Responding Sunday to Lindsay Clancy's attorney's request that he pardon the Wallingford native for killing her three children, President Trump said the matter is out of his hands.
"It's a very sad situation," Trump said in a runway interview with reporters. "There is no winner there. There is no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead. So, I don't know. It's actually a state situation, you know, not a federal."
Clancy's trial on charges that she strangled her three children at the family's Duxbury, Mass., home in 2023 ended with a hung jury on Sept. 4, with one juror reportedly refusing to find her not guilty by reason of insanity.
Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington said last week on "Good Morning America" that he was open to discussing a plea agreement with Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz. Reddington also asked Trump to grant his client a pardon.
"Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is, what she's been through, and consider a pardon," Reddington said.
A pardon, however, is not within the president's power and also not the purview at this point of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey.
"I don't have the authority to pardon," Healey said last week. "It's in the middle of the court case, so there's no existing conviction."
Cruz has not said whether he will retry the case. Clancy is scheduled to return to court later this month for a status hearing, trial assignment and a hearing on a rule that allows a judge to review a jury's verdict. While a timeline for the case remains unclear, Reddington previously said that he's "ready to go."
Trump is unable to pardon Clancy directly because the former labor and delivery nurse is being tried for murder in state court, which Reddington acknowledged in a subsequent interview.
"Even though legally it's not a federal case, he certainly has an awful lot of clout," Reddington said.
He suggested that if the president contacted Cruz, whom he noted also is a Republican, "maybe that will be something that Tim would listen to and consider."
In response to a reporter's question after the mistrial, Trump called the killings a "horrible tragedy."
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This article originally published at Trump responds to Lindsay Clancy pardon request after mistrial.