Murder a child in this country, and you used to face a unified wall of moral condemnation. No spin. No sympathetic morning show interviews. No rebranding the killer as the true victim. That consensus is fracturing – and the Lindsay Clancy case is Exhibit A.

Here are the bare facts. In January 2023, Clancy sent her husband out on errands – deliberately, according to prosecutors – then walked her three young children into the basement and strangled them one by one with exercise bands. Cora was five. Dawson was three. Callan was eight months old. She has never disputed killing them. A jury recently deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial, and now her defense attorney has decided the next move is a publicity tour.

From the Daily Wire:

Lindsay Clancy’s defense attorney is asking President Donald Trump to pardon his client after a Massachusetts jury deadlocked over whether she was criminally responsible for fatally strangling her three young children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan.

In an interview with “Good Morning America” that aired on Tuesday, Kevin Reddington made an unusual request to the White House after a hopelessly divided jury failed to reach a verdict in a trial that captivated and divided the country.

So a defense attorney representing a woman who killed three kids went on national television and asked the President to wave it all away. The obvious question: will Trump actually do anything with this request?

Short answer – he can’t. And he wouldn’t.

A request the Constitution won’t allow

Here’s what attorney Kevin Reddington apparently missed – or more likely, hoped you wouldn’t notice. The presidential pardon power under Article II of the Constitution applies exclusively to federal offenses. Clancy was charged under Massachusetts state law with three counts of first-degree murder. Trump has exactly as much authority to pardon her as he does to dismiss your neighbor’s speeding ticket. Which is to say, none.

Any seasoned attorney understands this. Reddington has practiced for decades. So this wasn’t a legal petition. It was a television segment.

And Trump? He’s already weighed in. Speaking from the Oval Office the day of the mistrial, the president was blunt.

“She did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse,” Trump told reporters. “There’ll be a price.”

Not much ambiguity there. He predicted prosecutors would retry the case and suggested Clancy would end up in a psychiatric institution or prison. That’s not a man warming up to grant clemency.

Three children who can’t speak for themselves

While Reddington was making the TV rounds – calling Clancy “like a daughter” and describing her as an “incredible person” – Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz struck a very different tone.

“Children were murdered, and it’s our job to seek justice,” Cruz said. “Our priority has always been to fight for Cora, for Dawson, and for Callan.”

The contrast is sharp. One side names the dead children. The other side books morning show appearances.

Now, postpartum psychosis is a genuine medical condition. Nobody serious disputes that. But acknowledging a real illness doesn’t require abandoning the question of criminal responsibility. Prosecutors pointed to notes on Clancy’s phone and her internet search history as evidence of premeditation. She orchestrated her husband’s absence. These details paint a picture far more complex than a woman who simply lost touch with reality.

Reddington himself admitted on GMA that his boast about “crushing” the prosecution was “bravado.” The pardon stunt has the same energy – a media play engineered to build sympathy before a potential retrial and squeeze the DA toward a deal.

The real question

Nobody in Washington is drafting pardon paperwork for Lindsay Clancy. The Constitution forbids it, and the president has zero appetite for it. That was never really the point.

The deeper problem is the cultural machinery now grinding away on behalf of a child killer. The sympathetic profiles. The tearful interviews. The reframing of a triple homicide as a healthcare failure. Meanwhile, an Illinois mother allegedly killed her own two-year-old son after becoming “invested” in the Clancy case. That should alarm every parent and grandparent in America.

Cora was five. Dawson was three. Callan was eight months old. They were strangled by the person this world entrusted above all others to keep them safe. No presidential pardon – even if one were possible – changes that. And no amount of television appearances should make us forget whose names belong at the center of this story.

Key Takeaways

• Trump cannot pardon Clancy – presidential clemency applies only to federal crimes, not state murder charges.
• The defense attorney’s public plea is a media strategy, not a legitimate legal maneuver.
• Three children were murdered, and justice demands their voices remain central to this case.
• Normalizing sympathy for perpetrators over victims corrodes the accountability our justice system requires.

Sources: Daily Wire, People.com