Opening Day of the Karen Read Trial Was a Pitcher's Duel Between the Two Lead Attorneys
Annnddd ... we're back.
After the mistrial of last July 1st, public statements from the first jury about how they reached Not Guilty verdicts on the bigger charges but were caught up on the lesser one, appeals by the defense, months of motion hearings, a federal court proceeding that produced nothing, the lead investigator getting fired, way too many interviews by the defendant, and weeks of selecting a new jury, Commonwealth v. Karen Read II: The Retrialing has officially begun.
As with Episode I in this saga, I'm going to do my level best to see this through the same POV as the jurors. The 18 people (reportedly nine men and nine women) good and true from the community who have just had their lives turned inside-out, upside-down and backwards. The ones who are there against their will. Drafted, not volunteers. Who like John Rambo, didn't ask us; we asked them.
Jurors wear the abstract blinders of people who don't listen to the outside talk, watch the coverage, or discuss the trial in any way, but simply focus on the evidence as its presented. I get a lot of skepticism when I say this, but I honestly believe they take that responsibility seriously. I say it from experience of working literally hundreds of jury trials as a Badge Monkey in the MA Trial Court. But also from personal experience. My late, great brother Jim was as once seated on a sexual assault trial that lasted the better part of a couple of weeks. And yet never told a soul a word about it. Not even his beloved wife. Until it was all over. At which point he was basically Donkey from Shrek. Getting him to shut up was the trick. But he kept that responsibility sacred. Jim was an irreverent guy, but for this process he showed reverence. Which virtually everyone (not 100% but not far from it) does once they're in it.
So I'll try to do likewise. Even though the first trial brought me to the conclusion that Read didn't back her car into John O'Keefe in the dark and snowstormy night of January 29, 2022. At least not intentionally, which she's been charged with. (If it was an accident, it's not murder, by definition.) I became convinced something happened inside the Albert family home on 34 Fairview in Canton. And MA State Trooper Michael Proctor covered it up to protect one of his own. But to the extent I can, I'm going to do my best to look at the retrial through a fresh set of vision-corrected eyes. Anyway, that's my plan. How well I stick to it is up to the prosecution and the defense.
So far the biggest takeaways are:
--The new lead prosecutor, Hank Brennan, whom some of you will remember from such criminal cases as The United States v. James Bulger, where he was on Whitey's defense team. If you don't remember his legal work in that one, you definitely remember the outcome, which was three dozen or so consecutive life sentences, only about 1/20th of one was ever served as Whitey ended up getting jumped in a Federal Max. From there he got transferred to Inferno Penitentiary, where he'll be serving out the rest of eternity. But that's no reflection on Brennan. As Hunter S. Thompson put it, "Even Satan deserves good counsel."
As far as Brennan's opening statement, how you viewed it is based on your preconceived notions of the case. The people who think Read is being framed hated it.
To those who thinks she's guilty, it was a masterclass. No notes. Speaking extemporaneously. Laying out a coherent narrative of the case. (As opposed to ADA Adam Lally in the first trial, who read through an endless list of confusing names like he was emceeing a high school graduation.)
Granted, when it comes to public speaking, he's not exactly Tony Robbins. But he's not going for trying to motivate an arena filled with underperforming salespeople to meet next quarter's quota. He's there to convince a jury that Karen Read hit John O'Keefe with her car. And to make his point, he called on the expert testimony of … Karen Read:
Brennan then stressed Read's alleged testimony at the scene. He emphasized how witnesses will say she exclaimed, "I hit him! I hit him! I hit him!" Because the same Rule of Threes that applies to comedy, is also helpful at getting a murder conviction.
He also pointed out that O'Keefe's phone, which was found with his body in the snow, is "a computer" with lots of data which will reveal that he was struck and killed by the back right taillight of Read's SUV. Though as some people have pointed out, that could come back to bite him as the trial goes on, and the prosecution has to argue you can't trust all that sciencey dataishness when it comes to Jen McCabe's "hos long to die in cold" Google search, how law enforcement officers destroyed their phones and SIM cards, and all the buttdialing that's to come. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. And the jury has yet to hear that.
As a rebuttal, Alan Jackson, now rocking an NHL playoff beard, came out hot and animated:
And not to be outdone, offered his own Rule of Threes of a sort:
And calibrated his iron sights with Proctor as his target:
There was more from both attorneys, but you get the point. Their warm ups over, and their arms sufficiently loosened up, it was game ON.
And the prosecution got to take the mound first. Unlike the first time around, when the Commonwealth spent the first few days calling O'Keefe's family and friends to the stand to talk about the deceased and his dating relationship with Read, Brennan came right out with an actual eyewitness. At least one who could testify to the crime scene after the incident, Canton firefighter Timothy Nuttall. He's the one offering the direct testimony about hearing "I hit him!"X3:
But as with the first trial, this isn't consistent with … well, with much. Not what he said in his reports. Not what he told Proctor. Not even what he said in the first trial, where he mentioned hearing her say it twice. Which might not be a big deal in the minds of jurors. But if you have any doubts, that represents a 50% increase in the amount of "I hit him"s.
What I think is more important is that the audio from the dashboard cam is, once again, inconveniently "I hit him" free. Not one. And on redirect, Jackson once again drilled holes in Nuttall's narrative. How he said he found O'Keefe in the snow wearing just t-shirt, where in the first trial he said he had on "a puffy coat." More specifically, the way he described the wounds to O'Keefe's face. Which, while Nuttall went to great lengths to not use the term "black eye," could sound an awful lot how you identify someone who's been punched in the face:
It's important to be fair to every witness. But especially one who's taken up a career where he willing goes into burning buildings to save the lives of cowards like you or me. So a first responder getting lost in the weeds of one detail or another shouldn't be all that alarming. It happens to all of us, even the best like firefighters. Though his body language at times didn't do his credibility any favors:
Again though, what matters is how the jury perceives it. The man is a trained saver of lives and professional risker of his own. Reading too much into how people respond to the stress of public speaking in a murder trial is a fool's errand. It's just as likely a juror is going to empathize with how hard giving testimony and getting cross examined is for anyone than assume he's telling lies because he wants to stick up for a fellow Canton town employee or whatever. We won't know for months.
What we do know after Day 1 is both sides are playing for keeps once again. And The Trial of the Century Season 2 will probably be better than the first. Let's just never lose sight of the fact that a good man lost his life. And hope justice is done, regardless of the outcome. Stay tuned.