Karen Read Mistrial & SCOTUS Curbs Agency Power

the next morning. And so the initial theory was that maybe she dropped him off and while she was doing a three point turn to leave, she might have inadvertently clipped him or it wortinly, it's sort of a bit unclear at first with her car, and because he had also been drinking, he fell down. It was a night

of a snowstorm, and ultimately he died of hypothermia. That was sort of the initial kind of impression of the case, And at first, I think a lot of people thought of this as, you know, potentially an accident, you know, a problem of drunk driving and a mistake. Over time, it evolved into a lot more. The government indicted Karen Reid for not just manslaughter, sort of recklessly causing the death of this man. His name is John o'keith. He was a Boston Police Department officer who also was taking

care of his family member's children. So he had a lot of really wonderful attributes apparently, so she's charged with not just reckless mansdaughter, but also she's indicted on secondary murder, and the prosecution had a number of hostile voice messages that she had left to O'Keefe, indicating that it was

a very volatile and strained relationship. Now, over time, the defense undercuts the theory a that Karen read had even hit John O'Keeffe sort of undercut that theory, and b began to develop evidence of an alternative theory that potentially John O'Keeffe had gone inside the house where the party was an incident had occurred, sort of unclear exactly what had transpired, and people at the party had left O'Keefe

for did outside the house. So, on the one hand, you have prosecutors who believe that either again inadvertently or btinly, Karen Reid struck and killed her boyfriend while dropping him off after a night of drinking and a lot of

confrontations and volatility in the relationship. The defense theory is that she may never at him at all, that the police essentially engaged in a sloppy investigation, and there are lots of evidence about haphazard techniques used in the investigation, and the defense that's made allegations that some evidence was planted suggesting that Karen reeve did it and the police never investigated this alternative theory, what would.

In addition, another person at the party, a man named Brian Higgins, who was an ATF officer, had apparently exchanged some flirtatious text messages with Karen Reid beforehand, so the defense sort of alluded to the idea that he had a love interest in Karen Reid and maybe had a

romantic reason to not like John O'Keefe. There are various theories that were floated, and the defense obviously struggled to substantiate them, in part because the police didn't secure the crime scene, they didn't thoroughly investigate the house or search the house. According to the defense, there were a lot of missteps in the investigation. So that's sort of part

of it. And it's a situation where you look at this case and depending on your theory of the case, you can interpret a lot of the evidence in a way that supports your theory. For people who think that Karen Read did it, a key fact is that she allegedly said to some of the emergency responders and to her friends when she found John O'Keefe's body, and around

that time, I hit him. I hit him. I hit him, sort of an allusion to the fact that she had hit him and there was evidence of a broken tail light. And some people will look at that and they say that's evidence of her culpability. Other people view it as more speculation on her part that she just can't remember what happened because she'd been drinking and she's just, you know, mentioning this possible horrible situation. Maybe I hit him, Maybe I hit him, And that's sort of the defense explanation

for it. So there are lots of facts, lots of twists and turns, and I think it's one of the reasons why people have such strong opinions of the case.

a reasonable doubt. So I don't think it's so much that the defense would have to show this massive cover up as much as the defense would have to show that there's reasonable doubt carrying Reads struck and killed John o'kee. Now, I think you're right. The way the case was tried and the way social media has sort of grabbed onto the case, there's a sense that for you to think that carring Mead is innocent, you have to believe in

this massive cover up. But I'm not so sure. It could be that people have lingering doubts about her involvement because of a series of facts that just really don't add up. So I think it depends. I think it depends.

or on the taille or the fragments. I can't call exactly what, but there's all this other evidence that maybe the jury could believe that doesn't necessarily point to some framing or massive cover up, as much as it might point to the fact that the police didn't investigate the case as thoroughly as possible. So for instance there and again I'm not offering any view on this, it's just looking at the evidence and sort of speculating about whether

there was reasonable doubt generated. You know, one issue that came up the trial related to John o'keef's injuries, and he was found with injuries that may have been inconsistent with being struck by a car. There were certain injuries to his arm and elsewhere. The defense argued that these were dog bites, and that the Albert had a dog,

and there were all these other allegations. But according to the pathologist and some of the medical evidence, there was some debate about John o'keith's injuries and whether, in fact the car could have caused the injuries alone or whether there was something else. You know, I think it is interesting what the defense did here and an interesting aspect of this. Strategically, the defense could have just focused on reasonable death. Here are some of the hold look at

the injuries. The injuries don't seem entirely consistent with just being struck by a car during a three point term. There were other pieces of evidence. There was a cloud driver who was there later in the night and didn't see a body on the lawn. There was evidence that maybe someone in the inside the house had conducted a Google search how long or how's long to die in the snow at about two twenty five, two thirty am,

before Karen Reid had returned. So there are all these little kidbits of information that maybe don't go to police malfeasance, but maybe suggest something else happened and the police missed it. So, in other words, it's sort of a long way of saying, I mean, you can look at this case at the extremes, right one extreme the prosecution theory. You know, Karen Reid intended to kill John o'kee another extreme, extensive police cover up.

But for people who aren't inclined to go to the extremes, there might be a feeling that it's somewhere in the middle, that maybe something bad happened inside the house, really bad, and the police didn't do the right investigation to ensure that all the suspects were interrogated properly. Or some people might think Karen Read mistakenly, recklessly did strike John o'ke, and it's more of a tragic accident than some type

of intentional homicide. But I think the op shot is when you look at this evidence, at least from my perspective, I wasn't entirely surprised that it was a hung jury because of the complexity of the case, because of all its evidence cutting both sides. It sort of made sense to me that maybe twelve people would struggle to come up with unanimous decision.

Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. A mistrial was declared last week after jurors deadlocked in the case of Karen Reid, a woman accused of striking her Boston Police officer boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snows Prosecutors say they intend to retry read and a hearing is scheduled in the case for July twenty second. I've been talking to Professor Daniel Medweb of Northeastern Law School.

Michael Proctor, the lead investigator for the Commonwealth, has been relieved of duty because of serious misconduct that emerged in testimony at the trial. Tell me about his testimony.

of the theories behind it. There are several problems, but one was that Michael Procter had these personal relationships with some members of the Albert family, people who are at the party, that according to the defense, at least, he didn't adequately disclose. So they're this sense of potential conflicts of interest that sort of swirling around his involvement, and that I think has spanned the flames of some of the fears about a cover up. That it wasn't just

an issue of floppy investigation. Some believers in Karen Reid's innocence would suggest it was more purposeful and sort of malevolence than that. So that's one problem with Michael Pactor, just that there was a relationship there that a tangled web that may not have been adequately disclosed on the

front end. A second problem, and the one that really made a lot of headlines, is that apparently over the course of the investigation, he was exchanging a variety of inappropriate text messages with people about the Karen Reid case, and he referred to Karen Reid in sort of very vulgar and inappropriate terms. He called her a whack job, He made fond of her medical condition, He indicated that he had been looking for nude photographs and was disappointed

that he hadn't fanned any nude photographs. You know, for this to be revealed publicly in high profile case, you obviously really cast dispersions on him as an investigator, of his credibility, his professionalism. But it really sort of called into question, you know, police propriety in general. If this type of behavior occurs in a high profile investigation of the death of a Boston police officer, what happens in a more run of the milk, What happens behind the

scenes with the investigation? You know, how are the defendants views, how are the victims characterized? Are the eyes dotted and the peace crossed? If they weren't all handled well here in a case that presumably the police would really have an interest in solving accurately, you know what happens in every other case. So in some respects, I think the Karen Read case is also a little bit of a forum on police investigation techniques.

is a sense. I think you're right that there was a deep division, a deeply held division in the jury, which again is an entirely surprising given the deep division in the community in that particular county. When thinking about this case and thinking about the evidence, the.

is guilty. They got these indictments, which means that at least the grand jury fan there was probable cause for these charges, and they believe, presumably that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the cheese fact guilty. So it's not surprising that they said that. As to whether at the end of the day they will actually proceed with the retrial is a more complicated and nuanced decision because you have to think about whether the result would be different.

As you point out, are there ways for the prosecution to sort of mitigate some of the defense arguments or overcome some of the defense arguments, or are there some intrinsic obstacles here the likely result will be similar, So we can kind of think that through. I mean, now the prosecution has a sense of what the defense theory is, so it does allow them, and they have a year after the formal retrial is ordered, there's going to be

a status confemplator this month. Let's say that prosecution reasserts that it plans to retry is Read, and then they would have one year for the trial to start from that date. Over the course of that time, they might investigate further. They might think through some of the defense arguments and come up with ways to counteract them. But there are some intrinsic kurdles here that may be difficult to overcome. One and we talked about this a moment ago,

is Michael factor. He was the lead investigator, and I don't know how he is kept out of this case, how those text messages are kept out, even if the

defense sort of brings it in. Other intrinsic problems the injuries on John O'Keefe and some of the evidence that suggests that maybe it wasn't consistent with just being struck by the core evidence about that Google search and the timing of that Google search, and there's all sorts of other evidence that sort of complicates the case for the prosecution.

Some of it maybe can be overcome with better forensic experts than they had before or other strategies, but a really important question that I imagine the das are asking themselves right now, is can we prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt given some of these inherent obstacles, some of which are related to how the investigation preceded, sort of some of these sloppy steps taken in the investigation.

mechanism between guilt and not guilty. And the idea is, if there is reasonable doubt about somebody's culpability, the jury must acquit. And here the jury was conflicted about that. Some jurors believe she was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Others didn't. So I think the defense did a very good job of raising reasonable doubt, in part by alluding to innocence

by suggesting that it was a framing. But other lawyers might have taken a strategy of just showing reasonable doubt, just poking holes in the investigation, just poking holes in the prosecution theory, without necessarily casting dispersions on the government, so to speak. So I'm not so sure whether it was an issue of very effective defense advocacy or also an issue of the truth is often gray. It's not

always black and white. We can't always see it with perfect clarity, and sometimes that grayness reflects the ambiguities of the facts, and those ambiguities are sometimes enhanced by what the police did or did not do. So I think what's very interesting for the prosecution right now is, even if they can course correct, is this going to be

a wise use of government resources to retry her? And if they retry her, does it make sense to focus on that second degree murder charge, the intentional murder charge, which felt like a stretch, even though there was some evidence suggesting there was a lot of hostility in the relationship, and some very nasty voicemail messages that Karen Reid had left for John O'Keefe. You might prosecutors choose to just focus on the drunk driving homicide charge, the manslaughter charge,

and make it more about an abhorrent accident. I don't know. These are all things that they're going to think about the month.

what type of plea deal do they offer? Do they offer manslaughter, do they just offer leaving the scene of the crime, do they just offer driving under the influence? I mean, what do they offer? It appears as though everything that the defense has said about the case publicly, I very much doubt that Karen Reid would be interested in a plea deal that accepts responsibility for the death right.

I mean, she might agree that she drove while drinking that night, and she might accept a deal to that think that acknowledges their culpability for the death Unless the defense really changes its tune, I don't think they would accept it. So the viability of the plea offer is contingtion not just on whether the prosecution would offer it,

but what the defense would accept it. So I imagine the prosecution of courses thinking about a plea deal as a way to, in their view, achieve justice their vision of justice. But I bet from the defense perspective they would hold out. And the mistrial is pretty good evidence that what they did the first time around you may have legs and work again.

June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. In one of the most watched decisions this term, the Supreme Court eliminated a forty year old precedent known as Chevron deference, a doctrine that empowered federal regulators to interpret unclear laws. The six to three decision down ideological lines takes power away from executive branch agencies that enforce all kinds of rules in areas from the environment and finance to education and healthcare.

The Chevron doctrine was a long time target of conservatives unhappy with the rule making power of executive branch agencies, and it took less than a week for lower federal courts to start barring agencies from enforcing Biden administration rules. The rules prohibiting transgender discrimination in healthcare and public schools were among the first to be targeted. Joining me is an expert in administrative law. Carrie Cooliniesie, a professor at

the University of Pennsylvania Law School. I want to start with the odd question your reaction to the Supreme Court's decision eliminating the Chevron doctrine.

That's a rare event. But also in this case, this had been a decision that was one of the most widely cited of all Supreme Court decisions, and certainly one of the most widely cited in the administrative law world, that area of law that governs the operation of government agencies. So there's a real potential for a lot of mischief and confusion and further contestation when the Court overturns the decision that's been so widely cited like this one.

On the other hand, it is also the case that the Supreme Court has sent a very strong signal to lower court judges to take on administrative agencies, to embrace your skepticism and assert your power over these agencies. That is I think the dramatic symbolic import of the Court's decision in the lower Bright Enterprises case that overturned Chevron.

you know. It could be narrow, it could be broad, And that ambiguity under Chevron would have often been seen as justifying an inquiry into whether the agency had been delegated the authority to make the call about what that ambiguous form or term meant, and as long as the agency was reasonable, courts were obligated to go with what the agency held. That's now changed, and in the face of ambiguity, the obligation of the lower court is to substitute its own decision, and maybe it will agree with

the agency, maybe it won't. It certainly should listen to and gear the argument from the agency, but it doesn't have to follow it in the same way that it was supposed to under the Chevron doctrine.

And it's also possible if you could read some passages in the Loco Bright decision where the Supreme Court majority has recognized that there may be evidence that Congress actually intended to delegate to the agency the decision about what the statute means. So in all of those situations, the agency's interpretation will have some weight, but it won't have the same kind of weight that it would have under the Chevron doctrine.

will be competing definitions. Maybe the Supreme Court will step in and resolve some of these, but the Supreme Court only here's what sixty or seventy or so cases per year, So we're going to be living with I think a lot more flux and conflict, and maybe one might even say chaos in the law as these different judges reach potentially different interpretations on their own accord following the Lower Bright decision.

be expected. I think what's different now is that judges aren't even being told to make decisions that accord deference to agencies, and in situations of ambiguity, they're not even being told that there should be some effort to try to think about creating a uniformed decision across the country by going with the agency in cases of statutory ties.

And the other thing to note is that these court decisions, because they'll be based upon now ostensibly the judge's own best interpretations of statutes, will get presidential effect in a way that agency decisions actually under the Chevron doctrine didn't have quite the same strong presidential effect. What I mean by that is that under the Chevron doctrine, if the court found that the statute was ambiguous, and then the tie went to the agency as long as the agency's

interpretation was reasonable. Well, there was still room for the agency at some later time to adapt or change its understanding of the statute as long as that new meaning was reasonable as well. And that won't be the case with the new regime, because once the terms and meaning of the statute is fixed by a court, it takes on that strong presidential meaning and will have a much

less adaptive and responsive laws. So in some sense we'll have more chaos and messiness I suspect, but also some more rigidity as well.

Chevron doctrine. The Court did anticipate this issue to some degree, but it addressed it only in a very brief section of its opinion, and in a way that isn't quite crystal clear itself and will only I think, breed further confusion and lesser until the court steps in and tries

to clarify things. But in brief, the court said that prior agency actions, actually specific agency actions that had been undertaken under a position or an interpretation approved under the Chevron doctrine, those specific agency actions could not be overtre earned just because the court was overturning Chevron. But there's a whole host of ambiguities and questions about what all

that means. So it probably means that if somebody has a permit or a license, or been the beneficiary of some immigration decision in the past that was handed down under a policy approved by courts under the Chevron doctor, that those specific actions can't be overturned. But it doesn't mean necessarily that the prior statutory interpretations can't be challenged in new permit denials or licensed denials or adverse immigration

decisions that might come up. So you're likely to see old interpretations now that had seemingly been settled law, sometimes perhaps for years or not decades, being reopened and revisited.

merit anything more than perhaps respectful consideration. But it's also something to combine with another decision that the Court handed down at the end of the term that allows new businesses to form and to have the ability to essentially obliterate the statute of limitations that might otherwise apply because they weren't in existence at the time an agency undertook

an action and reopened again settled rules. It's of a piece with another decision handed down this term that was decided on Seventh Amendment grounds that Jarchisi decision that holds that, at least in the Securities and Exchange Commission context, when dealing with civil penalties for fraud, the agencies tribunals cannot decide the matter. They have to go to juries in

the Article three courts. That decision itself, I suspect will not be the last word, and we might see other agencies internal tribunals in future years needing to go to Article three courts. So we're going to have a lot more business for the judiciary, and that raises a host of institutional capacity questions about whether the courts are going to be capable of resolving these matters in a timely and informed manner.

that have been delegated that authority by Congress, but they now are going to be subjected to a much more muscular approach by the courts.