WEBVTT - Weekend Law: Trans Rights, Read Acquittal & Shaq Settles Suit 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:13.200 In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court divided down ideological 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:18.680 lines upheld Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for transgender miners, 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:24.200 a stunning setback to transgender rights. Chief Justice John Roberts 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.880 wrote the majority opinion for the six Conservatives, finding the 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:33.040 law doesn't violate the Constitution's equal Protection clause, which requires 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:37.479 the government to treat similarly situated people the same Roberts 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.080 wrote that there are fierce scientific and policy debates about 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.200 the medical treatments, and that quote, we leave questions regarding 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.960 its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.600 democratic process, echoing what the Chief had said during the 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:53.520 oral arguments. 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.720 You know, we might think that we're, you know, we 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.880 can do just as good a job with respect to 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:04.880 the the evidence here as Tennessee or anybody else. But 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.160 my understanding is that the Constitution leaves that question to 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:14.800 the people's representatives rather than to nine people, none of 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:15.640 whom is the doctor. 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.720 Justice Sonya Sotomayoa wrote a blistering descent for the court's 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:24.760 three liberals, accusing the Conservatives of abandoning transgender children and 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.920 their families to political whims. During the oral argument, she'd 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:33.200 pointed out that the democratic process does not protect transgender 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.360 people against bad laws. 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.680 When you're one percent of the population or less, very 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.560 hard to see how the democratic process is going to 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.360 protect you, Well, are you. Blacks were a much larger 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.040 part of the population, and it didn't protect them. It 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.840 didn't protect women for whole centuries. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.960 The decision will affect transgender kids in half the states 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.600 which have laws similar to the in Tennessee. Joining me 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.000 is Kate Redburn, a professor at Columbia Law School whose 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:09.079 expertise centers on the law of gender, sexuality, and religion. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.640 How much of a setback is this decision for transgender rights. 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:18.200 It's a significant setback for transgender rights, especially regarding the 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.840 availability and access to medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.240 So the opinion refers to SB one's Tennessee law, which 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.280 essentially prohibits transgender youth from accessing gender from maing care 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.320 while allowing all other youth to access the same treatments. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.640 He says, that's not a sex classification. What it doesn't do, however, 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.720 is it doesn't hold that trans people are not a 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.480 suspect class in general, So it looks like at least 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:47.840 three justices were willing to go that far, and the 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.600 opinion didn't go that far, So it doesn't necessarily reach 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.840 as far as all transcrimination. And even though I think 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.440 the Court clearly reached the wrong conclusion about whether or 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.400 not SB one is a sex classic, it seems to 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.400 have left open the possibility that it or other courts 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.600 could be presented with evidence that laws like SB one 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.400 are really fueled by anti trans sentiment. And so because 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.840 that path remains open, I feel like this decision, while 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.040 absolutely devastating for trans kids and their families and potentially 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.960 for trans adults seeking care that is regulated, it is 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.200 not the total destruction of equal protection law that it 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.679 could have been, and that it appears at least three 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.120 justices were willing to do. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:34.600 The three justices you're referring to being Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.920 and Amy Cony Barrett explain the central legal question here 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:41.400 regarding the equal protection clause. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.200 So the question before the court was whether or not 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.800 this law violated equal protection, and the United States under 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.280 the prior administration really directed the court's attention to the 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.840 question of whether or not this law constituted a sex classification. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.800 So does the law turn on sex? And the reason 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.600 for that is because when laws do turn on sex, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.120 the court looks more closely at the law. They call 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.400 that heightened scrutiny for sex discrimination. So the Court has 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.440 said that certain kinds of classifications, race classifications paradigmatically. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:11.200 More into strict scrutiny. 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.240 So the Court's going to look very hard. Sex classifications, 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.920 the Court has previously said sometimes are permissible, it's sometimes 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.000 okay for governments to distinguish between people on the basis 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.040 of sex or make sex classifications, but because it sounds 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.120 a little bit potentially suspicious, they're going to look more closely. 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.600 And so the question here was is a sex classification? 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.040 And then the danger was what had happened in the 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.719 Sixth Circuit where in this case that court had said 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.320 that this law was not a sex classification and sort 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.839 of combined the analysis in a way that made people 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.600 concern that the Court was going to find that even 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.159 certain kinds of sex classifications don't warrant heightened scrutiny. So 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.840 here what happened was the Robert's majority opinion says that 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.600 this law is not a sex classification and therefore only 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.320 warrant's rational basis review. 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.880 Chief Justice Roberts, in his majority opinions talked about the 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.159 fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.960 propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. Quote, we 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.400 leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:15.039 representatives and the democratic process. Is that just the court 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.839 looking for an out? I mean, they do make policy decisions. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.240 Yeah, So it sounds not dissimilar to what the Court 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.800 said about Dobbs when it overturned roversus Wade, which was 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.599 under the guise of changing doctrine, and that case quite significantly, 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.560 you described itself as kicking the question back to the states. 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.760 What is suspicious about that language in this context is 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.960 that the heightened scrutiny is actually designed to make it 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.480 possible for course to spend some time really looking at 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.760 the justifications that the governments are using for regulating and 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.320 classifying on sex, and then it also asks whether or 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.920 not the means justify the ed. So it might be 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.800 that there's a close relationship between the purpose of the 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.719 law and its classification, but it's nevertheless not an acceptable 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.719 purpose anyway. All that's to say that the existing doctrine 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.039 is meant to give the court the opportunity to really 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.080 weigh evidence. And what this decision does is it seems 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.680 to open up the possibility of authorizing governments to regulate 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:15.400 around medical procedures that touch on sex without courts even looking. 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.440 To weigh the evidence. So it might be the. 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.160 Case that the Court would have applied heightened scrutiny and 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.440 still found that this particular law had on its view 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:27.200 of sufficient evidentiary support, you know, in light of the 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.880 purported medical controversy. But it might not have, and it 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.799 really denied itself and potentially future courts from even looking 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:35.159 into that. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.719 Justice Soto Mayor eroded descent for the three liberals. She 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:41.960 read a summary of it from the bench, which the 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.400 justices sometimes do when they feel strongly about a descent. 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.679 Then she ended with in sadness I dissent. She talked 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.320 about the majority abandoning transgender children and their families to 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:55.640 political whims. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.080 I think that you know, her sadness stems from the 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.719 fact that this is going to for were potentially trans 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.400 kids and their families in half of the states where 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.320 similar laws are on the books to relocate in order 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:08.840 to simply live their lives. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:10.280 The state of the. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.320 Medical controversy about these issues, and the majority opinion is 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.400 vastly overstated. Much of the history that it relies on, 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.040 and some of the other concurring opinians rely on, it's 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.760 just untrue. And so you know what I think Justice 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.360 Sodomyor was trying to say is that the consequences for 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.520 trans youth in particular are just really, really egregious. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.240 In her courtroom statement, she said that similar arguments were 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.520 made to defend the Virginia law that prohibited interracial marriage 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.000 that the Supreme Court struck down in nineteen sixty seven. 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.560 Yeah, so we call those equal application laws. So in 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.680 Loving versus Virginia, the argument was well for the law 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.480 prohibited interracial marriage, and the justification for it that the 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.440 state gave was this is not racial discrimination because white 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.520 people are not allowed to marry people of color and 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.240 people of color are not allowed to marry white people. 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.720 In other words, everyone is equally prohibited. The said, No, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.960 it is still rooted in racial stereotypes that suggest that 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.680 interracial marriage is bad and also animus towards racial minorities 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.360 and trying to reinforce the racial hierarchy in the country. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.920 So the fact that you can find in that case 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.200 white people and black people on both sides of the 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.800 line that the regulation draws does not mean that it's 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.800 not subject to heightened scrutiny. So there's a reading of 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.400 the majority's opinion here that does exactly the same thing. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.360 And that's what she's saying that just because there are 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.160 transgender miners on both sides of the line. In other words, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.800 transgender miners, according to the court, can still obtain sort 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.160 of treatments if they're not for the purposes of addressing 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.680 gender dysphoria. That doesn't mean that this is not motivated 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.400 by animis towards transgender people and trying to reinforce as 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.800 sex and gender hierarchy that suggest that there's something normatively 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:47.640 preferable about not being transgender. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.320 The government changed its position after President Trump took office, 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.200 switching to supporting Tennessee's ban. Trump has seemed to target 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:02.160 transgender people in various ways, from declaring there are only 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:07.080 two sexes to kicking transgender service members out of the military. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.600 Why do you think there's so much emphasis on a 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.559 group that represents less than one percent of the population. 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.800 Basically, since it's a little bit after twenty sixteen, it's 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.920 been a major priority among Republican state legislators, in particular 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.600 to attack trans right. There's a lot of reasons why 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.439 that could be the case. You know, one reason that 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.600 having lost the gay marriage fight, there's an effort to 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:35.280 find a different issue that touches on questions of traditional 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.280 and non traditional gender and sexual role. The search for 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.400 another issue became even stronger after Dobbs, after the Supreme 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.839 Court overturned ro versus Ways, in part because abortions actually 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.280 quite popular nationally, and so in order to create some 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.320 kind of coalition that could win national elections, needed to 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.560 find an issue which would connect to traditional gender and 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.840 sexual values without touching on something popular like gay marriage 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.439 or abortion. So a way to understand the effect of 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.400 the Trump administration is really that it has accelerated a 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.480 pre existing tendency, and it's turned what were state level 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.840 efforts to make transgender life extremely difficult, if not impossible, 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.360 into national policy. So the redefinition of sex, attempts to 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.479 regulate medical treatments, access to bathrooms, access to sports teams, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.520 all of those efforts that we saw in the executive orders, 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.280 and of course, you know, very important restrictions and attempted 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.800 restrictions now in Congress on access to trans healthcare through 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.440 various kinds of federal aid are reflecting the nationalization of 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.559 what had been state level attacks. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.640 Does this decision hurt challenges to attempts to roll back 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:40.040 transgender rights. 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:42.680 It might, it might not. As I said, there is 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.600 not a majority on the Court apparently to hold that 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.160 anti transiscrimination, you know, is not visible to the Constitution. 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.800 In other words, there are other kinds of anti transiscrimination 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.800 that the Court seems to have held open the possibility 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.800 for recognizing, and so it's going to really depend on 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:00.800 what is characterized as a medical condition. In other words, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.560 this opinion says that SB one is discriminating on the 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.680 basis of gender dysphoria and not transgender identity, and so 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.080 other laws do not have that character of being ostensibly 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.560 justified as medical regulations. Instead, I think the normative stakes 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.000 of just trying to force people not to be transgender 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:20.520 are even clearer in those other situations. And the Court 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.640 hasn't totally eliminated the possibility of reading those arguments in 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:24.720 the future. 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.680 And we can expect the court's decision on the use 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:33.080 of LGBTQ friendly books in the classroom next week. Thanks 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.920 so much for joining me. That's Professor Kate Redburn of 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.439 Columbia Law School. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.360 Karen Reid is acquitted of the murder of her Boston 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.160 police officer boyfriend, and a juror is dismissed from the 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.840 Sean Diddy Combs trial. I'm June Grasso, and you're listening 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:58.040 to Bloomberg. Cheers from hundreds of Karen Reid's supporters outside 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.359 the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusets as the jury's verdict acquitting 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.280 her of murder and manslaughter charges was announced on Wednesday. 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.719 Reid was accused of intentionally ramming her SUV into her 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:15.640 Boston police officer boyfriend, John o'keef in a drunken rage 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.920 after an argument, leaving him to die in a blizzard. 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.640 The defense had argued that Reid was framed by police, 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.720 and another jury nearly a year ago was deadlocked after 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.120 five days of deliberations, leading to a mistrial. This jury 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:35.120 in the retrial, deliberated twenty two hours over four days 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.800 before reaching its verdict. Only finding reed guilty of drunken driving. 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.680 A couple of the jurors later said that the police 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:47.200 investigation was sloppy, leaving holes in the prosecution's case. 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.360 As the weeks passed by, I just realized there was 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.160 too many holes that we couldn't feel, and there's nothing 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.000 that put her on the scene in our opinion, besides 0:12:58.120 --> 0:12:59.720 just dropping. John mcckeffe off. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.600 Thanked her supporters and said this. 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:07.520 No one has fought carter for justice for John O'Keefe. 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:08.000 And I have. 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.199 Some of the key prosecution witnesses in the trial released 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:16.600 a joint statement calling the not guilty verdict a devastating 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.280 miscarriage of justice. My guest is former Palm Beach County 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.400 State Attorney Dave Ehrenberg. Dave, were you surprised at the acquittal? 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.160 I was very surprised by it because I thought the 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.920 prosecution this time did an excellent job and focusing the 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.640 jury on the evidence, the data, the cell phone data, 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.840 the evidence of the battery of the cell phone and 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.960 when it started to weaken and when the phone started 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.960 to freeze, the timing. I mean, this was not speculation. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.679 Data doesn't have any ax to grind. Data is data. 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.720 And as a result, I thought the jury would listen 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.120 to that. Instead, they got distracted by all the things 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:58.920 and apparently found reasonable doubt. 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.199 Obviously there were no eyewitness accounts, no direct evidence of 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.520 the hit, but there were a series of experts to 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:11.560 fill in the evidentiary picture. Do you think that testimony 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.480 was too sophisticated for the jury. 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.200 Whenever you get into a battle of experts, it's a 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.960 problem for prosecution because jurors these days, they want eyewitnesses, 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:27.680 they want the DNA, they want the conclusive smoking guns 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.280 because they're used to seeing that on TV shows which 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.960 are wrapped up in an hour at BSI and other shows. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.240 And if you don't have that, jurors will quickly find 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.000 some reasonable doubt, especially if it becomes a battle of experts. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.800 But I thought that it was a defense that came 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.280 up with a cockamamie alternative theory and thus raised the 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.000 bar for the defense by saying that John O'Keefe entered 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.880 the home. There's no evidence he entered the home, there's 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.640 no evidence that anything happened, but he was hit by 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:58.760 the car by a drunk, enraged woman who left dozens 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:03.560 of angry voicemails on the victim's phone while he lay 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:04.400 dying in the snow. 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.960 And how did the defense explain Read's own words to 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:12.520 paramedics afterwards, repeatedly saying I hit him. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.320 Yeah, her own words. I mean, she admitted it, but 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.200 they were able to somehow frame it as maybe she 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.240 was unsure, maybe she thought she did, but the witnesses 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:23.360 said no, she said I hit him. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:23.880 I hit him. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.880 Her own lawyer when this case started said that she 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.880 did hit him, that this was an accident. But then 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.640 they changed their view to try to get away with 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:34.920 it entirely, and she did. 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.720 Would we call it a mixed verdict because they did 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.200 convict her of operating under the influence of alcohol? Of course, 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.640 the judge just gave her probation for that. 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.000 Well, yeah, but they didn't find her guilty of leaving 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.640 the scene of an accident, so they didn't even feel 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.320 that it was conclusive that she caused an accident. So 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.040 how did he die? It's a binary choice. Either she 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:57.920 hit him or he went into the house and was 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.040 murdered by law enforcement officers and soccer moms who got 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.160 together in a conspiracy of silence. The murdered their friend 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.520 and then dump his body on the front lawn. I 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.920 don't even understand how anyone can think that makes sense. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.600 I mean, if you're a law enforcement officer and you're 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.400 in cahoots with soccer moms, wouldn't you think you would 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.200 just claim self defense if you wanted to kill another 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.720 law enforcement officer, Or wouldn't you try to hide the body? 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.280 Why would you throw the body onto the front lawns 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.720 of your house unless it didn't happen, which it didn't happen. 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.440 What some people say is the most powerful defense testimony 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:39.200 was a snowplow driver who passed the home several times 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.280 in the hours after the alleged collision and said he 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.800 didn't see a two hundred and sixteen pounds six foot 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.320 one man lying in the yard. 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:48.880 Yeah, no one did. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.480 This snow was coming down, and no one did. The 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.000 only person who found John O'Keefe, who was then the 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.240 next morning buried under the snow. The only person who 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.280 found John O'Keefe was the person who hit him, because 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.600 she knew where his body was. Because she hit him, 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:04.800 she knew what happened. No one else could find him. 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.400 They were driving around looking for him, but she bought 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.119 them from a while away. Because she's the one who 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.680 hit him. So in this case, I feel the same 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.000 way as I did after the Oj Simpson verdict or 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.639 the Casey Anthony verdict, that he had a guilty person 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:19.199 go free. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:24.360 Usually on a retrial, it's the prosecution that has the advantage. 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:26.080 Why do you think it was different here? 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.359 I thought the prosecution did a really good job. I 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.800 don't have any issues with him. I think the defense 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.639 was able to capitalize on this content with police, as 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.920 all it takes his futures would have issues with police. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.119 And here the accusation was that there was a police 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.800 cover up and that the police officers were too close 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.760 to the family inside the house, and the police officers 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.840 were not only incompetent in collecting the evidence. That's the 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.879 defense talking, not me, but also that the lead investigator, 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.000 who was not even called to the stand, but that 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:02.320 the lead investigator was such discussing individual with his comments 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.440 about Karen Reid, and he did make offensive comments that 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.160 the whole thing was tainted. And I think that has 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.680 some residents of the jury. I think they perhaps want 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.560 to know why the lead investigator did not testify. Maybe 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.720 they were hiding something which they weren't. They just thought 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.919 that this guy was a side show distraction because of 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:18.639 his comments. 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.879 Yeah, and the defense seemed to emphasize that in the 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:27.080 closing arguments. Did the defense improve over the first trial 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.800 where it just presented a day and a half of 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:31.159 defense witnesses. 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.840 I thought the defense did a really good job as 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.000 they did in the first trial. I mean, anytime you 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.159 are able to get a guilty client acquitted, it's a 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.240 real feed for the defense and they deserve credit. They're 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.400 great lawyers, and it is my belief that she was guilty, 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.399 and I think the evidence conclusively establishes that. But when 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.160 you're a defense learning able to create a side show 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.520 distraction and it works with the jury, then you're doing 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.520 your job. That's a shame for the victims' family. That's 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:01.040 what it is. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.560 Read, of course, is free of all criminal charges in 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.880 the case can't be retried, but she still faces a 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:13.200 civil wrongful death case by O'Keefe's family, and the standard 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.159 of proof there is much lower, so she could be 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:17.920 held liable for damages there. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.879 Right In a civil case, the standard is just proponents 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.480 of the evidence. It's much easier to prove and you 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.280 just have to proved negligence, which is. 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:28.080 A lower burden. 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.320 So all around, it's easier to prove that case of 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.359 the evidence just means, is it more likely than not 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.560 that Ken Reid did something wrong here committed a tourt. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.359 You don't have to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.199 So is the logical conclusion after this verdict that the 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:44.760 murderer is still out there? 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.200 Yeah? I guess she and Odo Simpson will go search 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.680 for the real killers. That's really what this is, right, 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.320 This was a binary choice. Either she hit him with 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.280 the car or he went inside the house and was 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:02.119 murdered by law enforcement officers and soccer mom, and then 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.760 they threw their friend's body arms of their front law 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:06.280 doesn't make any sense. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.600 So, Dave, what do you make of her supporters? I mean, 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.040 there were crowds of people outside the courthouse waiting for 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.600 the verdict. I mean why she. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.479 Became a culture personality. I think that the narrative that 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.880 was fed by bloggers was that here's this sweet innocent 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.960 woman who's being framed for a crime she didn't commit 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.639 by the corrupt law enforcement officers. And I just feel 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.480 for those law enforcement officers and the families for having 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.320 their names dragged through the mud when they didn't deserve that. 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.439 They lost a loved one, and John o'keith was a 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.600 good man. And now, in my mind, a guilty defendant 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:41.280 walks free. 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.919 When Reid came out of the courthouse, she made this 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.719 statement that struck me as odd. No one has fought 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.960 harder for justice for John o'keef than I have. 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:53.920 That's her, oj Simpson, I'm going to find the real 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.600 killers moment and just tells you all you need to 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.120 know about her. I mean to make a statement like that, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.040 What an install to the family. Now, what an insult? 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.160 It rubbed salt in the wounds to say something like that. 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:07.800 Just go on with your life and this family is 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:08.480 suffering enough. 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.800 Thanks for being here, Dave. That's day Arenberg, former Palm 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.639 Beach County State Attorney, and in another high profile trial, 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.200 jurors may begin deliberating towards the end of next week. 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:24.040 Sean Diddy Combs is entrumph for racketeering, conspiracy, and sex trafficking. 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:27.720 The prosecution is expected to rest its case on Monday, 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.600 and the defense says it expects to put on its 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.520 case on Wednesday and Thursday. There was some jury drama 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.040 this week as the judge dismissed a juror, despite the 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:42.479 defense raising concerns that putting in a white alternate juror 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.880 for the black juror would make the jury less diverse. 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.520 Joining me is former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz, a partner 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.960