Named in Open Court: Lindsay Clancy's Lawyer Says His Comments Answered Politicians 'From Donald Trump on Down to Nancy Mace' - the Congresswoman Who Called for Clancy's Public Execution
At a September 29, 2026 status conference in the Lindsay Clancy murder case, defense attorney Kevin Reddington told a Plymouth Superior Court judge that his own public comments had all been made 'in reaction to' politicians 'from Donald Trump on down to Nancy Mace, down to Cruz... the politician calling for her execution.' TMZ posted the courtroom video. Rep. Nancy Mace is named because she did, in her own words and repeatedly, call for Clancy to be put to death, publicly: she told TMZ in Washington that 'her children are dead, she should be dead too,' and her own House press release two days later doubled down that 'Lindsay Clancy needs to face the death penalty, and it needs to be public.' Massachusetts abolished capital punishment in 1984. Clancy is charged, not convicted; her first trial ended in a mistrial and her defense is postpartum psychosis. Nothing here is a finding about her guilt.
Courtroom video and audio for this dispatch come from TMZ, which carried the AP courtroom pool feed from the September 29, 2026 hearing. The clip and quotes below are attributed to the people who said them.
On September 29, 2026, at a status conference in Commonwealth v. Lindsay Clancy before Plymouth Superior Court, Clancy's veteran defense attorney Kevin Reddington stood at the lectern and, addressing the judge, put a name from South Carolina into a Massachusetts murder record:
"Every comment I have made has been in reaction to people from Donald Trump on down to Nancy Mace, down to Cruz, not the DA, but the politician calling for her execution. I have responded to these outlandish comments, including the guy from Houston. I just wanted to say that, Judge."
Every word of that is Reddington's, said in open court. He was defending his own out-of-court statements about the case by framing them as answers to public figures who had commented on it, and he singled out Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina by name, between former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz.
Maceopedia catalogs this for one reason: Mace is on that list because she earned a place on it. In her own public words, repeatedly, she called for Lindsay Clancy to be executed.
What Mace actually said
Mace's comments began on Monday, September 14, 2026. Stopped by TMZ in Washington, she said of Clancy: "Her children are dead, she should be dead too." TMZ headlined its report "Rep. Nancy Mace Calls For Lindsay Clancy to Be Publicly Executed." Newsweek reported that Mace said the death penalty "should be public, it should be a public execution," and that the method did not matter to her: "by firearm, it could be electric chair, I don't really care."
Two days later she did not walk it back. She escalated it, on official letterhead. In a September 16 press release from her House office, headlined "Rep. Nancy Mace Fires Back at Lindsay Clancy Attorney, Doubles Down on Death Penalty," Mace wrote in her own name: "Lindsay Clancy needs to face the death penalty, and it needs to be public." In the same statement she went after Reddington directly: "Kevin Reddington spent 50 years at the Massachusetts bar, then asked the President for a federal pardon in a state murder case," adding that "every first-year law student knows that's impossible."
After the September 29 hearing, ABC News 4 in Charleston reported that Mace responded to being named by Reddington with: "Kevin Reddington defends a killer. We are calling for the execution of one." So the "politician calling for her execution" that Reddington described in court is not a characterization anyone has to infer. It is Mace's own stated position, in her own words, before and after he said it.
One fact sits under all of it: Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1984. There is no execution to call for under Massachusetts law. Reddington, for his part, told reporters that Mace "does not know this case, has never seen the evidence."
The video
Our captioned clip of the courtroom moment. Source footage: TMZ, carrying the AP pool feed. Full clip on TMZ: Lindsay Clancy defense attorney references backlash from Trump and Nancy Mace.
Who and what Reddington was talking about
- Nancy Mace is named above; her call for a public execution is documented in her own statements.
- Donald Trump commented on the case; Mediaite quoted him saying it is "going to be mental institution or jail or something," which is not, on its face, a call for execution.
- Ted Cruz discussed the case in conservative media, comparing it to the O.J. Simpson trial and calling Clancy "a monster," per the Boston Globe.
- "The guy from Houston" was not identified in the coverage we could find, and we are not going to guess at who Reddington meant. Reddington also drew a careful line between the politicians and "the DA": the Plymouth County District Attorney is Timothy Cruz, no relation to the Texas senator.
The case, stated neutrally
Lindsay Clancy is charged with killing her three young children at their Duxbury, Massachusetts home in January 2023. She has not been convicted. Her defense is that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was over-medicated, and that she was not criminally responsible. Her first trial ended in a mistrial on September 4, 2026 after the jury deadlocked; multiple outlets reported the split ran heavily toward acquittal on criminal responsibility. The September 29 status conference before Judge William Sullivan set the stage for a discussion of a possible retrial, reported for November 2. Clancy remains in a state psychiatric hospital. She is presumed innocent. Nothing in this write-up is a finding about her guilt or her mental state; those are questions for the court.
This is a Massachusetts criminal case. It is unrelated to any other litigation.
Why this is on Maceopedia
A member of Congress from South Carolina inserted herself into a pending Massachusetts murder case and publicly, repeatedly, called for the defendant to be put to death in a state that has had no death penalty for four decades. When the defendant's lawyer answered from the well of the court, he named her. Maceopedia's job is to keep the record of what she said and where it landed. The record here is her own words.
Sources & related coverage
- The courtroom video (this dispatch's source): TMZ, "Lindsay Clancy defense attorney references backlash from Trump and Nancy Mace" (AP courtroom pool feed)
- Mace's original call for execution: TMZ, "Rep. Nancy Mace Calls For Lindsay Clancy to Be Publicly Executed" (Sept. 14, 2026)
- Mace, in her own words (primary source): Rep. Nancy Mace, House press release, "Fires Back at Lindsay Clancy Attorney, Doubles Down on Death Penalty" (Sept. 16, 2026)
- Her words, additional detail: Newsweek, "Lindsay Clancy Should Face Public Execution, Death Penalty, Nancy Mace Says"
- The hearing and Mace's response: ABC News 4 (Charleston), "Nancy Mace named by Lindsay Clancy attorney amid tense status conference"
- Trump's comments: Mediaite, "Trump gets called out in court by Lindsay Clancy's lawyer"
- Cruz's comments: Boston Globe, "Lindsay Clancy trial: attorney reacts to Ted Cruz"
- The mistrial: WBUR, "Lindsay Clancy murder trial ends in mistrial"
- Reddington's pardon request: Boston.com, "Lindsay Clancy's lawyer asks Trump for a pardon"
Clip source: TMZ (AP courtroom pool) - tmz.com. Reporting credited above.
Read next
October 7, 2026 · Dispatch'She Should Get the Firing Squad': Nancy Mace Asks the South Carolina Legislature to Write a Death Penalty for One Untried Woman, Then Offers the Firing Squad to Lindsay Clancy
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September 30, 2026 · Dispatch'My Comments Have Generated Attention': Nancy Mace Was Named in the Lindsay Clancy Case in Open Court, Then Posted Again the Next Morning
A timeline, in Nancy Mace's own dated public words. A South Carolina member of Congress called publicly and repeatedly for Lindsay Clancy to be executed in a Massachusetts murder case in which she has no official role. On September 29, 2026, Clancy's defense attorney named Mace from the well of a Plymouth Superior Court. That night, on her own show, Mace said 'my comments have generated attention.' The next morning she posted a new video about the case. Clancy is charged, not convicted; her first trial ended in a mistrial and her defense is postpartum psychosis. Nothing here is a finding about her guilt, and nothing here assigns Mace a motive. The words are hers, in order. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
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On October 1, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X that she is 'praying for the firing squad' for a South Carolina mother charged in the deaths of her two young daughters: 'You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it.' The woman, Justine Marie May of Ladson, Charleston County, is charged, not convicted, has not been tried, and is presumed innocent. It was the second South Carolina child-death case in two days on which Mace publicly prejudged the defendant, after her September 30 House statement on a Spartanburg case ('This is not mental. This is criminal.') and one day after Lindsay Clancy's defense lawyer named her in a Massachusetts courtroom. Mace holds no charging, prosecuting, judging, or sentencing role in any of the three. Nothing here is a finding about any defendant's guilt or mental state, and nothing here assigns Mace a motive. The words are hers, in order. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
September 20, 2026 · DispatchJudge Judy on Nancy Mace: It's Ridiculous.
Rep. Nancy Mace told TMZ on September 14 that Lindsay Clancy, a defendant no jury has convicted, deserves a public execution by firearm or electric chair. The next day TMZ put Mace's call to Judith Sheindlin, Judge Judy, on the same sidewalk beat. Sheindlin said there was no question Clancy killed her children and that the only question was whether there was an excuse for it, told the reporter to make up his own mind, and warned of a danger in not retrying the case. Then TMZ asked her about Mace's call for a public execution. Her answer was three words: I think it's ridiculous. This is Maceopedia's record of both TMZ clips, every quote verbatim and attributed.
September 18, 2026 · DispatchShe Called Clancy a Serial Killer. The Next Morning She Said She Enjoyed the Fight.
On September 8, 2026, Nancy Mace appeared on the "Shotgun" YouTube channel and called Lindsay Clancy "no different than any other serial killer." She defended the lone holdout juror for conviction, called a mistrial "better than not guilty," and praised defense attorney Kevin Reddington's courtroom theatrics by saying he "deserves an Oscar." The next morning she told Dominique Lucre she had been "going toe to toe with Kevin Reddington" the night before and that she "enjoyed" it.
October 9, 2026 · DispatchCandace Owens Plays a Nancy Mace Clip. Mace Answers 'Nothing Funny About Dead Children.' Owens Answers With a News Report on a Lawsuit Against Mace. Mace Answers With a Cat-Licking Meme.
On October 9, 2026, Candace Owens played a clip of Nancy Mace on her show, calling it 'objectively hilarious.' In the clip, as Owens aired it, Mace says: 'Every time you call a friend, like, hey, do you want to hang out? They're like, no, I'm just, I have plans to kill my kids tonight. What?' At noon Mace posted the clip herself and wrote: 'There is absolutely NOTHING funny about dead children... Is this a cry for help?' At 3:30 PM Owens answered with a screenshot of an ABC News 4 report on a lawsuit against Mace and an insult in her own voice. At 5:03 PM Mace posted a line drawing of a woman drawn as Owens licking a hairless cat, with the words 'Candy - this you?' Every quote is verbatim and every claim about the lawsuit belongs to the people who made it. Maceopedia reaches no conclusion about the lawsuit and assigns no one a motive.