Karen Read Retrial Recap No. 4: Both Sides Violate the Ceasefire, and the Foreman of the Jury Wants a Federal Investigation

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It's been a week now since Karen Read was acquitted of killing her boyfriend, John O'Keefe. But this was the most contentious, debated, and divisive Massachusetts criminal trial since Sacco and Vanzetti. Who, it should be pointed out, were convicted of murder in the Dedham courthouse thanks in large part to a MA State Police Captain tampering with evidence. His name? William Proctor (no relation to Michael Proctor). History might not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.  So a case like this isn't going to be over just because the court says it is. 

And as to the lawyers for the prosecution and the defense? They didn't hear no bell. 

It wouldn't be fair to accuse either side of not knowing what the fuck they're doing:

But we can now report that the fighting has continued long after hostilities were supposed to have ceased. First, lead prosecutor Hank Brennan took aim at the jury's verdict, and then launched a salvo at the Free Karen Read movement:

And almost immediately, attorney for the defense Alan Jackson launched a counterstrike:

Which makes it clear that this conflict is not going to end any time soon. Not through a negotiated settlement. Not through any peace process. Not even from the case being decided. The animosity is just too deep. The best we can hope for is a deescalation of tensions and for the attacks to stop for a while. 

But it's also clear that Read's side came out on top in this skirmish, after winning the broader war last week. Brennan never once acknowledged he accepts the jury's verdict, which is his primary duty as a sworn officer of the court. You win some, you lose some, but you have to respect the outcome either way. Take the L. Do some self-analysis. Figure out how to deploy your forces to win the next one. To do otherwise, like he does here, just comes off as whiny and petulant. 

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And if people are in fact being harassed and intimidated, that's objectively wrong. We all condemn that. But more to the point, it's illegal. You don't get to harass and intimidate anyone just because your theory of a criminal trial is different from theirs. There are laws against it. So arrest them. Charge them. Then they get their day in court just like Karen Read did. To instead just complain about it in a carefully worded public statement sounds like an admission that this "antithesis of justice" he's bellyaching about is just people who disagree with him exercising their free speech. Just like the people who are still calling Read a murderer get to do. 

But to get back to this metaphor and keep beating it into the ground, Jackson dropped 14 bunker busters in his response. It's a reminder of a few key aspects of this whole matter that made it the cultural event it became. The sketchy investigation. The utter lack of interest in looking into any other possible cause of John O'Keefe's death. The information about the same that came out despite Norfolk County DA Michael Morrissey's best efforts to keep it hidden. This statement by Jackson doesn't establish Air Superiority; this is Air Supremacy.

Which brings us to the jury that reached the verdict Brennan has such a problem with. The juror chosen as foreman has been doing interviews and what he's saying should make anyone who's still trying to fight this battle drop their weapons and sue for peace: 

What this Juror #1 has said that some people are taking issue with is that in his mind, Read was Not Guilty from Day One. Which is not bias or a preconceived notion. It is literally the status of every defendant in every trial everywhere. The same would apply to you or me if we ever stand accused. The jurors are reminded of this from the opening instructions. Call it "presumption of innocence" or "innocent until proven guilty," but it's how Read was regarded by our entire legal system and it was up to Brennan and his team to prove otherwise. They failed to do so. It happens. We all just have deal with it.

What we shouldn't have to deal with is the Commonwealth being biased or corrupt in order to achieve the aim of flipping someone's Not Guilty to a Guilty. Which is precisely what this foreman thinks happened. And he's calling for something to be done about it:

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Source -  The jury foreman in the Karen Read retrial is calling on the FBI to rip open the case and start from scratch.

“There are so many holes that need to be filled,” Juror #1 told the Herald Tuesday afternoon. “Now that the FBI knows Karen Read is not a suspect, something happened, and multiple jurors feel that way.”

Juror #1 …  is now urging the FBI to “get justice for John O’Keefe.” It has already been announced that federal investigators did look into the web of Canton and Boston police connections to the case and did not charge anyone.

But the foreman, who asked that his name be withheld, said that’s not good enough.

“No one local should be involved in the investigation,” he said Tuesday. “It was lazy police work … and we should start some type of investigation of what went on in that house.”

The FBI’s Boston “declined comment” on the juror’s appeal for a new probe.

As the foreman has already said, the unforgivable fact that investigators didn’t swarm the house at the murder scene on 34 Fairview Road in Canton during a nor’easter is a glaring “red flag” in this murder case.

And there you have it. Straight from the source's mouth. The foreman of the jury, hand-picked by Judge Cannone, confirming that his suspicions are the same as all of us who believed she was the victim of a skewed investigation. Led by a disgraced, fired Statie. Conducted so as to protect a family of cops and politicians. With buried evidence, deleted texts, destroyed phones, butt dials, false statements under oath, expert witnesses with no expertise, and testimony changing constantly to fit the narrative that only Karen Read could've killed O'Keefe. 

More than anything, I appreciate Juror #1 accurately putting his foreman finger on the heart of all my suspicions. The complete and total incuriosity about who or what was to be found inside 34 Fairview, and what took place in there. Like he says, if a police officer was found dying in his front yard - or mine or yours - cops would come in, guns drawn. Or establish a perimeter and order us to come out, hands in the air. At bare minimum, they'd politely knock and ask if, by any chance, anyone had witnessed any murders lately. 

This investigation involved none of those things. And therefore the foreman speaks for all of us when he says it's time for the FBI to stop acting as a non-combatant in this. To send in the troops. This situation calls for boots on the ground. I can't speak intelligently about anywhere else in the world. But in my ancestral homeland of Norfolk County, MA, we need regime change.