sleep well at night.”
Reddington knew that he was playing to the mob. District Attorney Tim Cruz had just been heckled on the steps by women who protested throughout the trial in favor of acquittal of Clancy, with one yelling how Cruz “only cares about the three children. What about the Mom?”
Frankly, in the aftermath of the trial, the two things that surprised me most were not the verdict, but the absence of an immediate apology from Reddington for his gratuitous attack on this juror and the failure of Judge William Sullivan to publicly rebuke him for his comments.
While our disagreement focuses on the attack on the juror, Reddington returned to his claim that what this juror did was itself unethical and contemptible. This juror was not convinced by his arguments, but Reddington suggests that no reasonable juror could have reached such a view despite many in this country who saw his client as a troubled murderer, but a murderer nonetheless.
There was a good-faith basis for taking that view even if most people would likely see Clancy as not responsible by reason of insanity. The standard is not whether Clancy was medically ill. She was clearly a deeply disturbed individual who failed to receive adequate mental health treatment. However, you can be suicidal and mentally ill and still appreciate the gravity of your actions.
The defense position was not unassailable. The long list of medications ignored the fact that only a couple of those prescriptions would likely contribute to psychosis and it was not clear how many pills Clancy actually took. She also had a fairly unusual case of postpartum psychosis in terms of the passage of time and said that she first heard a commanding male voice for the first time just before she killed her children.
Most importantly, Clancy took steps that showed planning and control of her actions, including researching how long it would take her misdirected husband to return. She spoke with him while he was building the crime scene on the telephone and kept him in the dark about her unfolding plans.
Would that erase reasonable doubt in the minds of most jurors? Probably not. As I stated before the trial, the chances of getting a unanimous verdict in this type of case are slim. This is a visceral case, which is why I was not surprised that the jury asked only to see a couple of pieces of evidence. The views of most people were baked into this trial before it began, and frankly, that may have been true for some of the jurors.
Reddington has every reason to exploit those feelings and play to doubts among the jurors. What he did not have license to do was target and ostracize the one holdout juror. Rather than taking the high ground, he immediately ran for the lowest common denominator among a nation of rage addicts.
Yes, that is indeed reprehensible. To paraphrase Mr. Reddington, it is the type of thing that would keep most of us up at night.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Mabye some jurors have an opinion but they are just not good at explaining their position to the rest of the jury.
Jury’s should not act like a mob.
Professor Turley is upset because Reddington pushed the boundary of what he could legally say about the jury. I would concede that there IS room to argue Reddington may have poisoned the jury poll because of his comments due to the fact that the case is going to be retried. To be fair to Turley he is partly correct. It may have been unethical or unprofessional, but only because Reddington did, as Turley openly admits, his job to fiercely defend his client. He can at least emphasize with that view.
However this is about the law, not feelings or offense about a lawyer pushing the absolute limits.
Reddington recently challenged Turley to a public debate because, from his vantage point, the rule violation did not come from the defense—it came from the juror.
Reddington intends to use the statements from the other 11 jurors to file a motion to dismiss the case. His logic is that the trial didn’t end in a legitimate deadlock; it ended because a juror committed misconduct by actively refusing to follow the judge’s instructions.>/b> In Reddington’s eyes, exposing a broken mechanic in the tribunal isn’t “prejudicing” a case—it is defending his client against an unconstitutional proceeding.
Once a judge officially declares a mistrial and dismisses the jury, the jurors become ordinary citizens. They are no longer under the court’s strict rules of isolation, and the lawyers are no longer under a gag order regarding the trial’s outcome.
Because Reddington did not release the juror’s name, address, or face, he did not violate any criminal harassment or doxxing statutes. He was exercising his First Amendment right to express frustration to the media. Turley is upset that the juror’s identity may be exposed by someone else and he wants to blame Reddington. It’s ironic because it flies in the face of Turley’s own views about free speech and how some consequences are sometimes inevitable.
Under the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.6 restricts lawyers from making public, out-of-court statements that have a “substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding.” But because the trial was over and jurors were no longer impaneled and under court rules Reddington was free to be critical of the lone juror. But…because the state intends to retry Lindsay Clancy, polluting the local jury pool by publicly attacking the mechanics of the first jury could be viewed as highly improper. Again…BUT it’s not just Reddington’s criticism that is the problem is everyone else talking about it..
What Turley did NOT say in his article is that Reddington subsequently walked back his most aggressive language, clarifying that he respects the constitutional right of a holdout juror. He argues that his public comments were not an attack on the jury system, but rather an exposure of a specific juror who abused the system by failing to apply the law as instructed.
Was Reddington’s ire and criticism of the lone juror justified? Yes.
According to notes sent by the jury foreperson and subsequent media interviews by three fellow jurors, the lone holdout admitted he had reasonable doubt about Clancy’s criminal responsibility, yet refused to vote for an acquittal. Jurors even noted he stopped participating in deliberations and just scrolled on his phone. From Reddington’s perspective as a defense attorney, a juror who openly admitsthere is reasonable doubt but refuses to acquit is violating their oath and breaking the fundamental rules of criminal law.
Turley never addresses this critical point. He’s only upset about Reddington legally expressing his frustration with that juror. It also expose the fact that the defense, Reddington, was indeed successful in proving reasonable doubt to 12 jurors, one chose to ignore the law and the judge’s instructions because he feltshe was guilty regardless of his reasonable doubt.
X. Must be nice living in your head with Peter Pan and the Easter bunny.
Did he really say Clancy was a ‘damn good mother’ who did ‘nothing wrong’” ? I thought the trial was about the murder of her 3 defenseless babies at her hands? Maybe the “hold out” juror was thinking the same thing? Then again didn’t Mass sign a bill providing abortion up to birth? Amazing how these states will consider the death of innocent babies but a convicted murderer is safe from a death penalty.
Of course, I disagree with the professor. His position is largely emotional—an outburst rather than a logical argument. Let’s not forget that Reddington’s criticism of the juror after the mistrial was simply venting about the fact that this juror was breaking the law and failing to follow instructions. Turley didn’t really address that point; he only tepidly acknowledged there was a reason to argue about the legality of what the juror did.
Nobody is saying it was okay to murder those children. Nobody—not even the jurors. We already know what the jury went through, and it was literally acknowledged that the holdout openly admitted he had reasonable doubt but chose not to adhere to the rules. Turley is big on sticking to the rules, yet this juror was clearly ignoring both the judge’s instructions and the law.Then there are the backbenchers heaping rants upon liberal jurors—professional nurses who understood the issue better than most people here. They explicitly acknowledged that the murder of the children was wrong and that she was guilty of killing her kids. However, the law is clear: if there is reasonable doubt, they must acquit. It may feel reprehensible and wrong to do so, but everyone else is operating on bias and emotion rather than the law.
It is similar to the Luigi Mangione case. Everyone wanted to acquit him regardless of his actions, except for those who wanted to hold him accountable strictly to the law. The same types of people are now in full support of that lone juror basing his reasoning on personal feelings instead of the legal framework.
Turley is upset that a lawyer was critical of a juror after a mistrial was declared. It is neither illegal nor wrong; the attorney was just expressing frustration. Turley, acting as the ‘civility guy,’ was merely upset that Reddington wasn’t more ‘professional.’ Yet, he never discusses the core problem: the juror’s refusal to follow the law and the judge’s instructions. Three of the jurors who spoke out confirmed that the lone holdout admitted to having reasonable doubt but chose to ignore it. Eleven agreed that there was reasonable doubt, but one chose to ignore his own assessment and outright refused to follow the law.
In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, juror service is a strict legal obligation governed by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 234A. When a juror is impaneled, they take an oath promising to well and truly try the issue between the Commonwealth and the defendant according to the evidence. Refusing to apply the law as given by the judge violates this oath.
Under the Massachusetts Model Jury Instructions, judges explicitly charge juries that they are the sole judges of the facts, but they must accept the law as the judge dictates it. In criminal cases, the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If a juror leaves deliberations with an “abiding conviction to a moral certainty” that a doubt exists, Massachusetts law dictates they are legally required to acquit—they do not have the legal authority to vote “guilty” anyway out of emotional frustration.
Under Mass. Gen. Laws c. 234A, § 39, a judge has the power to conduct an in camera (private) hearing and actively discharge a deliberating juror if there is a compelling reason or evidence of misconduct. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) established in Commonwealth v. Torres (2009) that while a judge cannot remove a juror for simply disagreeing with the majority, a juror can be legally discharged if it is proven they are unwilling or unable to apply the court’s legal instructions. This is exactly why the judge in the Clancy case had to individually question the jurors when the impasse arose.
Turley is only upset because Reddington expressed his frustration to the media on a lone juror. Once the court declared a mistrial Reddington had every right to express his criticism however “detestable” it was to Turley.
The juror was breaking the law by voting his conscience?
Is he allowed to vote his conscience?