Kevin Reddington, the defense attorney for Lindsay Clancy, has made his opening argument in the preliminary hearing for her second murder trial, and according to a scathing commentary in American Thinker, it amounts to a remarkably thin strategy: insisting that the prosecution has not proven anything at all.
Writing for the outlet, J.R. Dunn describes the hearing as the moment when the defense revealed what it had been holding back — in his telling, “absolutely nothing.” Reddington’s line, as quoted in the piece, is a direct attack on the state’s case: “Harken back to the evidence that was presented, and ask yourself, where’s the evidence that she did this. Where is the evidence that she… did… this… This entire case is based on speculation… There was no investigation. They immediately assumed this woman was guilty.”
Dunn’s central objection is chronological. He argues that the first trial already established the underlying facts — that Clancy carried out the killings — leaving only the narrower legal question of whether she was criminally responsible, meaning whether she was in her right mind at the time of the offense. From Dunn’s perspective, the defense is now trying to relitigate ground that was already settled, and doing so by leaning on the language of doubt rather than evidence.
A defense borrowed from social media, Dunn argues
Dunn goes further, claiming that Reddington’s approach mirrors the arguments made by online commenters — the “pinkshirts,” as he calls them — whose Facebook posts and TikTok videos have insisted on Clancy’s innocence. He compares the dynamic to the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, when, he writes, teenage girls loudly proclaimed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev innocent. His point is that the impulse is the same: emotional certainty in the face of established facts.
One of the central pillars of that online argument, Dunn notes, is the theory that Patrick Clancy actually committed the murders and then arranged for the blame to fall on Lindsay. Dunn dismisses this outright, writing that “nobody seriously believes this” and noting that Reddington himself did not raise it — presumably because it is not credible enough to help the defense.
The commentary also takes aim at how the defense is handling Clancy’s admission that she killed the children. Dunn quotes Reddington again: “There’s no evidence that she admitted that she did this. You have no evidence from the defendant. In Massachusetts, an uncorroborated statement of a defendant obviously is not evidence, obviously you need corroboration, and I submit to the court that there is no evidence.”
Dunn’s response is blunt and grim, resting on the physical reality of the case: “Well, there are those three small bodies, but I guess they don’t count.” It is the harshest line in the piece, and it captures the columnist’s frustration with a defense strategy that asks the court to disregard the most concrete facts of the case.
Reddington seeks dismissal; Dunn predicts it will fail
Reddington has asked the court to dismiss the case. Dunn’s assessment is that he will not get it. He calls on the court to seat “a jury of sane humans and get this done,” framing the retrial as a straightforward matter that has been complicated by legal maneuvering rather than any genuine ambiguity.
Part of Dunn’s confidence lies in how he expects jury selection to unfold. He argues that the defense is gambling on getting another ideologically sympathetic panel, similar to the one he claims sat for the first trial, but that such an outcome is unlikely this time. Voir dire, he predicts, “promises to be absolutely brutal,” with potential jurors facing intense questioning. His hope is that the process will screen out what he describes as “rabid feminists, aging hippie chicks, or go-along-to-get-along beta males” — a description that reflects the columnist’s openly partisan view of the first jury rather than any neutral account of it.
For Dunn, the only real question left is whether Clancy was in her right mind at the time of the offense. He does not accept that the retrial should reopen the broader factual record, and he treats Reddington’s “no evidence” argument as a rhetorical fallback rather than a genuine legal position.
What the commentary reflects
It is worth being clear about what this piece is: an opinion column, not a news report. Dunn does not claim to have new evidence or inside information about the case. His argument is built entirely on what happened in the first trial, the statements Reddington has made in the preliminary hearing this time around, and his own reading of the public reaction that has surrounded the case online.
That reaction matters to Dunn because he sees it as the wellspring of Reddington’s current strategy. The defense, in his account, has adopted the social media argument almost in full — the claim that Clancy did not do it, that the investigation was shoddy, and that assumptions of guilt drove the case from the start. Dunn’s counter is that the first trial already answered those questions, and that a second trial should not be treated as a do-over.
What remains unknown is how the court will respond to the dismissal request, how the jury will be selected, and how the question of criminal responsibility will ultimately be resolved. Dunn’s prediction — that the defense’s gamble will fail and a jury will deliver a verdict — is just that, a prediction. But it captures a broader frustration among observers who believe the retrial should focus narrowly on the mental-state question rather than relitigating the killings themselves.
The preliminary hearing has now concluded, and the case moves toward trial. For critics like Dunn, the proper venue is a courtroom with a jury, not a debate over whether the evidence existed in the first place. “Let’s seat a jury of sane humans and get this done,” he writes. Whether the court agrees with his framing is now the central question.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/kevin-reddington-s-last-stand/