Karen Read Trial Recap 6.11.24

Katherine Loftus joins us in studio to help break down and answer questions about the Karen Read trial.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Okay, our legal experta Catherine Loftusfrom the law firm of Loftus and Loftus,
is in the studio again with usand we talk about the Karen Reid
trial. We have to remember,Lease, a lot of people listening still
don't know what the Karen reidtril is, so we should probably reintroduce her.
Hey. Basically, Karen Reid isbeing accused of running over her boyfriend who

(00:22):
she was dropping off at a housein Canton. They were having a house
party back at the end of Januaryof twenty twenty two. Her defense is
saying that it was a setup andthat there's a third party involved and that
she didn't do it. So that'swhere we are. They say she's being
framed, right and yesterday, Ohboy, the lead investigator now he's with

(00:43):
the state police. Right, that'scorrect. Now I need to know Catherine
isn't he under a federal investigation?So what we don't officially know because we've
never actually heard anything from the USAttorney's office. They've not released any information.
The only way we have access sothat is through the documents that was
turned over in discovery in the statecourt case against Karen Reid, there is

(01:04):
an inference that basically they're all beinginvestigated. We do know that there's an
internal affay has investigation that was stardedby the state Police. We don't know
the status of that. We don'tknow if that's closed, we don't know
if that's still ongoing. So thereis some investigation out there. So okay,
So if there is an investigation ofthe lead investigator and possibly others,

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shouldn't that investigation have been completed beforethis trial began. Wouldn't that have made
sense since the investigation is basically asto whether or not there's a cover up.
So we don't know what the investigationagain, because we don't have that
information from the FEDS or from theState Police, so we don't actually know
what the specifics of the investigation are. They're not allowed to discuss the actual

(01:46):
investigation in court. That was apre trial ruling from the judge. Ultimately,
you know, the case has togo to trial. Karen Reid has
a right. She can't just bewaiting pending an investigation that theoretically could go
on six months. So the casewent to trial anyway. And what the
result was is that we have thisline of question and that was asked of
Troup of Proctyguay, which was wild. It was so offensive all of the

(02:09):
text messages that were read. Canthe prosecution come back from this or was
this like a fatal blow to whatthey're trying to prove. It's pretty tough.
I mean, I think I neversay never. But the way you
want to look at it is you'reputting witnesses on and you want the jury
to have faith in what they're saying, faith in what they're doing. You

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want them to find them credible.And when you, as the prosecutor,
basically have no choice but to puton this witness because he is the lead
investigator and at the same time acknowledgeall of these text messages that he's sending
in the manner in which he's speakingabout the defendant, it's very difficult.
Once that credibility has been reduced.I don't know that you get it back.

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And again we don't know what elseis coming from the Commonwealth, but
it was a pretty big blow.Is Michael Procter still working on his testimony
yesterday? Which I thought was interestingWhen he was asked, he said he
still worked for the State Police andhe was still in the Norfolk County justsic
attorney, which is the each countyhas basically a Sea Pac unit of state
trooper detectives that handle the homicides,and it sounded like he was still working.

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So part of that leads me tobelieve they're either the investigation in the
State Police is closed and there hasn'tbeen any either conclusions or consequences. I
was surprised by that, to behonest, I would think that the internal
investigation or the potential federal investigation wouldhave had to be brought up in court.

(03:35):
So given the fact that it's whetheror not there was a cover up,
so without we don't want to useso because there's no conclusions yet with
the IA investigation. So if therewas an internal, if he has an
investigation, if he was found responsible, that is something that you could bring
up and question him on in court. But because they're active, ongoing investigations

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and there are no conclusions, youdon't get to go to on that line
of inquiry. So it because theoreticallyif he's found you know, or any
you call, any witness who's underinvestigation, if they found not to be
responsible, you know, it taintsthe way that the jury looks them one
your question, but essentially they gotto use everything that was part of these
investigations without actually saying you're under investigators. And his testimony yesterday having to reread

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his text messages, which were shockinglyoffensive, he had to know that he
was going to do that in courtahead of time, right, Oh there.
I mean, there was no way. We've been waiting for this the
whole time now, and we haveheard for a long time that there have
were text messages and they've been alludedto by defense, and I think,
you know, I always expected themto be bad, and they were that

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much worse than even I expected.But he knew this was coming and there
was really no way around it.Another takeaway from his testimony yesterday was what
you were talking about last week,that he was had tunnel vision and that
he from like from the first houron the scene, he had decided that
Karen Reid was at fault and thatwas the only thing he was He had

(05:02):
tunnel vision, And what are yourthoughts on that appropriate? So, so
from my perspective, this is kindof what I've been talking about, you
know, on my page for quitesome time. Is that really it is
the police investigation, that it isan issue. And oftentimes this is what
happens with police investigations. It's notnecessarily that it's this, you know,

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framing a big cover up, butthis that it's that they make a decision
right away, they say, oh, you know, we had a couple
of people say she hit him,she hit him, she hit him,
she's got damage to her car.That's it. It's her. And then
once you start down that, youknow, towards that person or the conclusion
that you've already drawn, you findthings that support that conclusion. And I
think there's a fair possibility that ifthey had investigated more outside of Karen Reid,

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they probably there's a likelihood they mighthave still ended up at Karen Reid.
But because they didn't do that,it allows the defense and all these
other possibilities because you don't ever don'trule anything out, and so that allows
the defense and everyone else's right,well, it could be a b c
D. You didn't go into thehouse, right right, You didn't search

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anything. I have a question,so Ury buchanic Buchanicay, so he was
the other investigator, and he Ithink was a pretty decent witness. He
seemed button up, he seen puttogether. He seemed like he knew what
he was talking about. But thenwhen at the end of Cross, beginning
of the Cross yesterday that just startedthat will continue tomorrow, they made it
very clear that he was on thattext thread with him. Doesn't that kind

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of discredit him to the jury thatthey just saw this guy and now that
he's in that group text as theboss letting that type of conversation happen.
Yeah, I think a little bit. And obviously we didn't finish Cross,
so we'll get into I'm sure we'llget an even more when we talk on
Wednesday. But I do think overall, I thought you kind of was very
good, even on direct as wellas Cross. He withstood it. I

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thought he seemed, you know,reasonable and reliable for the most But but
it does it gives rise to allthese questions that don't shouldn't be brought up,
Right, We shouldn't have police weretalking about defendants in this way.
We shouldn't have the back and forth. But you know the reality is probably
happens more often than you would think. Question about the Dighton police officer that

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was on the stand yesterday, Ithought he was extremely credible and the way
that he described what he saw onher car, that the tail light was
shattered or cracked, but not shattered. How impactful was that testimony? I
thought it was helpful, and Idon't know which way you want to skew
it, because I've seen both sidessay it helps both of them because he

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has no stake in the game,right, he's not stay police, he's
not can't police. So he's justbeing called there that day to help them
go to the house get the carout. He's testified that it was cracked
and but not she said, notcompletely shed and a piece was missing.
My question, the next question Ithought the komal would ask was how big
is the piece? Now? Isthe piece, you know, the size

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of my thumb or is it thesize of my fists or bigger? Because
it makes it difference if the pieceit's missing is big. Okay, there's
a theory that they can shatter intoa bunch of pieces the on the scene.
If it's a tiny piece, thenthat mask makes it less likely.
But nobody followed up on that,So I think that leaves that sort of
opened ended and you can interpret iteither way, all right. Our legal
expert Catherine Loftus is in the studiowith us. Let's start with Kathleen from

(08:18):
Boston. A. Kathleen, youhave a question for the counselor? I
do I've been thank you so muchfor being on but I've been following the
case, and once the Feds handedover all those pages, the three thousand
pages, I really thought that therewould be evidence death and that's why Michael

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Focter was never on the stand untilyesterday. So do you think that there's
still a possibility that they have somethingand that Alan Jackson brings it up tomorrow.
I just can't believe it's gone thisfar. I thought for sure they
had a video of him at thetail life more than we saw or something,
and that it would never get thisfot. What do you think could

(09:03):
have still happen? My personal opinionis no, I don't think they actually
have any evidence of tampering or youknow, anything happened in the house.
I think they have a lot ofsmoke. I I don't think they actually
they have the actual fire. Ithink if we had a video, the
commalth would have to have it becausethe defense would have to turn it over.
If we had a video of MichaelProcter smashing the tailight, we wouldn't

(09:26):
be at trial or if there wasactual evidence. I think that came out
in the federal grand jury. Obviouslyfrom my perspective, a lot of peripheral
stuff came out, like these textmessages things, you know, Brian Higgins,
Brian now but getting rid of theirphone. But I don't know that
they actually found any evidence. AndI don't know that that's going to come
out. It's really going to bejust what you just said. Doesn't that

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seem to be enough evidence? Well, that's not really evidence. It's just
it's it's an inference that the defensecan make about they they're asking the jerry
to conclude or draws and conclusions basedon this information. But it's different than
you know, asking the jury tosay, look he's over there, he
could have done this is very differentthan saying, look at here's a video

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of him actually doing it. Right. Okay, next question comes from his
honor of the Mayor of the SouthEnd, and go ahead, mayor,
good morning. I have a legalquestion about the judge. Now, this
guy Proctor, Obviously he didn't investigateanybody else. Not only is he biased

(10:30):
against the defendant, he's viciously biased. So the judge is sitting there listening
to all this, what power doesshe have saying, Okay, this is
ridiculous, let's send this case rightnow. Or is it out of her
hands once it reaches a jury trial. Does she have any power on anything
in the case right now, liketo throw it out? No, So

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it's always the cammwaalth's ability to trythe case. The judge never gets to
just dismiss the case out all right, unless the defense asks for it,
or defense asked for a mistrial.Obviously at this point they're not going to
do any of that because their caseis going pretty well, so why would
they bother? But the judge isreally the gatekeeper. And when you hear
information like this from Trooper Proctor andthis kind of testimony what he's saying,

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it's not up to the judge tosay, oh, hey, I'm going
to intervene and I think this isso bad because these are ultimately issues for
the fact finder. This is whata jury trial is for, is to
listen to the witnesses and weigh thecredibility of each So it's really out of
the judge's hand outside of the youknow, rulings on objections and you know,
the sidebars things like that, isit true Karen Reid went to the

(11:35):
Celtics game. I've heard that.I've heard that. I haven't actually seen
video. What we were saying,Well, we were a saying that's speculation
and inferences, Billy, I don'tknow, but we are proving you off
the air, like what does KarenReed do? Like that's all I want
to know, right right? So, but you said that, yeah,
I mean my understanding, I've seena few I've been, you know,
said stuff that they're out. Iknow that they stay. I think they

(11:58):
stay at the Omnytown in the seaportwhere they and obviously they're doing that every
night, I'm pretty sure. Butthey're out. I mean they're out having
dinner. They heaven. I don'tknow if she's drinking, but there's drinks
at the table. So it's it'san interesting I think there's two kinds of
ways to look at it. Whenyou was saying, you know, if
if you're innocent, why do youhave to hide? Why do you have
to you know? But at thesame time, you know your your forma

(12:20):
potner is dead in your entrial fometis I don't. It's kind of a
balanceable. Yeah, justin questions fromthe mafia. I mean, I have
a thousand of them. What doyou want to just run through them?
Let's go all right? Can youspeak a little bit on why prosecution had
to have him read the tech mustages? Like why did that have to be
part of their side when it wasclearly such the deeming series of tech ussages

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that go really against him. Whydid they have to have him read those?
So they didn't have to That wasa choice that the kom Wealth made,
and they made that choice knowing thatthe events was one thousand percent going
to ask him those questions and havethem read it. So basically, what
the kom Wealth was trying to dois at least soften the blow by putting
it out. It really it doesn't, but at least it looks like you're

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not hiding anything. If the komwaaltdidn't ask him a single question about text
and just asked him about what happenedthat day and what the thought process was
and the evidence collection, all thosekinds of things, didn't ask him anything
about the text, And then youget the attorney Jackson up and this is
what he goes right into it lookslike the com walts hide in the ball.
So even my opinion always is,even if it's bad, you have

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to get it out because you don'twant to look like you're hide in anything.
I apologize. I didn't get catchthe stream has proped or been cross
examined on the texts. So hejust started the end of yesterday, Attorney
Jackson started cross examining him, andthen we'll go into we'll pick that back
up. And I asked Catherine abouttrial sort of management, and was that

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a good thing or a bad thingfor the prosecution that now the jury has
all of these horrible text messages ontheir brain for a day where you know,
so you thought that it helps thedefense. It definitely helps the defense
because that's what we have a dayoff from trial today, so you have
the jurors literally just thinking about howthat ended. If I, if I
was doing it, I would havetried to probably put another witness between bu

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Kennick and Barrow, so between Barrowsand Proctor and get because the first part
of practice testimony was okay, well, you know, he was talking about
what they did that day, allthat kind of stuff. So if you
could have ended with that with thecalmwalth and kept the cross examination to one
day. Now we have the crossexamination ended yesterday. They have all day
to think about it today and thenit resumes tomorrow, so that definitely benefits

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the defense, right, just goodmorning, question for the counselor. I
am wondering why did Proctor dislike KarenReid so much to say all those things
in text? I didn't finish watchingyesterday. I'm going to finish up watching
the cross examination, but I don'tget it. Why was he he so

(14:56):
against her? Do we know theyhave any kind of a history, not
not that I'm aware of. Tobe honest, I don't really know what
the basis is. And some ofit got a little bit confusing about which
text messages were from when, AndI did have a you know, kind
of in the back of my head. I was wondering, I wonder when
they publicly came out and started anaccusing Proctor of being in on it,
and which texts were before and whichtext were out. But there were definitely

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some at a at a minimum,there were texts, nasty texts before he
was ever publicly being accused of,you know, being in on it,
so I it's it's very it's very, very unfortunate that you have law enforcement
speaking about a criminal defendant in thismanner. It's this, there's really no

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excuses, is beyond. It's asbad as you can get, and there's
no no punishment. I'm just sodisgusted about Proctor, Like, if this
is how he talks about women oranybody he's investigating, and why haven't the
stay please done anything to at leastpunish him. If you're in any other

(16:03):
workplace, you would have get reprimanded, and it didn't seem like he did.
And for his wife to just belike, I'm so proud of you,
it's just it's so wrong in somany ways. Well, I also
think you know that there is anargument that goes to listen, I'm I'm
pro union, I love unions,and I'm a union girl. But there's
also when you get into one ofthese you know, police teaches things like

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that they have really strong unions thatoften protect the bad along with the good,
you know, and it's really hardto fire people for stuff like this.
I'm surprised. I was surprised thathe's still actively and now they didn't
he didn't answer a question about whetherhe actually is, you know, undertaking
investigations or if he's you know,on cases. But the fact that he's

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not on desk duty on our administrativeleave, I was surprised have to hear
in the substances. I'm surprised toyou. And we need to mention Sue
O'Connell, who is with you.On NBC Tenant night, she mentioned she's
in the courtroom, that the majorityof the people on the jury are women
between the ages of twenty five andsixty five, and they were saying that
they looked discussed. I think shesaid that nine out out of the sixteen,

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And I mean, how can younot how can you not be disgusted
because this is really it's not it'snot like oh this I thought maybe it
would be bad, but you couldkind of interpret it, oh this way
or that way, and you can't. There's there's no way to interpret it,
you know, in a positive way. And even when he started talking
to it in his friend group chatthat was the first what day or two

(17:33):
when he was saying the Boston copdied but in the whack job and I'm
like, you don't even probably talkto her yet right. And I think
the thing for me that was alsointerested is that to differentiate it with say,
Brian Higgins, when he was onthe stand and he was reading the
text with him encounter, I thought, at least from my perspective, he
actually seemed like embarrassed. He actuallyseemed like, oh my god, I

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can't believe I'm reading this. Idon't know why did this. He was
my friend, he seemed genuine.When Procta was apologizing, it didn't seem
genuine to me at all. Itwas very rote. He kept saying the
same thing over and over. Andhe had the opportunity, I think even
when Jackson asked, hey, Yanettie'sright here, what do you think about
him now? And he went rightback into oh, I don't like him,
when he could have you known,he could have said, hey,

(18:18):
listen, i've mister Yanette has beenaccusing me of a homicide that I didn't
do. And you know what Isaid some nasty things, you know,
the ability to kind of but that'sego. That's like he just responded,
no, I don't like him.He didn't come off sympathetic. It's ridiculous
apology. He at least could havelooked Karen in the eye and said it
directly to her. I think thatcould have gone a long way in terms

(18:40):
of but yeah, it's just justinyou have another one. I mean,
I have so many it's hard tochoose which ones. But you were just
talking about, you know, thetexting to all the other people, like
you know, is that is?Can he be reprimanded for that? I
don't know. A nurse I knowwhere you know, not allowed to talk
about patient information. There's an actuallaw, the hippo law that violates that.

(19:04):
Where this was under an investigation andhe's texting like friends. Is did
he break any sort of law becauseof doing that and giving information? Or
is he just Scott free now?I don't know if there's any laws that
he's broken up, but I'm surethere's code of conduct within the state police.

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And again I don't know these specificsabout what's going on with the internal
and fans investigation, but I thinkthere has to be some sort of It
would seemed because he was he wasmentioning medical conditions about her, which seems
to be a hippo violation if youknow what the medical condition is, right,
I mean, really, he shouldn'tbe he shouldn't be sharing anything right

(19:47):
with anybody, and you're just youknow, you're not just no offense,
but you're not just you know,a patrol officer who's making an observationion.
You're the lead detective in a homicidefor the Norfolk County DA's office. Like,
the standards have to be higher,they have to be higher. We
have time for one more justin moreof a comment than a question, but
yeah, we got to wrap thisup. Oh sorry, hold on,

(20:10):
computers frozen. I had a questionabout what happened with the pre trial hearing
yesterday that we discussed on Friday.Okay, are they going to let the
dog expert in or not? Sowe're gonna have a wada of the doctor
who the defense is trying to call. Now they provide a late notice that's
the issue from the cammwalth that theyturned it over essentially two days ago,
two weeks ago. And they alsowant to call two accident reconstruction experts that

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their reports came from the federal investigation. The KMWALT has said, we don't
have their reports. We need toknow what they're going to testify too.
So basically the judge said all rightnow, we have to have another day
where we have another vada. Hopefullythat only takes half a day, but
that might be towards the end ofthe week. They haven't decided with the
scheduling yet, but they have toget the people up to test. That's
our legal expert, Catherine Loftus andby the way, you can find her

(20:56):
on note my objection on TikTok