Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer bashed our juries — and – Latest News
Lawyers are supposed to guard and defend America’s justice system.
Kevin Reddington, the Massachusetts legal professional defending Lindsay Clancy, appears more like an abuser thereof.
In what law professor Jonathan Turley described as “a breathtaking abandonment of restraint and decency,” Reddington went after the lone holdout juror within the case of the killer mother — a (up to now) unknown determine who we’re advised was one of the panel’s three males.
Reddington, in an unhinged press convention after a mistrial was known as, accused the dissident of stealing his fellow jurors’ time: “They know that they were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors.”
He additionally charged the holdout with hostility towards the disabled — that’s, towards the crazed defendant.
Citing the Americans with Disabilities Act, Reddington claimed that leaving a man who didn’t buy Clancy’s madness plea on the jury was like leaving a racist on a jury.
“The scene was a fitting end to a visceral trial,” Turley noticed — “but it added a vindictive element that should prompt Judge William Sullivan to call out the seasoned defense attorney.”
Reddington’s inflammatory feedback fueled a crowd of Clancy’s supporters, who condemned the native district legal professional for, of their view, caring solely concerning the three lifeless youngsters, and not the struggling of the mom — you understand, the one who admitted killing these youngsters.
Well.
Traditionally, attorneys don’t assault jurors.
Citizen jurors are an important, the truth is important, half of our justice system, and those that serve on juries are performing a public service (for a pittance in pay).
In the short time period, Reddington’s remarks risk poisoning a future jury pool in Clancy’s case — by making future jurors in a retrial afraid to stand by their own views for worry of being frolicked to dry.
Or possibly they’re designed to try this.
His accusations put a goal on the holdout juror’s back — and Internet sleuths, or leaks, are more likely to get his identify out earlier than the furor dies down.
This type of harassment could also be a breach of legal ethics, and definitely doesn’t replicate nicely upon the Massachusetts bar or on the legal system that appears to be tolerating it.
Meanwhile, Reddington’s unsupported declare of ADA bias is conceivably actionable, and definitely silly.
The jury heard weeks of testimony; public opinion on the case is fractured.
Reddington can’t truthfully consider that prejudice was this juror’s solely purpose for dissent.
That doesn’t imply his effort to disqualify the holdout through a last-minute movement to the Massachusetts Supreme Court was unethical — simply aggressive, and legally weak.
His tried character assassination after the very fact, then again, was simply plain unsuitable.
Perhaps he has dedicated the cardinal lawyer’s sin of getting too close to his consumer, or maybe he couldn’t stand having victory snatched away from him by a single juror.
Either means, it’s a very dangerous reflection on Kevin Reddington, who has abused his place as an officer of the court docket to make these remarks, exhibiting poor judgment and worse habits by an skilled lawyer who ought to know higher.
But there’s a larger difficulty right here.
We have for the final couple of generations seen our political management class — which definitely contains a lot of the bar — have interaction in a sport of civilizational Jenga, eradicating numerous supporting pillars of our society, one after the other, largely in moments of pique when issues don’t go their means.
Think lawfare prosecutions of political opponents, or utilizing censorship to sway an election.
This is one other such case.
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our day by day Post Opinion e-newsletter!
Thanks for signing up!
Our legal system will depend on juries.
For juries to do their responsibility, and to be seen as respectable, they have to be unbiased, with all members free to vote as their conscience calls for.
Twelve people, making up their own minds after evaluating the proof as they see it.
Free to steer each other in personal deliberations — and free to reject such persuasion.
Sometimes, when a panel can not unanimously agree, that may produce a hung jury.
In our system, that’s a safety for defendants: If 12 people can’t agree on their guilt primarily based on the proof offered, they’ll’t be convicted.
If jurors aren’t allowed to stay to their own opinions, juries can’t work.
Reddington ought to think about fastidiously if that’s what he actually needs.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law on the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com weblog.
