Lindsay Clancy adds Karen Read attorney Martin Weinberg to mount double jeopardy defense after mistrial

The Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children has brought in the veteran attorney who argued double jeopardy for Karen Read, setting up a high-stakes legal fight over whether prosecutors can try her again.

Martin Weinberg, a veteran Boston defense attorney, entered a limited appearance at Plymouth Superior Court this week to file and argue a forthcoming motion seeking dismissal of the case against Lindsay Clancy on double jeopardy grounds. The court filing, obtained by Fox News Digital, states Weinberg will represent Clancy in connection with the dismissal motion and "related matters." The filing does not say when Weinberg will submit the motion itself.

Clancy, who has been in custody at Tewksbury Hospital since January 2023, does not deny killing her three children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, just 8 months old, inside the family's home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She pleaded not guilty. Her defense argued she was not criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis and heavy medication at the time of the killings. Prosecutors countered that Clancy carefully planned the attack, sending her husband Patrick out of the house before strangling the children with exercise bands. She then jumped from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt, leaving her paralyzed.

Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on September 4 after jurors spent seven days deliberating and reported they could not reach a unanimous verdict. The reported jury split was 11 to 1 in favor of finding Clancy not criminally responsible, a lopsided margin that now forms the backbone of the defense's argument against a second trial.

Reddington says the mistrial lacked 'manifest necessity'

Clancy's longtime defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, signaled immediately after the mistrial that he would fight any attempt to put her on trial again. Reddington has said publicly that Clancy "deserved an acquittal." He plans to argue the motion to dismiss at a September 29 hearing.

The legal theory centers on a concept called "manifest necessity", the idea that a mistrial is only proper when the court has no reasonable alternative. Reddington told the New York Post the mistrial lacked that threshold.

"It will be a motion to dismiss based on what's called double jeopardy grounds, because there's no manifest necessity."

Reddington's argument rests on the deadlocked jury's composition. The mistrial resulted from 38 hours of deliberations over seven days, with a single male holdout juror who, according to the defense, refused to vote not guilty by reason of insanity despite acknowledging he had reasonable doubt. Reddington contends Judge Sullivan could have dismissed that juror and restarted deliberations with an alternate rather than declaring a mistrial outright.

Sullivan saw it differently during the trial itself. When Reddington argued the holdout juror refused to follow the judge's instructions and sought the juror's removal, Sullivan declined.

As AP News reported, Sullivan told the courtroom he did not feel it was proper to take sides in deliberations.

"I don't feel it is proper for me to side with one side or the other of the deliberations. I don't feel it's appropriate for me to say, I agree with one juror or the 11."

That ruling, refusing to remove the holdout, is now central to the defense's double jeopardy claim. If Sullivan had an alternative to a mistrial and chose not to use it, Reddington and Weinberg will argue, the Constitution bars a second prosecution.

Weinberg tested this playbook before, and lost

Weinberg is no stranger to this kind of fight. He argued a similar double jeopardy motion for Karen Read, whose 2024 trial also ended without a verdict. In that case, a judge rejected the request, finding the jury never formally returned not-guilty verdicts and that Read's attorneys had agreed to the mistrial. Read was retried in 2025. She was acquitted of second-degree murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a deadly crash, but convicted of misdemeanor operating under the influence.

The Clancy defense will likely try to distinguish her case from Read's. The reported 11-1 split, combined with the defense's objection to the mistrial and the argument that the holdout juror was not following the law, gives Weinberg different facts to work with. Whether those differences are enough to change the outcome is the question Plymouth Superior Court will have to answer.

Prosecutors have not publicly announced whether they intend to retry Clancy. That silence leaves the case in limbo, and leaves the families of three dead children waiting for a resolution that may never come if the defense motion succeeds.

Sullivan locks down juror identities amid safety fears

The fallout from the mistrial has extended well beyond the courtroom. Sullivan ordered the identities of all 12 jurors and six alternates to remain private indefinitely, citing safety concerns and the unauthorized disclosure of jurors' personal information during the trial. In a written order, the judge described the threat plainly.

"Based on the circumstances of this trial and the fact that the case continues to receive daily, divisive attention in Massachusetts and beyond, the Court concludes that there is a real and present 'risk of [personal] harm to the jurors [and] to the integrity of their service.'"

Sullivan found "a risk of immediate and irreparable injury" if the juror list were made public. At least one juror had asked for the protection to be extended indefinitely. The judge also noted that jurors had been identified without their permission, though the order does not specify by whom or how. Jurors remain free to identify themselves or speak with the media if they choose.

The dynamics inside that jury room have drawn intense public scrutiny. Reports about whether the holdout was the only juror who refused to budge have only added to the pressure on jurors who served.

Sullivan separately extended protection covering the names of the larger jury pool summoned between July 20 and July 24, ordering those names to remain sealed for an additional 10 days because of concerns about juror safety.

Reddington pushes back on conspiracy theories targeting Patrick Clancy

Reddington has also stepped into a different role since the mistrial, defending Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband Patrick against online conspiracy theories. Reddington said Lindsay Clancy herself is upset by the baseless allegations against her former husband.

"She certainly does not agree with that. The guy was her husband. They had a very, very, very strong relationship."

The case drew a remarkable moment during the trial's final days when the wheelchair-bound Clancy, paralyzed from the waist down, was brought to a sidebar with the judge for the first time. Reddington insisted she had a right to know what was happening as the jury dispute unfolded.

Clancy's case returns to Plymouth Superior Court on September 29. By then, the defense will need to lay out its full argument for why the Constitution's protection against being tried twice for the same offense should end this prosecution for good.

Three children are dead. The woman who killed them has not been convicted. And now the question before the court is not what Lindsay Clancy did, but whether the system gets a second chance to hold her accountable for it.