Kevin Reddington did not wait for Monday. The renewed motion for a required finding of not guilty, which the rules gave him until September 14 to file, went into Plymouth Superior Court on Wednesday. It is six pages long, and it asks Judge William Sullivan to do what one juror would not: enter a finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility on all three indictments.
The same day, Senator Ted Cruz went on Newsmax and called Lindsay Clancy a “monster of a mother.” Reddington answered him on X Thursday. The two events are unrelated, and they are the same story: the argument about what this case is has moved out of the courtroom, and the only person whose opinion now matters is Sullivan.
What the motion says
The motion’s core is one sentence: “No rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that she had no mental disease or defect when the Commonwealth’s own proof established that she did.”
The argument runs like this. Six forensic experts testified, three for each side. All six agreed Clancy was suffering from a serious mental illness on January 24, 2023. The Commonwealth’s rebuttal experts disputed the defense diagnosis of postpartum psychosis, but their own testimony placed her in a major depressive episode or bipolar II disorder with dissociation. From there: “The Commonwealth had to prove that a woman all six experts agreed was mentally ill nonetheless kept the capacity the law demands. It did not.” And: “The government did not present evidence that allows a juror earnestly seeking the truth to determine that the defendant’s guilt on the crime was proved on each element of the offense.”
The motion also leans on the deliberations. Reddington wrote that eleven jurors “were prepared to find Ms. Clancy not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility and one was not,” and that “every juror who applied the reasonable doubt standard reached that conclusion.”
The stakes are the whole case. A required finding for insufficiency of the evidence is an acquittal, and an acquittal cannot be retried. If Sullivan grants it, there is no second trial, no plea, and no decision for District Attorney Timothy Cruz to make. Clancy would be committed for evaluation under chapter 123 rather than released, as we explained in what actually happens after a not criminally responsible verdict, but the prosecution would be over.
The standard, and the problem with the motion
A motion for a required finding is decided under the standard of Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass. 671 (1979): viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, could any rational juror have found each element proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge does not weigh credibility and does not ask what the jury should have done. He asks whether there was enough evidence for a rational juror to convict.
That framing is why the motion is a long shot, and the reason is a fifty-year-old case. In Commonwealth v. Kostka, 370 Mass. 516 (1976), the Supreme Judicial Court held that a jury may find a defendant criminally responsible even where every expert who testified said she was not. The Commonwealth is entitled to rely on the presumption of sanity, on the facts of the crime itself, and on the defendant’s conduct before and after it, and the jury may reject expert opinion. Massachusetts has never abandoned that rule. It is the reason unanimous expert testimony does not produce a directed verdict in a criminal responsibility case, and it is the reason motions for a required finding at the close of the evidence are denied in nearly every such case. The exceptions exist: in Commonwealth v. Simpkins, 470 Mass. 458 (2015), a jury hung, the SJC held the required findings should have been allowed, and the indictments could not be retried. But Simpkins turned on a failure of proof on the elements of the crime, not on a dispute between experts about a defendant’s mental state.
Reddington’s motion tries to route around Kostka by splitting the standard into two questions. The first is whether Clancy had a mental disease or defect at all. The second is whether, because of it, she lacked substantial capacity to appreciate wrongfulness or to conform her conduct to the law. His argument is that the Commonwealth conceded the first question through its own experts, and that once it is conceded, the second cannot be proved on this record.
The difficulty is that the second question is the one Kostka is about. The Commonwealth’s theory at trial was that planning, the timing of the killings while her husband was on an errand, and her actions afterward showed a person who understood what she was doing and was capable of not doing it. A rational juror could accept that theory. One did. Under Latimore, that is close to the end of the analysis, and the vote count in the jury room is not evidence a judge may consider on a sufficiency motion.
None of that means the motion is frivolous. Rule 25(b)(1) expressly allows a judge to enter a required finding “after the jury is discharged without having returned a verdict,” and the motion preserves the sufficiency argument for the SJC if there is a retrial and a conviction. It also puts the eleven-to-one split on the record in the Commonwealth’s own courthouse, where Cruz has to read it while deciding whether to try the case again.
Cruz, Reddington, and the debate that will not happen
Ted Cruz’s Newsmax remarks were not about the motion. He said “there is no dispute that this monster of a mother murdered all three children,” described the killings as “slowly, deliberately, systematically” carried out with exercise bands, and said that “if a psychopath murders three children, they should at a very minimum spend the rest of their life in jail, if not go to death row.” He connected the case to what he called the ideology behind calls to abolish ICE.
Reddington’s reply, posted Thursday: “You clearly do not come close to understanding the basic concept of postpartum psychosis.” He wrote that Clancy “reached out repeatedly for help in the depths of postpartum depression leading to mania and psychosis,” called the senator “despicable,” and invited him to “debate this issue of significant importance to our country.”
Two things about the exchange matter legally, and neither is the insult.
First, Massachusetts has no death penalty and has not since the SJC struck the statute in 1984. Second, “there is no dispute” that Clancy killed her children is correct, and it is also the entire reason the case was tried. Criminal responsibility is the only issue, and it was the only issue in the Sanders case the SJC sent back last month, where the Court opened its opinion by saying there was “no doubt” the defendant committed the killings and then ordered a new trial anyway. Whether a mother who unquestionably killed her children can be held criminally responsible is not a question a senator’s adjective resolves. It is the question a second Plymouth County jury would be asked, and the question the first one could not answer.
What happens on September 29
The motion is on file. Sullivan can rule on the papers or hear argument at the September 29 status conference, where Reddington has also said he will file a motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds, arguing there was no manifest necessity for the mistrial. We explained why that motion faces the Karen Read decision in our update on what happens next, and why this week’s juror interview, in which a juror confirmed the holdout could not be moved after a week, makes that motion harder rather than easier.
Cruz has not said whether he will retry the case. If Sullivan denies both defense motions, that decision, and a one-year clock under Rule 36 that started on September 4, are what remain.
What did Reddington file on September 10?
A renewed motion under Rule 25 for a required finding of not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility on all three indictments. The rule allows the motion within five days after a jury is discharged without a verdict; the deadline was September 14.
What is the standard for a required finding?
Whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, any rational juror could have found each element proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge does not weigh the evidence or consider how the jury voted.
Why is the motion unlikely to succeed?
Under Commonwealth v. Kostka, a jury may find a defendant criminally responsible even against unanimous expert testimony, relying on the presumption of sanity and the facts of the crime. The judge already denied the same motion at trial under that rule.
What happens if it is granted?
It is an acquittal. Clancy could not be retried. She would be committed for evaluation under chapter 123, not released.
What did Ted Cruz say?
On Newsmax he called Clancy a “monster of a mother” and said a person who kills three children should “at a very minimum spend the rest of their life in jail, if not go to death row.” Massachusetts has no death penalty.
What is the next court date?
September 29, 2026, a status conference in Plymouth Superior Court.
Motion language as reported by NBC Boston, WHDH and Boston.com, September 10, 2026. Cruz and Reddington statements as reported by Boston.com, September 11, 2026. Kostka and Latimore verified against CourtListener. Charges against Lindsay Clancy remain unproven and she is presumed innocent. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.