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Karen Read End of Day Update:

Normally, I would be posting here that we'll go live tomorrow at 9 am ET for a full day of testimony. However, we were surprised at the end of the day by Judge Cannone telling us that tomorrow there's no testimony at all. So, we have a break for the day. The trial resumes Thursday for another half day of testimony.

In the mean time, I'll have a Day 2 Recap for you tomorrow! 

If you haven't seen it already, be sure to check out the Day 1 Recap uploaded earlier today:  https://youtu.be/QAs077zDe78  

Otherwise, I'll see you on Thursday morning for more testimony! 💙 

New upload! 

This is a recap of Day 1 of MA v. Karen Read. It’s around 30 minutes long, and my best effort at being both concise and complete in talking about the highlights of Day 1.



If you missed any of Day 1 and you’re interested in following this case, be sure to catch our recaps, starting with this one!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAs07... 

Otherwise, catch us on our Day 2 stream now!!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwsX... 

Hey guys! At the end of Day 1, Judge Cannone told the jury that testimony would run from 9 am to 1 pm ET. So, we’re going live at 9 am ET, and as soon as a court feed is up and showing us more than a spinning fan! 🙃 



If you missed any of Day 1, check out our Day 1 Recap (I’ll edit this post with the link here once it goes live)! 



And otherwise, come join us while we stream and comment on Day 2 live, as it happens here!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwsX... 

Ok, friends! I've double checked the end of today's stream in the Karen Read trial, and Judge Cannone told the jurors that tomorrow court will run from 9 am to 1 pm ET. So tomorrow's stream will start at 9 am ET. Come join us!! 
 https://youtube.com/live/xGwsXydw_aI?feature=share 

Hey guys! At 2 pm ET we’re going live again in the Karen Read murder trial. We have a new afternoon stream set up for it, so be sure to join here!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhoAz...  



Like this morning, as soon as the court feed is up and running with audio, we’ll get going. See you soon!! 💙 

Hey guys! Opening Statements in the Karen Read murder trial are scheduled to begin at 10 am ET. As soon as I have a court feed showing movement and with audio turned on, we'll go live and begin our coverage. This is a highly anticipated trial, and one I'm really looking forward to seeing played out in court.

Come join!!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzKnu... 

UPDATE: End of Karen Read Jury Selection Day 5: Jury selection is complete! (Kind of!)

Court just concluded for the day, and according to reports from journalists in the courtroom, today they lost five jurors (due to hardships), and then gained five jurors. So, they ended up back at 19 jurors. That said, because they're trying to get to 16 (12 plus four alternates), it appears they've decided that this is sufficient.

Now, one thing that's unclear is how (and when?) they decide which three jurors to excuse to whittle down the 19 to 16 again. Also, the jury hasn't yet been sworn in. And yet, court is adjourned for the day. So maybe this will all be wrapped up Monday morning when the jury is supposed to return for the substantive trial to finally begin.

So what's next? 

Tomorrow the legal teams are arguing motions starting at 10 am, and from what I've read previously, Fridays are already reserved for similar sparring between the two sides. 

So all of that means this looks like we're green lit for Opening Statements on Monday. I'm not sure what time on Monday yet, but I'll keep you all posted with the time and a link to our stream so we can all watch together (with legal commentary, of course!). I don't know if they're going to televise motions arguments, but given my personal energy constraints (I have to keep reminding myself that I'm growing a whole tiny human lol), I'm going to just be streaming the trial itself--and this is going to be a long one anyway!

Anyway, I hope you all join us on Monday!! I'm dying to see all the evidence play out in this case, it's such a fascinating battle of arguments!! 💙

And, as always, if you're unfamiliar with MA v. Karen Read, check out my primer video on it!  https://youtu.be/ebp0hwF4U1o 

We've reached Karen Read Jury Selection Day 5! 

If you're keeping track, you know that at the end of Day 4 (Monday) the court had selected 19 jurors, with a new goal of getting to 20, then paring down to 16. 

Speculation is abound as to why that is, but I really do suspect it's because of some hardships that were expressed by some of the already-selected jurors. You can see my thoughts about all of that in my last community post about the KR jury selection process, I won't rehash them here.

Anyway, I'm tracking live updates from journalists in the courtroom reporting on what they can observe of the jury selection. Most of the substantive questioning seems to be done at sidebar and far away from the journalists. I'm not sure if this is a common practice in this courthouse, or if this is just because of how high-profile and publicly heated this trial is. The court may want to keep jurors' answers far away from public ears to prevent people (like internet sleuths) from being able to figure out their identities.

Also, there have been some other motions the judge has been considering along the way. One of these is a motion filed by the defense to move the jury box and/or the witness stand under the defendant's 6th Amendment right to face-to-face confrontation of witnesses. Specifically, the defense is arguing that, due to the positioning of these spaces in the courtroom, at least four jurors would not be able to see the witnesses' face when they testify. Swipe to see the image the defense attached to show what the defense is talking about. 

The prosecution responded to the defense's motion that this courtroom has been configured this way for 100 years, and that trials have been happening throughout that time. But, they offered to maybe move to a different courtroom. 

Honestly, the 6th Amendment confrontation clause is a really big deal, and I really think the defense should win on this one. People saying that it should be sufficient for the jury to be able to assess a witness's credibility just from their vocal affect are completely misguided. Facial expressions can completely change how a witness comes across. A mere flash of a facial reaction to something the witness hears from opposing counsel on cross-examination can completely give away a witness, destroying their credibility. And under the current configuration, four jurors would completely miss it. 

Plus, there was a lot of argument over this kind of issue during the Covid pandemic, and across the board courts generally acknowledged that once a witness was seated at the witness stand, they needed to take their Covid mask off to testify. So really, this shouldn't be a big fight, and the defense should prevail. And, as of this morning (Eastern Time), Judge Cannone has said that she "will consider" moving to a new courtroom. It's not exactly a decision, but it's an indication that (I presume) she's likely talking to courthouse staff about the logistics of doing so. So we'll see as we progress closer to Opening Statements.

Also, I'm all for historic courtrooms, but... 100 years' worth of trials have been conducted in a courtroom where at least four jurors can't see the witnesses' faces while testifying?? I'm wondering how this issue hasn't come up before, or if it has, why the space configuration has remained the same.

And, it's also a good lesson in "just because we've been doing it this way since forever doesn't mean it's the right or best way to do it." 

And, as always, if you're unfamiliar with MA v. Karen Read, check out my primer video on it! You'll get all the baseline information to understand what is happening in this case, and what the two sides are arguing:  https://youtu.be/ebp0hwF4U1o 

Hey everyone! One silver lining to the Karen Read trial taking forever to actually get started is... we have an opening for another episode of Classic Trials!!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GYQB... 

So at 10 am ET, we're going live with Episode 63 of the Menendez Brothers trial. In this one we'll hear from Kitty's sister, Joan Vander Molen; Kitty's sister-in-law, Patricia Andersen; and Jose's brother-in-law, Carlos Baralt. (Click through the images to see a preview of each of them on the stand.)

Come join us!!