Lawyer for Lindsay Clancy asks judge to move trial to Boston
An attorney representing Lindsay Clancy , the woman accused of killing her three children in Duxbury in 2023, asked a judge to move her trial out of Plymouth County, arguing that the publicity around the case means Clancy can't get a fair trial otherwise.
Attorney Kevin Reddington filed the motion Monday in Plymouth Superior Court, asking Clancy's case be moved to Suffolk Superior Court in downtown Boston.
"Due to the intense and ongoing media scrutiny in this case coupled with the set of facts surrounding this first-degree murder trial the defendant submits that her rights to due process of law before an unbiased jury shall be compromised if the trial is not moved out of Plymouth County," Reddington wrote.
In his filing, Reddington argues that Clancy's case sent an "electric shock" through Duxbury and Plymouth County writ large. The intense media coverage of the case also permeated nearby Norfolk County, according to Reddington.
"The allegations of the charges are violent and intriguing and they certainly have been portrayed in a fashion in the media so as to guarantee extensive exploitative, prejudicial publicity," the filing reads.
To supplement his filing, Reddington attached more than a hundred pages of media coverage of the case from MassLive , The New York Times, The Patriot Ledger and others.
Reddington contends that all three factors that could prompt a court to change the venue for a case are each present in Clancy's. Those factors — prejudicial media coverage, the effect of pretrial publicity on the partiality of jurors and community opinion against Clancy — would each necessitate a change of venue on their own, let alone taken together, he writes.
"Lindsay Clancy has always been identified and portrayed in a highly inflammatory way," the motion reads. "This present case is a near text book example of when a fair trial is impossible because community opinion is pre-determined."
Other cases featuring intense publicity have proceeded without a change in venue. The Karen Read case was tried in Norfolk County this spring, despite huge amounts of attention.
In that case and others, potential jurors have been questioned extensively to determine if they could remain impartial. Reddington argues that process, known as voir dire, would be insufficient in Clancy's case.
"Even assuming ... a panel of jurors could be found who have not read newspapers or watched television for the past few years, such jurors would not be a fair representation of the community," Reddington wrote. "It is a risk that must not be taken."
The circumstances in Clancy's case are similar to those of others where changes of venue have been granted, Reddington wrote, pointing to a case he tried in Nantucket more than a decade ago. In that case, Thomas Toolan was convicted of killing a woman who lived on the island that he had briefly dated. The Supreme Judicial Court eventually reversed Toolan's conviction after Reddington's motion to move the trial was denied.
Plymouth County prosecutors have not responded to Reddington's motion, which is likely to be argued at a Nov. 18 hearing in the case.
Last week, Reddington filed a motion to move Clancy's trial off its scheduled date in February to at least May of next year. Prosecutors agreed to that motion.
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