Westlaw describes judicial estoppel thusly (readers here at EA are familiar with the principle of ethics estoppel):
A common law doctrine that prevents a party from taking a position that is contrary to a position the party took in an earlier legal proceeding. The purpose of judicial estoppel is to protect the integrity of the judicial process by preventing a party from gaining an unfair advantage or imposing an unfair detriment on the opposing party in a later proceeding. A court will typically invoke judicial estoppel where the earlier position was accepted by the court and the later position is clearly contradictory.
Trial practice is not my wheelhouse, but if the latest questionable strategy of Lindsay Clancy’s loose cannon defense attorney doesn’t warrant the infliction of judicial estoppel, I don’t know what would.
After spending the entire six-week triple-murder trial of the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children (above) arguing that Clancy was legally insane and not responsible for her actions, Kevin Reddington argued in a hearing yesterday,”What actions?”
“Where is the evidence that she did this?” Reddington asked the same judge who presided over the mistrial. The attorney claimed that the DNA and fingerprint evidence were “woefully deficient,” that the prosecution’s timeline was “ridiculous,” and the police investigation was inadequate.
Of course, his client did send her husband out on an errand from which he returned an hour later to find his children strangled. She did confess to the murders; she had been behaving erratically and was under treatment, and there is no plausible explanation for the kids death-by-exercise bands other than the fact that their mother did it. “In this case, there was no investigation. They just immediately assumed that this woman was guilty,” Reddington said.
Gee, I wonder why.
In the first trial, Reddington didn’t dispute the charges in any way, and conceded that his client was the killer. The attorney blames the judge, arguing that the fact that Judge Sullivan denied his request to bifurcate the trial, Part I to decide whether she was guilty of murder and Part II to determine if she was if she was not guilty by reason of insanity, put him in a “conundrum” of having to admit she carried out the crimes in order to put forth the insanity defense. That’s why he argued in the first trial that his client had been in the throes of severe postpartum psychosis when she snapped after she had imagined a voice commanding her to kill the children and herself.
Nice try, Counselor. The Hail Mary strategy isn’t unethical; it’s just zealous representation. No lawyers consulted about the hearing think Reddington’s gambit is going to work. The judge is not going to dismiss the case. If there is another trial, and there had better be, will he argue this time that she didn’t murder her children and then attempt suicide? What will be the theory, that a maniac somehow got into the house, killed the kids without leaving any sign he had been there, that Clancy tried to kill herself in her grief and trauma and now can’t remember the attack? Or will he try the insanity defense again?
I suspect that Reddington knows the next jury won’t be packed with women who see Clancy as a victim of a patriarchal society that forces women to bear children they don’t want, and that her prospects of being acquitted are dimming. Stay tuned.
It sounds like he is going all in on the theory the women were going pushing all over the country. The husband did it. He killed the children, went on the errands, took her phone, spoofed the GPS on the phone so it looked like it was still at home and she was texting him. When he gets home, he gaslights her into believing that she did it. In her compromised, postpartum state (8 months after birth), she is incapable of comprehending what is reality and believes him. Then, she tried to kill herself because he convinced her that she did it.
Does that sound about right?
I wish I was Patrick Clancy’s attorney. He gets to spend YEARS going after all the people who are saying this. Sure, many are judgement proof. The key is finding the ones that are not. The bored rich housewife that’s got a few million will be fun wringing out what you can in court.
That does sound about right. Not sure why people don’t think she did it and he did, other than running errands isn’t exactly a great alibi and he remarried quickly, or so I was told.
Actual evidence supports his alibi, and he remarried more than three years after the deaths of his children (Jan 2023 – Apr 2026). Those who want to blame him are blindly defending Lindsay.
Lots of movies with that basic plot. I’m particularly fond of “Hush,Hush, Sweet Charlotte”…
Agreed. I can’t figure out why this particular murder is worse or better than the others that have happened. Like the one where the mother drove them into the lake and they drowned. Or the one where the little boy was starved to death.
Motive needs to be considered here. Susan Smith allegedly had an affair with a rich business man, who did not want to have children. This was the argument of the prosecution, who sought the death penalty. The jury convicted her, but ultimately voted against the death penalty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith
Why is this a matter of motive? In the case of the boy that was locked in the closet and starved to death the mother and boyfriend arrested and convicted. I don’t recall the length of sentencing. Colorado no longer does the death penalty. More recently was the dad who was arrested for killing his family and hiding their bodies in oil barrels. Again, not sure why this particular case or her motive vs the others is so much more newsworthy. It’s all horrible. I do hope she is, in fact, guilty of the crime. I’d hate to find out later the father framed her and killed the kids.
You’re right Jack, this does sound like a movie plot, but a possible, if unlikely scenario.
It makes a difference for the outcome of the trial including sentencing if the motive for the murder is related to the desire to build a new life with a man you have an affair with, or related to a alleged psychosis. In the first case the death penalty may be pursued (Susan Smith) and in the second case legal insanity will be considered (Lindsay Clancy). I know, it makes no difference to the victims, but it makes a big difference to the strategies followed by both prosecution and defense.
Thanks for explaining.
On an ethics blog the key question is whether an action is ethical. The ethical duty for an attorney is to defend (the interests of) his client zealously. This ethical duty does not go away if his client is indefensible and beyond the pale; even a Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer is constitutional entitled to a zealous defense. So if all the defense attorney has is a Hail Mary pass, he is ethically required to throw that pass.
The secondary question is whether the new strategy has any legal merit. Pleading insanity was the best defense strategy, and that strategy almost worked. The chance of success of this strategy in any subsequent trial is substantially less, but I am not going to assume it is zero, as it would require only one juror to vote “not guilty”; in ultra-liberal Massachusetts! Guilty verdicts may also face appeals, e.g. due to discriminating against women during jury selection. But I expect the defense attorney have better insight in whether a continuation of the insanity defense has any chance of success.
I do not understand the new strategy of the defense attorney. Is there any doubt about whether it was Lindsey Clancy who killed the children? The strategy looks born out of desperation. Desperation is never a good counsillor.
I am not a lawyer, and I googled the term “Legal Estoppel”. My questions are a) whether legal estoppel applies to criminal cases in Massachusetts b) how well establish this doctrine is in statutes and case law. Can a judge or a prosecutor successfully invoke legal estoppel in a murder trial against the defense in the Lindsey Clancy trials?
Google AI mentions the following context, referring to Wikipedia: “The doctrine frequently arises in bankruptcy cases when a debtor fails to disclose a legal claim as an asset in bankruptcy court and later tries to pursue that claim in a separate lawsuit.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_estoppel
In a concurring opinion in Keathley vs Buddy Ayers Construction (2026) Justice Clarence Thomas criticized the doctrine, writing that it “appears to have no basis in any statute, any Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, or any traditional inherent power of federal courts.
It is true that a few more mistrials may happen. But the state’s money is unlimited. How long can these crazy women keep spending money? At probably a million per trial, how long until she has no more money?
I expect the next trial’s voir dire is going to be wild. It all comes down to how much shenanigans the judge will allow. I suspect not much based on how the judge has acted before. Given that the judge doesn’t want a second mistrial, and a judges acceptance of for cause challenges is very much his prerogative, I suspect a very different panel will be seated.
Also not a lawyer, but I recall from reading appellate cases that when you appeal, you typically can’t use evidence that you didn’t use in initial trial. I would’ve thought that would be the case in a mistrial as well. I’m inclined to think this new defense angle borders on frivolous, which would be unethical because it wastes everyone’s time. The reason the insanity defense got as far as it did the first time is because MA legal procedure is particularly favorable to that approach. But saying “She didn’t do it” is basically conceding that the previous defense doesn’t hold water.
not tge initial trial.
the trial involved in the appeal.
the court of appeals will not consider evidence that was not presented in the District Court (or whatever they call it: the trial court).
you could have 5 trials and they should only look at the last trial.
-Jut
“Is there any doubt about whether it was Lindsey Clancy who killed the children?”
Not reasonable doubt. All the evidence except her confession is circumstantial, but strong circumstantial evidence can cumulatively add up to certainty.
Does Legal Estoppel apply if a different lawyer is involved in the second trial? Or is it only on tv dramas where an innocent person is put on trial, the lawyer assumes he or she is guilty and either tries to convince him or her to plead guilty to a lesser offence or to bring an insanity defence? On the second trial the new lawyer could claim the first defence lawyer was lazy or incompetent and try to convince the jury that the defendant is actually innocent and never did the deed.
I’m sure the practicing defense attorneys and prosecutors in the commentariat can provide some insight on this.
If the attorney is implying that Patrick Clancy murdered his children is he refuting the video clips, time stamps and phone evidence that indicate he was indeed running the errands that Lindsay asked him to? Or is there a phantom suspect who left no biological evidence at the scene? Patrick arrived home immediately after the murders, first responders found only Lindsay and Patrick, no other suspects or evidence thereof. Apparently her attorneys have not disputed her guilt, but there is no legal confession. So is the defense attorney playing fast and loose with the facts, trying to prejudice the jury pool, seeking jury nullification?
There is a reason ordinary people view the legal profession with cynicism.