WEBVTT - Setback for Transgender Rights & Karen Read Acquitted 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:07.440 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:13.240 In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court divided down ideological 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:18.720 lines upheld Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for transgender miners, 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:24.080 a stunning setback to transgender rights. Chief Justice John Roberts 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.600 wrote the majority opinion for the six conservative justices, finding 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.920 that the law does not violate the Constitution's equal Protection clause, 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.080 which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.640 same Roberts wrote that there are fierce scientific and policy 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.920 debates about the medical treatments, but quote, we leave questions 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:50.080 regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:54.360 the democratic process, Echoing what the Chief and Justice Brett 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.200 kavanaughh pointed to during the oral arguments. 0:00:57.800 --> 0:00:59.640 You know, we might think that we're, you know, we 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.840 can do just as good a job with respect to 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:09.319 the evidence here as Tennessee or anybody else. But my 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.399 understanding is that the Constitution leaves that question to the 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:19.040 people's representatives rather than to nine people, none of whom 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:20.120 is a doctor. 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.120 If the Constitution doesn't take sides, if they're strong, forceful 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.880 scientific policy arguments on both sides In a situation like this, 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.160 why isn't it best to leave it to the democratic process? 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.480 Justice Sonya Soto Mayor wrote a blistering descent for the 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:43.120 courts three liberals, accusing the Conservatives of abandoning transgender children 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.280 and their families to political whims by retreating from meaningful 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.600 judicial review exactly where it matters most. During the oral 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.040 arguments so to, Mayor had said that the democratic process 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:00.000 does not protect transgender people against bad laws. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.040 There one percent of the population or less. Very hard 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.840 to see how the democratic process is going to protect you. Well, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.600 you are Blacks were a much larger part of the population, 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.920 and it didn't protect them. It didn't protect women for 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:17.919 whole centuries. 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.720 Twenty three states have bands similar to Tennessees. Joining me 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.080 is Kate Redburn, a professor at Columbia Law School whose 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.160 expertise centers on the law of gender, sexuality, and religion. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:34.760 How much of a setback is this decision for transgender rights. 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.280 It's a significant setback for transgender rights, especially regarding the 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.920 availability and access to medically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.320 So the opinion refers to SB one's Tennessee law, which 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.760 essentially prohibits transgender youth from accessing gender froming care while 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.840 allowing all other youth to access the same treatments. He says, 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.720 that's not a sex classification. What it doesn't do, however, 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.800 is it doesn't hold that trans people are not a 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.519 suspect class in general. So it looks like at least 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.920 three justices were willing to go that far, and the 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.400 opinion didn't go that far. So it's very bad for 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.240 trans kids and potentially trans adults who are seeking medical care, 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:21.079 but it doesn't necessarily reach as far as all transiscrimination. 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.080 What was the central legal question here regarding the equal 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:26.160 protection clause? 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.800 So the question before the court was whether or not 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.400 this law violated equal protection, and the United States really 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.520 directed under the prior administration, really directed the court's attention 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.400 to the question of whether or not this law constituted 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.960 a sex classification. So does the law turn on sex? 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.520 And the reason for that is because when laws do 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.200 turn on sex, then the court it looks more closely 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.280 at the law. They call that heightened scrutiny for sex discrimination. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.520 So the court I said that certain kinds of classifications, 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.840 race classifications paradigmatically more into strict scrutiny. So the Court's 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.720 going to look very hard. Sex classification the Court has 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.840 previously said sometimes are permissible, it's sometimes okay for governments 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.400 to distinguish between people on the basis of sex or 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.400 make sex classifications. But because it sounds a little bit 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.240 potentially suspicious, they're going to look more closely. And so 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.960 the question here was is it a sex classification? And 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.239 then the danger was what had happened in the Sixth 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.760 Circuit where in this case that court had said that 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.520 this law was not a sex classification and sort of 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.640 combined the analysis in a way that made people concern 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.359 that the court was going to find that even certain 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.880 kinds of sex classifications don't Warrant tightened scrutiny. So here 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.440 what happened was the Robert's majority opinion says that this 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.520 law is not a sex classification and therefore only warrant's 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:40.880 rational basis review. 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.440 Chief Justice Roberts, in his majority opinions talked about the 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.960 fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.800 propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. Quote, we 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.240 leave questions regarding its policy to the people. They're elected 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:02.080 representatives and the democratic process. Is that just the court 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.920 looking for an out, I mean, they do make policy decisions. 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.320 Yeah, So it sounds not dissimilar to what the Court 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.839 said about Dobbs when it overturned roversus Wade, which was 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.680 under the guise of changing doctrine, and that case quite significantly, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.799 it described itself as kicking the question back to the states. 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.800 What is suspicious about that language in this context is 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.040 that the heightened scrutiny is actually designed to make it 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.520 possible for course to spend some time really looking at 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.800 the justifications that the governments are using for regulating and 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.440 classifying on sex, and then it also asks whether or 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.000 not the means justify the ed. So it might be 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.840 that there's a close relationship between the purpose of the 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.760 law and its classification, but it's nevertheless not an acceptable 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:47.719 purpose anyway. All of that's just to say that the 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.760 existing doctrine is meant to give the court the opportunity 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.680 to really weigh evidence. And what this decision does is 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.080 it seems to open up the possibility of authorizing governments 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.960 to regulate around medical procedures that touch on sex without 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.120 courts even looking to weigh the evidence. So it might 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.320 be the case that the Court could have applied heightened 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.040 scrutiny and still found that this particular law had, on 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.800 its view of sufficient evidentiary support, you know, in light 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.640 of the purported medical controversy, But it might not have, 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.120 and it really denied itself and potentially future courts from 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:22.240 even looking into that. 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:27.000 Justice Sonia Sotomayo wrote a blistering dissent, and she read 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.719 a summary of it from the bench, which the justices 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.080 sometimes do when they feel strongly about a descent. Then 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.120 she ended with in sadness I dissent, she talked about 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:42.719 the majority abandoning transgender children and their families to political whims. 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.200 I think that, you know, her sadness stems from the 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.200 fact that this is going to force potentially trans kids 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.880 and their families in half of the states where similar 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.560 laws are on the books to relocate in order to 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.600 simply live their lives. The state of the medical controversy 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.640 about these issues, and the majority of and is vastly overstated. 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:03.839 Much of the history that it relies on, and some 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.120 of the other concurring opinians rely on, it's just the untrue. 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.600 And so you know what I think, Justice Sodomayor was 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.080 trying to say is that the consequences for trans youth 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.640 in particular are just really, really egregious. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.560 In her courtroom statement, she said that similar arguments were 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:25.040 made to defend the Virginia law that prohibited interracial marriage 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.680 that the Supreme Court struck down in nineteen sixty seven. 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.520 Yeah, so we call those equal application laws, and they 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.680 basically say that because so in Loving versus Virginia, the 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.920 argument was well for the law prohibited interracial marriage, and 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.600 the justification for it that the state gave was this 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.320 is not racial discrimination because white people are not allowed 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.240 to marry people of color and people of color are 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.200 not allowed to marry white people. In other words, everyone 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.280 is equally prohibited. But the court said no, this is 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.000 still rooted in racial stereotypes that suggest that interracial marriage 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.880 is bad, and also animus towards racial minorities and trying 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:00.920 to reinforce the racial hierarchy. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:01.040 In the country. 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.600 So the fact that you can find in that case 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.880 white people and black people on both sides of the 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.480 line that the regulation draws does not mean that it's 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.440 not subject to heighten scrutiny. And so there's a reading 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.160 of the majority's opinion here, which that it does exactly 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.640 the same thing. That's what she's saying that just because 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.880 there are transgender miners on both sides of the line. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.960 In other words, transgender miners, according to the Court, can 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.280 still obtain sort of treatments if they're not for the 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.800 purposes of addressing gender dysphoria. That doesn't mean that this 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.320 is not motivated by animus towards transgender people and trying 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.760 to reinforce as sex and gender hierarchy. That suggests that 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.760 there's something normatively preferable about not being transgender. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:46.080 How have transgender rights in particular, How have transgender rights 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:52.479 in particular suffered or been affected by Donald Trump's presidency? 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.320 Basically says it's a little bit after twenty sixteen, it's 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.600 been a major priority among Republicans legislators in particular to 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.480 attack trans rights. There's a lot of reasons why that 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.600 could be the case. You know, one reason that having 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.920 lost the gay marriage fight, there's an effort to find 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:14.400 a different issue that touches on questions of traditional and 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.640 non traditional gender and sexual role to search for another 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.720 issue became even stronger after Dobs, after the Supreme Court 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.880 overturned row versus ways in part because abortion is actually 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.360 quite popular nationally, and so in order to create some 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.599 kind of coalition that could win national elections, needed to 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.840 find an issue which would connect to traditional gender and 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.120 sexual values without touching on something popular like gay marriage 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.760 or abortion. So a way to understand the effect of 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.720 the Trump administration is really that it has accelerated a 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.760 pre existing tendency, and it's turned what were state level 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:51.120 efforts to make transgender life extremely difficult, if not impossible, 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.280 into national policy. So the redefinition of sex, attempts to 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.280 regulate medical treatments, access to bathrooms, access to sports teams, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.480 all of those those efforts that we saw in the 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.240 executive orders, and of course, you know, very important restrictions 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.840 and attempted restrictions now in Congress on access to healthcare 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:13.000 through various kinds of federal aid are reflecting the nationalization 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.319 of what had been state level attacks. 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.640 Does the decision today help legal challenges by President Trump 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:26.120 and Republican administrations to roll back protections for transgender people. 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:28.679 It might that it might not. As I said, there 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.560 is not a majority on the court apparently to hold 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.319 that anti transiscrimination, you know, is not visible to the Constitution. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.000 In other words, there are other kinds of anti transcrimination 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.960 that the Court seems to have held open the possibility 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.760 for recognizing, and so it's going to really depend on 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.959 what is characterized as a medical condition. In other words, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.880 this opinion says that SB one is discriminating on the 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.280 basis of gender dysphoria and not transgender identity, and so 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.680 other laws do not have that character of being ostensibly 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:01.400 justified as medical regulations. Instead, I think the normative stakes 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.000 of just trying to force people not to be transgender 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.439 or even clearer in those other situation, And the Court 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.719 hasn't totally eliminated the possibility of reading those arguments in 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:11.320 the future. 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.240 So the justices still have to rule in another case 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.679 about whether a Maryland school district is violating the Constitution 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:24.959 by using LGBTQ friendly books in the classroom without giving 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.120 parents the right to opt out. After hearing the oral 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:30.160 arguments in that case, and I know everyone says, you 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.400 can't tell what the justices are going to do, but 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.800 it seemed pretty clear that there were enough justices to 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:41.360 support the position of the religious parents. There is that 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:42.920 case important. 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.400 Yeah, that case is enormously important for another front in 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.720 the ongoing attacks on really any kind of non normative 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.400 families or gender or sexual identities. The issue is actually 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.520 not at all new to the country. It has never 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.640 reached the Supreme Court before, but in the nineteen eighties 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.640 there were a series of lower court cases on identical 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.360 issues where conservatives, in that case, people who self identified 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.160 as fundamentalist Christians, objected to content in public school curricula 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.920 that they characterized as secular humanism, and courts universally said 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:19.000 that mere exposure to ideas which parents dislike, or even 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.680 ideas which are sensitive to the religious beliefs of parents, 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.840 does not constitute coersion, and so it's not constitutionally suspect 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.000 that court does seem poised to equate contact with coersion 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.520 in ways that are potentially quite quite sweet thing. During 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.520 oral argument, the Actings Lister General who made the arguments, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.760 suggested that the presence of a transgender student, for example, 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.640 could be considered a kind of content to which a 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.960 religious objection might be relevant. In other words, it was 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.880 possible not only that a parent could object to a 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:52.760 book being on the shelf or a book being read 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.839 in class that includes, for example, gay characters, but also 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.920 that the existence of a person whose self is disliked 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.080 or reported to be against the religious beliefs of the 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.800 parent could prompt an opt out. So it really has 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:11.320 the potential to destroy the ability of public school teachers 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.200 to make inclusive choices about what kind of content and 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.840 what kind of classrooms they have that reflect the diversity 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:18.680 of our society. 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.480 Thanks so much for joining me today. That's professor Kate 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:31.440 Redburn of Columbia Law School. Crowds outside the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts, 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.240 cheered this afternoon after a jury found Karen Reid not 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.200 guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter charges in the 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.440 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend in twenty twenty two. 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.360 The jury did find Read guilty of the lesser charge 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.960 of drunk and driving, handing down its decision after deliberating 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.400 for at least twenty two hours over four days. The 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.040 verdict comes nearly a year after another jury had deadlocked 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.600 over Reid's guilt. It's a huge victory for her lawyers, 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.240 who've asserted that she was framed by police after dropping 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.480 O'Keefe off at a party at the home of a 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.720 fellow officer. Prosecutors argued the forty five year old read 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.040 hit O'Keefe with her SUV before driving away, but the 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.800 defense maintained that O'Keefe was killed inside the home and 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.880 later dragged outside. Joining me is former Palm Beach County 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:27.320 State Attorney Dave Arenberg. Were you surprised at the not 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:28.600 guilty verdicts here? 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.800 I was very surprised by it because I thought the 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.560 prosecution this time did an excellent job and focusing the 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:40.360 jury on the evidence, the data, the cell phone data, 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.200 the evidence of the battery of the cell phone and 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.640 when it started to weaken, and when the phone started 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:52.040 to freeze, the timing. I mean, this was not speculation. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.680 Data doesn't have any ax to grind. Data is data, 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.720 and as a result, I thought the jury would listen 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.160 to that. Instead, they got distracted by all the things 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.200 and apparently found reasonable doubt. 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.440 Obviously there were no eyewitness accounts, no direct evidence of 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.760 the hit, but there were a series of experts to 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:17.800 fill in the evidentiary picture. Do you think that testimony 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.720 was too sophisticated for the jury. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:23.880 Whenever you get into a battle of experts, it's a 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.880 problem for prosecution because jurors these days, they want eyewitnesses, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:34.920 they want the DNA, they want the conclusive smoking guns 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.520 because they're used to seeing that on TV shows which 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.240 are wrapped up in an hour at CSI and other shows. 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.480 And if you don't have that, jurors will quickly find 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.479 some reasonable doubt, especially if it becomes a battle of experts. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.600 But I thought that it was a defense that came 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.080 up with a cockamamie alternative theory and thus raised the 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:57.280 bar for the defense by saying that John O'Keefe entered 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.160 the home. There's no evidence he entered the home. There's 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.320 no evidence that anything happened, but he was hit by 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:07.440 the car by a drunk, enraged woman who left dozens 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:12.240 of angry voicemails on the victim's phone while he lay 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:13.080 dying in the snow. 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.120 And how did the defense explain Read's own words to 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:21.920 paramedics afterwards, repeatedly saying I hit him. 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.240 Yeah, her own words, I mean, she admitted it. But 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.840 they were able to somehow frame it as maybe she 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.920 was unsure, maybe she thought she did, but the witnesses 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:34.600 said no, she said I hit him. I hit him. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.200 I mean. Her own lawyer when this case started said 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.960 that she did hit him, that this was an accident, 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.240 but then they changed their view to try to get 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:47.880 away with it entirely, and she did. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:50.720 Would we call it a mixed verdict because they did 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:55.680 convict her of operating under the influence of alcohol. Of course, 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.080 the judge just gave her probation for that. 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.480 Well, yeah, but they didn't find or guilty of leaving 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.359 the seam of an accident, so they didn't even feel 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.040 that it was conclusive that she caused an accident. So 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.760 how did he die? It's a binary choice. Either she 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:11.639 hit him or he went into the house and was 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.720 murdered by law enforcement officers and soccer moms who got 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.840 together in a conspiracy of silence the murder their friend 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.199 and then dump his body on the front lawn. I 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.640 don't even understand how anyone can think that makes sense. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.280 I mean, if you're a law enforcement officer and you're 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.080 in cahoots with soccer moms, wouldn't you think you would 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.119 just claim self defense if you wanted to kill another 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.600 law enforcement officer, or wouldn't you try to hide the body? 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:41.119 Why would you throw the body onto the front of 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.399 your house unless it didn't happen, which it didn't happen. 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.159 What some people say is the most powerful defense testimony 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:53.879 was a snowplow driver who passed the home several times 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.359 in the hours after the alleged collision and said he 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.080 didn't see a two hundred and sixteen six foot one 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:02.399 man lying in the yard. 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.280 Yeah, and no one did. The snow was coming down 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.119 and no one did. The only person who found this person, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.600 who is then the next morning buried under the snow. 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.240 The only person who found John O'Keefe was the person 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:18.760 who hit him, because she knew where his body was. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.479 Because she hit him, She knew what happened. No one 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.520 else could find him. They were driving around looking for him, 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.480 but she boughted them from a while away because she's 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.159 the one who hit him. So in this case, I 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.920 feel the same way as I did after the O. J. 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.959 Simpson verdict or the Casey Anthony verdict that he had 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:37.120 a guilty person go free. 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.640 The jury deliberated about twenty two hours over four days. 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.879 Does that sound to you like there was a holdout. 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.200 Yes, it does sound like there was a Vibman discussion 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.320 and this was their compromise verdict. But the compromise isn't 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.359 really much of a compromise because the only buster on 0:18:55.400 --> 0:19:00.520 the lowest count, which gave her probation, so he gets 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.760 the walk free. It's not over yet, though, because there'll 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.480 be civil lawsuits than there are, and there also will 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.280 be a trial of Turtle Boy, one of the bloggers 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.120 who was on her side. 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.760 Usually on a retrial, it's the prosecution that has the advantage. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:19.600 Why do you think it was different here? 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:21.840 I thought the prosecution did a really good job. I 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.240 don't have any issues with him. I think the defense 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:31.280 was able to capitalize on discontent with police. You had jurors. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.159 All it takes his few jurors who would have issues 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.480 with police. And here the accusation was that there was 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.639 a police cover up and that the police officers were 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.040 too close to the family inside the house, and the 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:50.560 police officers were not only incompetent in collecting the evidence. 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.520 That's the defense talking, not me, but also that the 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.959 lead investigator, who was not even called to the stand, 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.919 but that the lead investigator was much discussing individual with 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.680 his comments about Karen Reid, and he did make defensive 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.200 comments that the whole thing was tainted, and I think 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.800 that did have some residents with the jury. I think 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.439 they press want to know why the lead investigator did 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.720 not testify. Maybe they were hiding something, which they weren't. 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:18.600 They just thought that this guy was aside show a 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:20.160 distraction because of his comments. 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.520 Yeah, and the defense seemed to emphasize that in the 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.679 closing arguments. Did the defense improve over the first trial 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.520 where it just presented a day and a half of 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:33.280 defense witnesses. 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.120 I thought the defense did a really good job as 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.280 they did in the first trial. I mean, anytime you 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:44.399 are able to get a guilty client acquitted, it's a 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.920 real feat for the defense, and they deserve credit. They're 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:52.400 great lawyers, and it is my belief that she was guilty, 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:57.639 and I think the evidence conclusively establishes that. But when 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.119 you're a defense learning able to create a s I 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:02.920 show a distraction and it works with the jury, then 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.640 you're doing your job, I guess. And that's a shame 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.040 for the victims' families, but that's what it is. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:14.840 So explain how in a civil case the standard is lower, 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.880 so there might be a verdict in the family's favor 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.639 for damages in the civil case, even though she was 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.800 found not guilty in the criminal case. 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:31.320 Right in a civil case. The standard is just proponents 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.160 of the evidence. It's much easier to prove and either 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.760 have proved negligence, which is a lower burden, So all around, 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.960 it's easier to prove that case of the evidence just 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.440 means is it more likely than not that Karen Reid 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.480 did something wrong here, committed a tort. You don't have 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:50.160 to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.320 So is the logical conclusion after this verdict that the 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:55.879 murderer is still out there? 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.320 Yeah? I guess she and Simpson will go search for 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.200 the real killers. That's really what this is, right, This 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.919 was a binary choice. Either she hit him with the 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.160 car or he went inside the house and was murdered 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.960 by law enforcement officers and soccer moms, and then they 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.080 threw their friend's body onto their front lawns. Doesn't make 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:19.679 any sense. 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.320 So, Dave, what do you make of her supporters? I mean, 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.720 there were crowds of people outside the courthouse waiting for 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:27.320 the verdict. 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:30.639 I mean why she became a cult of personality. I 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.800 think that the narrative that was fed by bloggers was 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.520 that here's this sweet, innocent woman who's being framed for 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:41.520 a crime she didn't commit by by corrupt law enforcement officers. 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.720 And I just feel for those law enforcement officers and 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.160 the families for having their names dragged through the mud 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.199 when they didn't deserve that. They lost a loved one. 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.639 And John o' keith was a good man, and now, 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.439 in my mind, a guilty defendant walks free. 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.000 And when Reid came out of the courthouse, she made 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.960 this statement, no one has fought harder for justice for 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:05.760 John O'Keefe than I have. 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.440