(VOR News) – Karen Read, a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her police officer lover in 2022, had her trial declared a mistrial by a judge on Monday.

The verdict was rendered on the fifth day of a nine-week trial that took place in a courtroom outside Boston. During the trial, Read’s attorneys claimed that the death of 46-year-old John O’Keefe was a police cover-up.

Prosecutors claim that on January 29, 2022, Karen Read, 44, crashed her Lexus SUV into her fiancé, leaving him for dead.

Read was accused of DUI manslaughter, second-degree murder, and escaping the scene of a tragic collision.

Six men and six women made up the jury, and on Monday afternoon the foreman wrote to Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone to express that despite their best efforts, the panel remained divided. The letter stated that while some believed the prosecution’s case to be weak, others believed there was sufficient evidence to condemn Read.

The jurors were devoted to their duty, but they were also “deeply divided by fundamental differences in our opinions and state of mind,” as they wrote to Cannone.

Cannone scheduled a status hearing for later this month following the mistrial.

In addition to thanking O’Keefe’s family, the district attorney’s office declared a retrial.

Reporters were informed outside the courthouse by Karen Read lawyer,

Alan Jackson, that the prosecution had employed dishonest detectives and an improper investigation. “We will not give up on our struggle,” he declared.

That morning, O’Keefe was discovered to be unresponsive and declared deceased. The medical examiner concluded that the patient died from blunt force injuries to the brain and hypothermia.

In order to hide an attack that O’Keefe had during a party at the apartment where his body was discovered, her defense team alleged that the police conspired to frame her.

The chief investigator in the case, Massachusetts state trooper Michael Proctor, was accused by the defense of falsifying evidence, neglecting to look into O’Keefe’s death, and sending derogatory messages and epithets about Karen Read to his friends, family, and superiors.

During his last Tuesday’s closing remarks, Assistant District Attorney for Norfolk County, Adam Lally, referred to Proctor’s texts as “indefensible,” although he clarified that they had no bearing on the investigation.

Lally dismissed the defense’s cover-up claim as “rampant speculation.”

Read allegedly told first responders that Lally had struck O’Keefe more than once. According to vehicle data, on January 29, at midnight, she reversing her SUV about 62 feet at 24 mph near Brian Albert’s house.

Evidence, according to Lally, proved she hit him. Authorities discovered O’Keefe’s hair and DNA on the back of the car, along with a broken tail light.

According to Lally, nobody at the party remembered seeing O’Keefe at Albert’s house.

Karen Read dropped O’Keefe off at Albert’s house, drove home, and ran away in a panic, breaking the tail lamp, according to defense attorney Alan Jackson. Hours later, she discovered her partner was vanished.

Using surveillance footage from O’Keefe’s house, the defense presented evidence of Read reversing her SUV into her boyfriend’s vehicle on her way out to find him. O’Keefe’s iPhone, according to Jackson, recorded dozens of steps around the moment that prosecutors claim he was struck. It could have been Albert’s basement down those steps.

In contrast to the prosecution, Karen Read lawyers were able to prove O’Keefe’s death was the result of third-party wrongdoing. A BATFE agent suspected of O’Keefe’s murder exchanged passionate texts with Read.

Before the Albert’s house party, Jackson thought that Karen Read had abandoned him at a pub, which had infuriated agent Brian Higgins. Jackson thought O’Keefe may have fallen and struck his skull during a fight between Higgins and O’Keefe at Albert’s house over Read.

Higgins claimed that he had never seen O’Keefe at Albert’s house and that Karen Read lack of emotion didn’t bother him.

O’Keefe’s injuries should have been worse if he had been struck by a car traveling more than 20 mph, according to a forensic engineer who assessed law enforcement’s case management for the Department of Justice, as reported by The Associated Press.

Expert Andrew Rentschler reportedly told the Associated Press, “We do not have sufficient evidence in this case to ascertain which specific event caused the injury.”

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The Supreme Court says Trump has absolute immunity for core acts

(VOR News) – The United States Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that a former president is entitled to a presumption of immunity for his official activities and has complete immunity for his essential constitutional duties. The decision was ideologically fraught.

Nevertheless, his unofficial actions render him susceptible to consequences. The Supreme Court concurrently remanded the case to the trial judge to determine whether any of the actions taken by the former president, Donald Trump, were part of his official duties and, as a result, exempt from prosecution.

The Supreme Court decision regarding this matter is likely to ensure that the litigation against Trump will not be heard before the election and will not be heard until after he has lost his reelection campaign. In the event of an additional election, Trump may either instruct the Justice Department to withdraw the accusations against him or attempt to pardon himself in the two ongoing federal cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who was endorsed by his conservative colleagues, authored the Supreme Court judgment. Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, the three liberal justices, expressed their disagreement.

Roberts acknowledged that this was an unusual situation.

He criticized the subordinate courts for “rendering their decisions on a highly expedited basis” and asserted that no court has yet considered how to differentiate between official and unofficial actions. According to him, the lower courts “did not conduct an analysis of the conduct alleged in the indictment to determine which of it should be classified as official and which as unofficial.”

“Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one we have recognized,” according to Roberts. Nevertheless, the perspective also disproved some of the most significant allegations made against the previous president.

“In light of the President’s official relationship to the office held by that individual, certain allegations—such as those involving Trump’s discussions with the Acting Attorney General—are easily categorized,” said the attorney general. Alternatively, “Trump is … absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.”

The allegations of election interference against Trump will not be subject to a trial for several months as a result of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision to return the matter to trial on Monday.

Judge Chutkan anticipated that the trial preparations would necessitate approximately three months prior to the immunity case. She is now obligated to ascertain which of the allegations in the Trump indictment should be pursued further and which are associated with official conduct that is exempt from prosecution under the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated in her dissenting opinion that the majority “in effect, completely insulate[s] Presidents from criminal liability.”

“Today’s decision to grant criminal immunity to former Presidents fundamentally alters the institution of the Presidency.” According to her perspective, “It is a mockery of the principle, which is fundamental to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”

“The Supreme Court  grants former President Trump all the immunity he requested and more, relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the necessity of “bold and unhesitating action” by the President.”

Trump may request further delays, as immunity concerns are among the few that can be challenged prior to trial, even when Judge Chutkan separates the constitutional granules from the chaff.

The Supreme Court rendered its verdict on Monday, months after deciding to hear the case on February 28 and scheduling arguments for two months later.

Critics of the Supreme Court contend that the justices may have examined the case as early as December, when special counsel Jack Smith of the Justice Department unsuccessfully requested that the same issues be considered as those that Trump subsequently raised.

This is in striking contrast to the way in which the court has handled previous cases involving presidential authority. In 1974, the justices issued a decision against President Richard Nixon just sixteen days after hearing oral arguments.

Justice William Rehnquist abstained from voting in the 8-0 decision as a result of his personal relationship with specific authorities who were accused of malfeasance in the case. This year, the court unanimously determined that states were unable to exclude Trump from the ballot in less than a month.

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NEW YORK — Don Henley, the Eagles’ singer, filed a lawsuit in New York on Friday to restore his handwritten notes and song lyrics from the band’s classic album “Hotel California”.

The civil complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court in March after prosecutors abruptly dropped criminal charges against three collectibles specialists suspected of attempting to sell the documents.

Henley | AP News Image

Eagles singer Don Henley sues for return of handwritten ‘Hotel California’ lyrics

When the criminal prosecution against rare books dealer Glenn Horowitz, former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi, and rock memorabilia vendor Edward Kosinski was dismissed, the Eagles co-founder insisted the pages were stolen and pledged to file a lawsuit.

“Hotel California,” published by the Eagles in 1977, is the third-best-selling album in the United States.

“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” Henley’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said in an emailed statement Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the handwritten pages are still in the custody of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which declined to comment on the case Friday.

Lawyers for Kosinski and Inciardi criticized the legal action as frivolous, stating that the criminal prosecution was dropped after it was discovered that Henley deceived prosecutors by omitting important material.

“Don Henley is desperate to rewrite history,” Kosinski’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to litigating this case and bringing a lawsuit against Henley to hold him accountable for his repeated lies and misuse of the justice system.”

In a separate statement, Stacey Richman, Inciardi’s lawyer, said that the lawsuit seeks to “bully” and “perpetuate a false narrative.”

A lawyer for Horowitz, who isn’t named as a defendant because he doesn’t own the files, did not respond to an email requesting comment.

During the trial, the men’s lawyers claimed that Henley sent the lyrical pages to a writer who worked on an unpublished Eagles biography before selling the handwritten sheets to Horowitz. He sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski, who began auctioning some of the pages in 2012.

Don Henley | AP News Image

Eagles singer Don Henley sues for return of handwritten ‘Hotel California’ lyrics

The criminal case was quickly abandoned when prosecutors acknowledged that defense lawyers had been caught off guard by 6,000 pages of conversations involving Henley, his attorneys, and associates.

Prosecutors and the defense said they only acquired the materials when Henley and his lawyers decided to forgo their attorney-client privilege at the last minute, which protected legal discussions.

Judge Curtis Farber, who presided over the nonjury trial that began in late February, stated that witnesses and their lawyers used attorney-client privilege “to obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging” and that prosecutors “were apparently manipulated.”

SOURCE – (AP)