WEBVTT - Karen Read Mistrial & SCOTUS Curbs Agency Power 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:12.120 I'm declaring a mistrial in this case. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.640 Judge Beverly Canon declared a mistrial last week after juror's 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.680 deadlock in the polarizing, high profile case of Karen Reid, 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.880 a woman accused of striking her Boston Police officer boyfriend 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.360 with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.720 The trial had lasted two months and featured more than 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.480 six hundred pieces of evidence and more than seventy witnesses, 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.920 but on the fifth day of deliberations, jurors sent the 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.360 judge a note saying they remained at an impass. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.920 To continue to deliberate would be futile and only serve 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.919 to force us to compromise these deeply held beliefs. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.760 I'm not going to do that to you, folks. Your 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.680 service is complete, but. 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.280 The case is far from over. Prosecutors say they intend 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.800 to retry. Read defense attorney Out Jackson says the result 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:02.640 will be the same. 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.200 The Commonwealth did their worst. They brought the way to 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.640 the state based on spurious charges, based on compromised investigation 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.679 and investigators and compromised witnesses. This is what it looks like. 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.039 And guess what they failed. They failed miserably and they'll 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:19.000 continue to fail. 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.200 Joining me is an expert in criminal law, Daniel Medwebb, 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.240 a professor at Northeastern Law School. For those who have 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.160 not been following this case closely, can you give us 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:29.800 an overview of the facts. 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.640 So a few years ago, a woman named Karen Reid, 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.360 who's now in her mid forties, was driving her boyfriend 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.720 to a party after a night of bar hopping in 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.000 a town called Kenton, Massachusetts. But it's not really a 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.400 suburb of Boston. It's a little further away than a suburb, 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.040 And so she dropped him off. She'd had quite a 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:52.520 bit to drink that night, and then essentially he was 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.520 found dead by her and a couple of her friends 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.680 the next morning. And so the initial theory was that 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.760 maybe she dropped him off and while she was doing 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.640 a three point turn to leave, she might have inadvertently 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.840 clipped him or it wortinly, it's sort of a bit 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.440 unclear at first with her car, and because he had 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.480 also been drinking, he fell down. It was a night 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.000 of a snowstorm, and ultimately he died of hypothermia. That 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.560 was sort of the initial kind of impression of the case, 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:24.360 And at first, I think a lot of people thought 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.120 of this as, you know, potentially an accident, you know, 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:32.079 a problem of drunk driving and a mistake. Over time, 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:37.600 it evolved into a lot more. The government indicted Karen 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.280 Reid for not just manslaughter, sort of recklessly causing the 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.200 death of this man. His name is John o'keith. He 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.920 was a Boston Police Department officer who also was taking 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.440 care of his family member's children. So he had a 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:58.240 lot of really wonderful attributes apparently, so she's charged with 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:04.120 not just reckless mansdaughter, but also she's indicted on secondary murder, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.720 and the prosecution had a number of hostile voice messages 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.799 that she had left to O'Keefe, indicating that it was 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.720 a very volatile and strained relationship. Now, over time, the 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:20.600 defense undercuts the theory a that Karen read had even 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.880 hit John O'Keeffe sort of undercut that theory, and b 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.840 began to develop evidence of an alternative theory that potentially 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.919 John O'Keeffe had gone inside the house where the party 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.560 was an incident had occurred, sort of unclear exactly what 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:41.200 had transpired, and people at the party had left O'Keefe 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.840 for did outside the house. So, on the one hand, 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.280 you have prosecutors who believe that either again inadvertently or btinly, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.480 Karen Reid struck and killed her boyfriend while dropping him 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.160 off after a night of drinking and a lot of 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.480 confrontations and volatility in the relationship. The defense theory is 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.720 that she may never at him at all, that the 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.480 police essentially engaged in a sloppy investigation, and there are 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.600 lots of evidence about haphazard techniques used in the investigation, 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.040 and the defense that's made allegations that some evidence was 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.560 planted suggesting that Karen reeve did it and the police 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.000 never investigated this alternative theory, what would. 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:24.839 Be the reason. So with the defense's alternative theory, what 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:30.000 was the reason they gave for why O'Keefe's friends would 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.120 have left him for dead outside the house in the 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:34.240 snow well. 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.440 The defense theory is that there was some bad blood 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.200 between this man, John O'Keefe, the secedent, and some of 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.919 the members at the house party, including the Albert family, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.640 a guy named Brian Albert who was a Boston Police 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.280 Department detective that that Alberts had had I hate to 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.680 use the term feud because it sort of conjures up 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.000 these sort of small town chiefs, but there had been 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.960 some animosity between the Alberts family and the O'Keefe family. 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.840 In addition, another person at the party, a man named 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.920 Brian Higgins, who was an ATF officer, had apparently exchanged 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.919 some flirtatious text messages with Karen Reid beforehand, so the 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.000 defense sort of alluded to the idea that he had 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.279 a love interest in Karen Reid and maybe had a 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.200 romantic reason to not like John O'Keefe. There are various 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.159 theories that were floated, and the defense obviously struggled to 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:29.120 substantiate them, in part because the police didn't secure the 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:33.120 crime scene, they didn't thoroughly investigate the house or search 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.560 the house. According to the defense, there were a lot 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.640 of missteps in the investigation. So that's sort of part 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.840 of it. And it's a situation where you look at 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.200 this case and depending on your theory of the case, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.440 you can interpret a lot of the evidence in a 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.520 way that supports your theory. For people who think that 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.279 Karen Read did it, a key fact is that she 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.520 allegedly said to some of the emergency responders and to 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.840 her friends when she found John O'Keefe's body, and around 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.760 that time, I hit him. I hit him. I hit him, 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.279 sort of an allusion to the fact that she had 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.360 hit him and there was evidence of a broken tail light. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.040 And some people will look at that and they say 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.680 that's evidence of her culpability. Other people view it as 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.599 more speculation on her part that she just can't remember 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.600 what happened because she'd been drinking and she's just, you know, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.760 mentioning this possible horrible situation. Maybe I hit him, Maybe 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.440 I hit him, And that's sort of the defense explanation 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.919 for it. So there are lots of facts, lots of 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.760 twists and turns, and I think it's one of the 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.080 reasons why people have such strong opinions of the case. 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.120 In order to believe the defense, would you have to 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.200 believe that law enforcement planted evidence and engage in a 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.640 cover up and a massive conspiracy. 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:53.960 You know, I don't know about that. I mean, when 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.039 I look at this case, and I should mention, you know, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:57.680 I have nothing to do with the case. I'm not 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.479 part of the defense team, but I am a former 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.960 defense lawyer, and as a former defense lawyer, I often 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.960 think of the defense strategies at trial, and the major 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.240 defense strategy in a lot of cases, of course, is 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.080 reasonable doubt. In order to convict someone of a crime, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.080 the burden is on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.200 a reasonable doubt. So I don't think it's so much 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.840 that the defense would have to show this massive cover 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.920 up as much as the defense would have to show 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:32.120 that there's reasonable doubt carrying Reads struck and killed John o'kee. Now, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.480 I think you're right. The way the case was tried 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.480 and the way social media has sort of grabbed onto 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.880 the case, there's a sense that for you to think 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:41.760 that carring Mead is innocent, you have to believe in 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.800 this massive cover up. But I'm not so sure. It 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.200 could be that people have lingering doubts about her involvement 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.200 because of a series of facts that just really don't 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.800 add up. So I think it depends. I think it depends. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.040 The tail light of her SUV was broken and pieces 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.960 of it were found in the snow. It seems indicative 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.720 that something happened there was the defense asking the jury 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:06.600 to believe that police planted that. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.240 Yeah, I mean, I think that is part of it, right. 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.040 I think the defense theory certainly was that the police 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.480 were involved in planting evidence, including apparently evidence of a 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.680 hair of John O'Keefe that was damned on the core 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.000 or on the taille or the fragments. I can't call 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.760 exactly what, but there's all this other evidence that maybe 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.640 the jury could believe that doesn't necessarily point to some 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.920 framing or massive cover up, as much as it might 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.680 point to the fact that the police didn't investigate the 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.079 case as thoroughly as possible. So for instance there and 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.120 again I'm not offering any view on this, it's just 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.080 looking at the evidence and sort of speculating about whether 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.520 there was reasonable doubt generated. You know, one issue that 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.760 came up the trial related to John o'keef's injuries, and 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.760 he was found with injuries that may have been inconsistent 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.280 with being struck by a car. There were certain injuries 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.440 to his arm and elsewhere. The defense argued that these 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.840 were dog bites, and that the Albert had a dog, 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.360 and there were all these other allegations. But according to 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.600 the pathologist and some of the medical evidence, there was 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.040 some debate about John o'keith's injuries and whether, in fact 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.520 the car could have caused the injuries alone or whether 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.800 there was something else. You know, I think it is 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.320 interesting what the defense did here and an interesting aspect 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.280 of this. Strategically, the defense could have just focused on 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.360 reasonable death. Here are some of the hold look at 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.080 the injuries. The injuries don't seem entirely consistent with just 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.920 being struck by a car during a three point term. 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.760 There were other pieces of evidence. There was a cloud 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.680 driver who was there later in the night and didn't 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.000 see a body on the lawn. There was evidence that 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.440 maybe someone in the inside the house had conducted a 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:58.679 Google search how long or how's long to die in 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.880 the snow at about two twenty five, two thirty am, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.079 before Karen Reid had returned. So there are all these 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:11.200 little kidbits of information that maybe don't go to police malfeasance, 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.480 but maybe suggest something else happened and the police missed it. So, 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:17.360 in other words, it's sort of a long way of saying, 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.160 I mean, you can look at this case at the extremes, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.880 right one extreme the prosecution theory. You know, Karen Reid 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.800 intended to kill John o'kee another extreme, extensive police cover up. 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.800 But for people who aren't inclined to go to the extremes, 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.920 there might be a feeling that it's somewhere in the middle, 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:42.160 that maybe something bad happened inside the house, really bad, 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.680 and the police didn't do the right investigation to ensure 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.640 that all the suspects were interrogated properly. Or some people 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.000 might think Karen Read mistakenly, recklessly did strike John o'ke, 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.520 and it's more of a tragic accident than some type 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.840 of intentional homicide. But I think the op shot is 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.680 when you look at this evidence, at least from my perspective, 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.400 I wasn't entirely surprised that it was a hung jury 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.800 because of the complexity of the case, because of all 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.640 its evidence cutting both sides. It sort of made sense 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.679 to me that maybe twelve people would struggle to come 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.079 up with unanimous decision. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.800 Stay with me, Daniel. Coming up next on the Bloomberg 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.560 Lawn Show, I'll continue this conversation with Professor Daniel Medweb 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.600 of Northeastern Law School. How might the prosecution change its 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.439 strategy at a retrial, and later in the show, how 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.720 the Supreme Court's decision reversing the forty year old Chevron 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:44.640 doctrine is already wreaking havoc at federal agencies. I'm June 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.720 Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. A mistrial was declared 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.880 last week after jurors deadlocked in the case of Karen Reid, 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.880 a woman accused of striking her Boston Police officer boyfriend 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.480 with her SUV and leaving him to die in a 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.920 snows Prosecutors say they intend to retry read and a 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.800 hearing is scheduled in the case for July twenty second. 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.160 I've been talking to Professor Daniel Medweb of Northeastern Law School. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.880 Michael Proctor, the lead investigator for the Commonwealth, has been 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.560 relieved of duty because of serious misconduct that emerged in 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.880 testimony at the trial. Tell me about his testimony. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:27.000 So, Michael Practor was the lead investigator, and he's a 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.920 member of the State Police. And one huge benefit of 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.559 getting the state police involved in homicide investigations, especially an 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.720 investigation of the death of a Boston Police Department officer, 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.560 is to sort of avoid conflicts of interest, right you 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.839 have a different agency involved in the investigation. That's one 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.240 of the theories behind it. There are several problems, but 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.440 one was that Michael Procter had these personal relationships with 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.040 some members of the Albert family, people who are at 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.280 the party, that according to the defense, at least, he 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.320 didn't adequately disclose. So they're this sense of potential conflicts 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.600 of interest that sort of swirling around his involvement, and 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.600 that I think has spanned the flames of some of 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.880 the fears about a cover up. That it wasn't just 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.280 an issue of floppy investigation. Some believers in Karen Reid's 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.680 innocence would suggest it was more purposeful and sort of 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.200 malevolence than that. So that's one problem with Michael Pactor, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.440 just that there was a relationship there that a tangled 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.600 web that may not have been adequately disclosed on the 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.080 front end. A second problem, and the one that really 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.160 made a lot of headlines, is that apparently over the 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.800 course of the investigation, he was exchanging a variety of 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.520 inappropriate text messages with people about the Karen Reid case, 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.520 and he referred to Karen Reid in sort of very 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.840 vulgar and inappropriate terms. He called her a whack job, 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.600 He made fond of her medical condition, He indicated that 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.440 he had been looking for nude photographs and was disappointed 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.120 that he hadn't fanned any nude photographs. You know, for 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.640 this to be revealed publicly in high profile case, you 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.679 obviously really cast dispersions on him as an investigator, of 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.560 his credibility, his professionalism. But it really sort of called 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:12.199 into question, you know, police propriety in general. If this 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.600 type of behavior occurs in a high profile investigation of 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.360 the death of a Boston police officer, what happens in 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:22.720 a more run of the milk, What happens behind the 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.000 scenes with the investigation? You know, how are the defendants views, 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.160 how are the victims characterized? Are the eyes dotted and 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.000 the peace crossed? If they weren't all handled well here 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.080 in a case that presumably the police would really have 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.280 an interest in solving accurately, you know what happens in 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.800 every other case. So in some respects, I think the 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.480 Karen Read case is also a little bit of a 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:46.840 forum on police investigation techniques. 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:51.320 The jury foreman said the panel was starkly divided. Our 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.680 perspectives on the evidence are starkly divided. The deep division 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:57.920 is not due to a lack of effort or diligence, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.760 but rather a sincere adherence to our individual principles and 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.160 moral convictions. So this wasn't a case of like one 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.120 holdout juror Yes. 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:11.760 So in Massachusetts, you can't necessarily figure out as a 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.880 matter of law, you know what the breakdown was. Over time, 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.520 I imagine we will get a sense of it, just 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.160 because jurors will tell people about what the breakdown was. 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.200 But the implication from the language, the use of plural 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.240 and there is an implication it wasn't necessarily one hold out. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.200 We don't know how many. We don't know whether it 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.960 was a total split. We don't know whether the jury 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.480 was tilted on one side or the other. But there 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:39.760 is a sense. I think you're right that there was 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.520 a deep division, a deeply held division in the jury, 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.600 which again is an entirely surprising given the deep division 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.400 in the community in that particular county. When thinking about 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.360 this case and thinking about the evidence, the. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.160 District attorney's office said it plans to retry the case. 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.240 Do you see a way that it can avoid made 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.880 any of the mistakes or defense arguments that happened in 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:04.920 the first trial. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.920 I do. I think it's an interesting calculation. I think 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.560 it's natural that the DA would announce that they plan 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.120 to try the case I immediate aftermath. That's sort of 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.960 a natural reaction. So I would be surprised if the 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.120 prosecutor simply said justice would serve and we're moving on. 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.800 They obviously are vested in the belief that Karen Read 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.320 is guilty. They got these indictments, which means that at 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:29.800 least the grand jury fan there was probable cause for 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.560 these charges, and they believe, presumably that there is proof 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:35.840 beyond reasonable doubt that the cheese fact guilty. So it's 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.080 not surprising that they said that. As to whether at 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.640 the end of the day they will actually proceed with 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.560 the retrial is a more complicated and nuanced decision because 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.360 you have to think about whether the result would be different. 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.120 As you point out, are there ways for the prosecution 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.120 to sort of mitigate some of the defense arguments or 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.880 overcome some of the defense arguments, or are there some 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.920 intrinsic obstacles here the likely result will be similar, So 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.000 we can kind of think that through. I mean, now 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.639 the prosecution has a sense of what the defense theory is, 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.600 so it does allow them, and they have a year 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.320 after the formal retrial is ordered, there's going to be 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:19.080 a status confemplator this month. Let's say that prosecution reasserts 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.280 that it plans to retry is Read, and then they 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.080 would have one year for the trial to start from 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.560 that date. Over the course of that time, they might 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.000 investigate further. They might think through some of the defense 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.119 arguments and come up with ways to counteract them. But 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:38.640 there are some intrinsic kurdles here that may be difficult 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.840 to overcome. One and we talked about this a moment ago, 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.119 is Michael factor. He was the lead investigator, and I 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.800 don't know how he is kept out of this case, 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.320 how those text messages are kept out, even if the 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.000 defense sort of brings it in. Other intrinsic problems the 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.560 injuries on John O'Keefe and some of the evidence that 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.600 suggests that maybe it wasn't consistent with just being struck 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.639 by the core evidence about that Google search and the 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.080 timing of that Google search, and there's all sorts of 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.200 other evidence that sort of complicates the case for the prosecution. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.960 Some of it maybe can be overcome with better forensic 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.000 experts than they had before or other strategies, but a 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.040 really important question that I imagine the das are asking themselves 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.320 right now, is can we prove this case beyond a 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.240 reasonable doubt given some of these inherent obstacles, some of 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.600 which are related to how the investigation preceded, sort of 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.960 some of these sloppy steps taken in the investigation. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.800 Do you think this is a case of a very 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:43.720 good defense lawyer? Was it more the strategy in other words, 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.840 and the way the defense lawyer approached it, maybe another 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:49.800 lawyer wouldn't have been able to do as well. 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.760 That's possible. That's possible. I think she had a good 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.560 defense team that did a very good job of investigating 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.640 the case and cross examining the witness. I think that's, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.760 I mean, major part of this. Undoubtedly it also is 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.040 and I often say this to my students. What's amazing 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.200 about trials is we often think about them as sorting 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.359 mechanisms between guilt and innocence, but really it's a sorting 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.000 mechanism between guilt and not guilty. And the idea is, 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:21.359 if there is reasonable doubt about somebody's culpability, the jury 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.119 must acquit. And here the jury was conflicted about that. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.240 Some jurors believe she was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Others didn't. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.000 So I think the defense did a very good job 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.760 of raising reasonable doubt, in part by alluding to innocence 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.600 by suggesting that it was a framing. But other lawyers 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.400 might have taken a strategy of just showing reasonable doubt, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.399 just poking holes in the investigation, just poking holes in 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:52.240 the prosecution theory, without necessarily casting dispersions on the government, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.760 so to speak. So I'm not so sure whether it 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.720 was an issue of very effective defense advocacy or also 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.520 an issue of the truth is often gray. It's not 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.119 always black and white. We can't always see it with 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:10.960 perfect clarity, and sometimes that grayness reflects the ambiguities of 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.760 the facts, and those ambiguities are sometimes enhanced by what 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.560 the police did or did not do. So I think 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.399 what's very interesting for the prosecution right now is, even 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.119 if they can course correct, is this going to be 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.919 a wise use of government resources to retry her? And 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.720 if they retry her, does it make sense to focus 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.760 on that second degree murder charge, the intentional murder charge, 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.960 which felt like a stretch, even though there was some 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.120 evidence suggesting there was a lot of hostility in the relationship, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.280 and some very nasty voicemail messages that Karen Reid had 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.760 left for John O'Keefe. You might prosecutors choose to just 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.760 focus on the drunk driving homicide charge, the manslaughter charge, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.320 and make it more about an abhorrent accident. I don't know. 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.320 These are all things that they're going to think about 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:00.480 the month. 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.639 Do you think that a plea deal is possible? 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.240 So let's just sort of reverse engineers. Assuming the prosecution 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.880 continues to believe in the merits of this prosecution, They 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.000 believe Karen Reid is guilty, they believe justice would be 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.520 served by pursuing it. Let's just assume that her purposes 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:22.280 of argument, then they're thinking, well, perhaps given some of 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.560 the obstacles in the case, it would make sense to 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.600 offer a plea. If so, the question becomes, you know, 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.040 what type of plea deal do they offer? Do they 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.399 offer manslaughter, do they just offer leaving the scene of 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:39.480 the crime, do they just offer driving under the influence? 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.800 I mean, what do they offer? It appears as though 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.200 everything that the defense has said about the case publicly, 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.040 I very much doubt that Karen Reid would be interested 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.800 in a plea deal that accepts responsibility for the death right. 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.080 I mean, she might agree that she drove while drinking 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.280 that night, and she might accept a deal to that 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.280 think that acknowledges their culpability for the death Unless the 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:06.000 defense really changes its tune, I don't think they would 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.639 accept it. So the viability of the plea offer is 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.640 contingtion not just on whether the prosecution would offer it, 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.440 but what the defense would accept it. So I imagine the 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.240 prosecution of courses thinking about a plea deal as a 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.720 way to, in their view, achieve justice their vision of justice. 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.680 But I bet from the defense perspective they would hold out. 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.600 And the mistrial is pretty good evidence that what they 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.520 did the first time around you may have legs and 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:30.080 work again. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.440 I assume we're going to find out a lot more 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.960 at the next court session, which is scheduled for July 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.960 twenty second. Thanks so much, Daniel. That's Daniel Medweb, a 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.320 professor at Northeastern Law School. Coming up next on the 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.879 Bloomberg Wall Show. The Supreme Court throwing out the forty 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:51.120