The Lindsay Clancy case took a turn this week when her legal team headed by Kevin Reddington filed a “motion to dismiss on Double Jeopardy.” How does that work? Read on to find out.
A Second Trial
We previously reported that double jeopardy did not prevent Lindsay Clancy from facing a second trial because her first trial ended with a hung jury rather than an acquittal.
However, her attorneys are now arguing that the circumstances surrounding that mistrial change the legal equation.
When Reddington spoke about it during a press conference that was covered by NewsNation on YouTube, he was reacting to Patrick Clancy’s interview with 60 Minutes about the trial.
Can A Hung Jury Case Can Be Retried?
Viewers might wonder how the legal team can even begin to think a double jeopardy motion might have any weight. Well, it turns out that a hung jury case can be retried. But there’s an exception.
The judge needed a legally good reason to end the first trial. Clancy’s lawyers say he didn’t have one. You might recall that in another press conference outside the court, Reddington was furious and leaked that the holdout juror was “a man.”
Meanwhile inside the court, he’d requested that the judge question the holdout and consider removing him. That request was dismissed, and the case was declared a mistrial.
The Filed Motion
The Boston Globe reported that an appellate lawyer on the team, Martin G. Weinberg, who filed the motion, said that “any successive trial would constitute a violation of Ms. Clancy’s Double Jeopardy rights.”
Additionally, he noted that “Clancy, like all criminal defendants, had a Constitutional right to have her fate decided by an impartial jury of her peers.”
When the judge declared a mistrial because of the hung jury, Lindsay Clancy’s legal team noted that “multiple reports of a juror violating this bedrock principle, therefore, required a judicial inquiry sufficient to ascertain whether her right to an impartial jury was being violated.”
So, they argue that the court had a duty to investigate and potentially swap in an alternate juror, rather than terminating the whole trial.
Reddington also said they were filing a “motion for the Rule 25 required finding,” along with other motions concerning discovery.
Reasonable Doubt Argument
Ahead of Monday’s filing, on the Surviving the Survivor podcast, retired Massachusetts judges mentioned Rule 25(b)(2) and how it tied into Commonwealth v. Latimore.
Reddington’s argument is that, under the Latimore standard, the evidence never should have reached a jury at all.
However, they also explained that the double jeopardy argument is the stronger of the two because the forelady’s first note said the holdout had “a doubt” and would not follow the reasonable doubt charge.
Since then, jurors have spoken out, alleging that he had reasonable doubt but wouldn’t vote to acquit Clancy.
Was The Judge Too Hasty?
Jay Blitzman said, “As we had anticipated, jurors have come forward, as occurred in the Karen Read case.” Then, he talked about a problem.
He explained, “What’s problematic, however, is that the jurors have come forward after the jury was discharged following Judge Sullivan’s determination that a manifest necessity because of the hung jury required that jury to be discharged.”
He also mentioned that Judge William Sullivan “indicated his predisposition to declare a mistrial,” which is why “Attorney Reddington said he wanted to file a 211:3,” an emergency petition asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to intervene before the mistrial was declared.
Ready To Appeal
The September 29 hearing should be interesting because Reddington has already indicated that the defense will appeal if the double jeopardy argument fails.
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