Lindsay Clancy’s Attorney Kevin Reddington Seeks Mistrial Over ‘Inappropriate’ Testimony

A single phrase tied to Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy‘s Catholic faith, raised twice during testimony, nearly brought her murder trial to a halt and prompted her attorney Kevin Reddington to demand a retrial.

NewsNation reported on Monday, August 24, that the issue arose during testimony from forensic psychologist Kirk Heilbrun, who interviewed Lindsay twice after the 2023 killings of her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan — and her own attempted suicide at the family’s Duxbury home.

Heilbrun was discussing Lindsay’s reported statement to her children, “Go to God, baby,” and her belief that she and the children would be reunited in heaven, when he referenced her Catholic upbringing and testified that he had asked her whether suicide was considered a “mortal sin.”

Defense attorney Reddington objected, prompting a sidebar.

Once the jury was dismissed from the room, Reddington moved for a mistrial, arguing prosecutors had improperly injected religion into the case for a second time, as per NewsNation.

“It’s the same thing again,” he said, calling the repeated references “intentional misconduct.”

He noted he’d made a “tactical decision” not to seek a mistrial the first time the term came up, since the judge’s earlier instruction to jurors had been “forceful” and “right on point.”

The first instance came last week during the trial, when prosecutor Shanan Buckingham asked Lindsay’s former mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, whether she understood murder to be a “mortal sin” after confirming she was an active member of the Catholic Church.

That exchange also prompted a sidebar and an instruction for jurors to disregard it.

Prosecutors denied intentionally raising the topic, saying Heilbrun brought it up while explaining how he assessed whether Lindsay understood the moral wrongfulness of her actions. “There was no intentional conduct by the Commonwealth,” a prosecutor said. Judge William Sullivan ultimately denied the mistrial request, according to video shared by the Boston Globe.

He brought the jury back in to strike Heilbrun’s testimony on Lindsay’s religion, calling it “absolutely an inappropriate area of testimony.”

“It is to be stricken. It is not to be considered. I can’t be any more clear of that. It cannot be considered,” he told jurors before dismissing them for the day.

Court is set to resume Tuesday morning.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide or struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available 24 hours a day through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.