For decades, Kevin Reddington has been the courtroom magician who turns impossible defenses into headline-grabbing 𝒹𝓇𝒶𝓂𝒶. Now, the 75-year-old legal veteran is fighting to save Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children, from a life behind bars.
Reddington has spent over 50 years representing clients in some of the most 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 cases in New England history. His signature move? Arguing that his clients were driven by severe mental illness, not malice.
In Clancy’s case, he claims she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis, worsened by prescription meds, and even heard a voice telling her to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her kids and herself. Prosecutors say she planned the murders carefully, sending her husband out for errands before the attacks.
The lawyer’s reputation was built on jaw-dropping courtroom moments. In 1989, he defended Therese Rogers, who stabbed her boyfriend’s eyes out while he slept. Reddington argued she suffered from battered woman syndrome and PTSD—one of the first successful uses of that defense.
During the trial, he dramatically flung martial arts stars across the room to show how dangerous they were. Rogers was acquitted.
In 1998, he got Boston Red Sox star Mo Vaughn off a DUI charge by convincing the jury that Vaughn’s wobbling was due to a knee injury, not alcohol. The slugger walked free.
But not all his insanity defenses worked. In 2000, Michael “Mucko” McDermott shot seven coworkers at a tech company, claiming he was on a mission from St. Michael to stop the Holocaust.
Reddington argued schizophrenia, but the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. Similarly, businessman Richard Shuman was convicted of killing two associates despite claims of a psychotic episode.
Reddington also represented Catherine Greig, the girlfriend of Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger, after she was caught harboring the fugitive. She pleaded guilty and served eight years. More recently, he stepped into the Karen Read case, representing witness Jennifer McCabe when she was subpoenaed.
In the Clancy trial, Reddington even tried to use the Karen Read case to push for a partial verdict, but the judge declared a mistrial after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision following 40 hours of deliberation. Clancy is due back in court on September 29.
Reddington once said he never wanted to be a prosecutor because he couldn’t bring himself to put someone in jail. With a career full of acquittals and life sentences alike, what will his next move be for Lindsay Clancy?
