Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha said the defense attorney in the Lindsay Clancy trial, Kevin Reddington, should be “disbarred.”
“At one point, supporters went up to Kevin Reddington and said, ‘Where can I buy you a steak dinner?’” Concha said on Fox News’s The Big Weekend Show on Saturday. “As if there is something to celebrate here. What an absolute joke. He should be disbarred, I’ll say it.”
The weekslong trial, followed by seven days of deliberation, ultimately resulted in a mistrial. The ruling came after an 11-1 verdict, with one single holdout. A note passed by the jury foreperson was read in court, stating that one juror wasn’t applying the legal burden of “reasonable doubt” to his decision. Following the mistrial, Reddington blasted the juror during a news conference.
“[The jurors] know that they were robbed,” Reddington said. “By one who, for whatever his agenda was, stole seven weeks of the lives of these other jurors. You can see how defeated they were sitting there.”
“Hm, Siri, what’s grandstanding?” Concha said.
Prosecutors now must choose where to proceed with a retrial, bench trial, a plea deal, or full-out dismissal. Concha said it would be extremely difficult to find an impartial jury, given the insurmountable amount of media coverage. Social media has also seen an influx of people commenting on the trial, both against and in support of Clancy.
“How can you possibly, given all the media attention around this and given how prevalent social media is on our phones and in our lives in general, how can another trial possibly find an unbiased jury at this point?” Concha said, directing the question to Susan Constantine, a jury consultant.
Constantine said the prosecution needed to let things “calm down first” if they wanted to find an unbiased jury. The concern isn’t whether potential jurors have heard about the case, but rather if they’ve already formed their own opinion, Constantine said.
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“This entire pelmath was uprooted, right?” Constantine said. “I mean, we’ve got, we had protesters out there. Wherever I went for breakfast or for lunch, everyone was talking about it. It’s all over the United States and even international, in the U.K. I mean, it’s everywhere.”
Clancy remains committed to a mental health institution.