Just as the judge was about to formally declare a mistrial in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy on Friday morning, her lawyer made an extraordinary appeal for an emergency stay.
It was a last-ditch effort. The judge, William Sullivan, had just announced that he planned to declare a mistrial because the jury had failed come to unanimous agreement on a verdict.
Ms. Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, asked the judge to send the jurors back to deliberation, but that request was denied. A minute passed, and just as the jury was on its way into the courtroom, Mr. Reddington stood up again to try something else.
Referring to the situation as a “travesty,” Mr. Reddington appealed to a Massachusetts law that establishes the “general superintendence” of the state’s supreme judicial court and calls upon it to correct or prevent errors in the lower courts, as long as “no other remedy is expressly provided.”
With some hesitation, Judge Sullivan allowed the emergency stay. “I’ll give you an hour,” he said.
Mr. Reddington was making what is known as an interlocutory appeal, according to R. Michael Cassidy, a law professor at Boston College. Essentially, Mr. Reddington was asking a single justice of the state’s Supreme Judicial Court to prevent the declaring of a mistrial, citing a constitutional rights violation, even though the murder trial has yet to formally conclude.
The justice may allow for a hearing and grant Mr. Reddington’s request, deny it with or without a hearing, or refer the matter to the full bench of the state’s supreme court.
It may be a long shot, but Mr. Reddington’s request is not entirely without precedent. Jack Lu, a retired Massachusetts Superior Court judge, said that emergency appeals to a higher court during murder trials are common, and the requests are sometimes granted.
However, he added, he was unaware of any precedent for a lawyer to make the request so soon before a mistrial is declared, and to have a “made-for-TV drama where the judge stops almost in midsentence and stays the case.”
Professor Cassidy said that he doubted Mr. Reddington would succeed. “But apparently the judge is letting him take his Hail Mary shot,” he added.
Jurors have been deliberating since last week for a total of about 38 hours, and they have been deadlocked at least since Tuesday. On Thursday, they revealed that one juror was at odds with all of the others. Mr. Reddington had asked for that juror to be removed, but his request was denied.