DETROIT, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The Karen Read retrial has started – and the case is even more popular than before thanks to a Netflix special released in March called “A Body in the Snow: The Trial of Karen Read.” The Massachusetts courtroom drama, involving the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe, has returned with a new prosecutor, new witnesses, and sometimes new or changing testimony.
The retrial, expected to run six to eight weeks, is being broadcast live on Court TV and the Law & Crime network. It’s also getting the full social media treatment, with livestreams and breakdowns popping up from attorneys, journalists, true crime podcasters, and YouTubers alike – each offering their own spin on the courtroom drama.
A snowbank, a night of drinking and a whole lot of reasonable doubt.
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In January 2022, O’Keefe was found dead in a snowbank outside fellow officer Brian Albert’s home. Prosecutors allege Read, his girlfriend, drunkenly hit him with her SUV and left him to die in the snow. It’s their burden to explain how or why it happened – and whether it was intentional. The defense counters that O’Keefe was beaten inside the house and/or possibly injured by the family dog and dumped outside, with Read being framed in a classic case of cops protecting their own.
The first trial ended in a mistrial in July 2024, with jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the three charges presented to them. However, some of the jurors came forward after the trial to say that they actually were able to reach verdicts on two of the charges and were only in disagreement about one of them.
Defense fights double jeopardy concerns.
Read’s defense claimed that four jurors revealed post-mistrial that the jury had unanimously voted 12-0 to acquit Read on second-degree murder and leaving-the-scene charges, remaining split only on manslaughter. The defense argued that retrying her on the two charges violated double jeopardy, as the jury was unaware it could report a partial verdict, but Judge Beverly Cannone and higher courts rejected the motion to dismiss, citing precedent that requires formal verdicts to bar retrial.
The defense escalated the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied a request to pause the retrial on April 9, 2025, allowing jury selection to proceed. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson alone denied the request without explanation. The defendant’s petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to vacate the two charges has been distributed for conference, meaning the justices will review the case materials and decide whether to take action. At least four of the nine justices must vote in favor for the appeal to move forward.
The Blue Wall of Silence – or just a shoddy investigation?
Now moving forward with the retrial – which began with opening statements on April 22, 2025, and includes all three charges – Read’s defense team continues to emphasize conflicting witness testimony, a perceived Blue Wall of silence, and major investigative missteps.
The defense claims the investigation was flawed from the beginning, tainted by bias and bungled procedures. They highlight the cozy relationships between many of the officers and witnesses, and point to former Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor’s involvement as a major red flag.
Botched investigation and fired trooper will likely continue to undermine prosecution’s case.
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Proctor, the lead investigator in Read’s case in 2022, was fired in March of this year from the Massachusetts State Police with a “dishonorable discharge” after failing to uphold agency standards including having disclosed sensitive details about the investigation to individuals outside of law enforcement and appearing to be acting in a biased manner. While investigating Read for the first trial, a friend of Proctor had inquired about the homeowner where O’Keefe was found dead possibly facing sh*t but Proctor texted back, “Nope, homeowner is a Boston cop too.”
Additionally, Proctor was found to have been looking for nude photos of Read on her phone and called her many derogatory names including “wack job c*nt” while texting friends, family, and colleagues. He also made vulgar jokes about her medical condition (Crohn’s disease) and said that he hoped Read would “kill herself.”
Proctor’s involvement in the case has cast serious doubt on the integrity of the entire investigation and, with his eventual firing, will likely continue to do so during the retrial. The defense has also raised red flags over many other issues in what they see as a bungled police effort including inverting video evidence of Read’s SUV (confusing the jury about the location of a broken taillight), collecting blood evidence in Solo cups and putting them in a grocery store bag, and not entering Brian Albert’s house and talking with witnesses after finding O’Keefe’s dead body on his lawn. And that’s just the beginning.
Courtroom drama coverage by Michigan attorney and YouTuber.
The retrial has captivated audiences nationwide, with live coverage on true crime networks and extensive analysis on social media platforms. Adding to the trial coverage is Detroit-based attorney Martin E. Radner, known as “Brother Counsel,” who offers daily breakdowns of the trial on his YouTube channel as well as live streaming of the trial. Radner is a trial attorney who owns the law firm Radner Law Group and mostly handles personal injury and civil rights cases.
Radner has gained recognition for his detailed legal analyses of high-profile cases, including Charlie Adelson, the Black Swan murder case, Michigan’s Jennifer and James Crumbley, Karen Read and many others. However, it was the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial, which launched him into the world of YouTube broadcasting, where he has brought his own legal perspective to the cases he covers. Radner shares his insights through his YouTube channel, where he provides commentary on the proceedings and legal strategies involved in the case giving his viewers his take as a trial lawyer.
What does Radner think of Read’s first and second trials?
Radner told Michigan News Source that the Commonwealth (state) failed to prove Karen Read’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the first trial. According to Massachusetts law, the language for the reasonable doubt standard in the state is: “A charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt if, after you have compared and considered all of the evidence, you have in your minds an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, that the charge is true. When we refer to moral certainty, we mean the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs – based solely on the evidence that has been put before you in this case.”
Noting both continuity and key shifts in the prosecution’s strategy Radner said, “Ultimately, my opinion was, after the first trial, that she (Read) should have been acquitted. It was just too much. There was too much reasonable doubt in my mind.” One of the major issues that cemented that doubt, he said, was ARCCA, auto crash reconstruction experts, whose testimony disputed the prosecution’s theory that
John O’Keefe was struck by Read’s SUV. ARCCA had been hired by U.S. Department of Justice as part of a federal probe into the state’s handling of the case.
Battle over expert witnesses to heat up in retrial.
This time, however, the Commonwealth has been working hard to keep those experts out of the trial, arguing discovery issues related to their communication with the defense. A decision on the admissibility of their previously admitted evidence is scheduled to be made today by Judge Cannone after a “voir dire” hearing (where a judge decides whether certain evidence or testimony should be allowed at trial). Text messages between ARCCA and defense attorney Alan Jackson will be examined – potentially weakening the defense’s claim that the experts were independent. However, as Radner points out, the communications between the defense team and ARCCA and any payment for testimony occurred after they performed their reconstruction and authored their report.
Discussing the retrial vs. the last trial, Radner noted that while the evidence itself hasn’t significantly changed yet, tactics have. He said, “So far, there hasn’t really been any new evidence that we’ve seen” but added that new evidence will be coming. He highlighted that both sides are beefing up their technical testimony. In particular, the prosecution has added their own accident reconstructionist and a dog behavior expert to try to counter defense claims that O’Keefe’s injuries were more consistent with a dog attack than a car crash. The defense has also added an expert neurosurgeon to discuss cause of death. And on the prosecution side, a new witness, O’Keefe’s mother, testified last week.
Prosecution turns to using Read’s own words against her.
Another important shift in the retrial, Radner said, is the prosecution’s use of Karen Read’s own media appearances. “It’s almost like she’s testifying without testifying,” the attorney explained, referencing clips from documentaries and interviews – like Dateline – being played for the jury. These statements, he warned, may not paint Read in the best light and could hurt her credibility.
As for how Radner will approach coverage of the retrial, the attorney made it clear he’s going to put himself in the shoes of the jury and listen to all of the evidence. He said, “I’m going to tell my listeners what my opinion is, what I believe the verdict should be. But until I see all the evidence, I’m not going to make any sort of opinion about what the verdict should be.”
