Karen Read Files Ill-fated US Supreme Court Appeal

Good morning, towel friends.

As we begin day six of the Karen Read and John O'Keefe re-trial with more jury selection, I took some time to provide an overview regarding why Karen's Hail Mary SCOTUS motion to stay her state court proceedings is hopeless.

Chief Justice Roberts writing the majority opinion in Blueford (the main case Karen is trying to overturn), combined with Karen's weaker factual record than what was presented in the Blueford case, means Read simply cannot get the necessary fourth vote to even get her case heard by the US Supreme Court.

Now, add to that the fact that Read already lost on the merits twice at the lower federal courts (the Federal District Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals), and the fact Read lost stay motions in both of those forums, and this move to go to SCOTUS was over before it started.

I think, in the end, this appeal was always more pomp and circumstance than substance. but, as I explain in the video from my review of the Commonwealth/Caleb Schillinger's excellent (victorious) response to Karen's arguments at the first circuit, Read's lawyer Marty Weinberg is also ahead of his time as, perhaps, one day in the future Justice Sotomayor's extraordinary dissent from Blueford will become law of the land.

Then again, as mentioned above, Read's case is probably not the best vehicle for overturning Blueford, anyway. In Blueford, the jury foreperson literally announced in open court there was a not-guilty agreement on some charges, however, because the jury went back and continued deliberations, the Supreme Court (pursuant to Renico) found there was no finality in the initial announcement because jurys went back and continued their discussions.

In Read's case, there was no announcement in open court by any juror that ran contrary to the notes from the jury foreperson indicating the jurors were hopelessly deadlocked on the "charges" in Karen's case.

Thus, Read not only is out of options under Blueford, but Read's ridiculous request to compel a post-trial voir dire of jurors from Karen's first trial runs up against precedent that is all the more weighty. In Tanner V U.S. jurors used drugs during trial and deliberations, and the Supreme Court held even that wasn't enough to penetrate the inviolability of jury deliberations.

Then, in Pena-Rodriguez, the court opened the door to a narrow exception to Tanner's standard, as to allegations of invidious racial discrimination by jurors during deliberations or as to external influence thereupon, but Read is asserting neither of those claims in her federal appeal.

In sum: Karen is foreclosed from winning her appeal under Blueford, she won't get a fourth vote due to the current political constellation of the court and the Chief Justice's central role in penning the majority holdings in Renico and Blueford, and her request for post-trial voir dire of jurors is laughable in light of Tanner and Pena-Rodriguez.

Read, as I also mention in the video, is facing re-trial for her alleged actions as to driving drunk at 12:31am on 1/29/22, crashing her Lexus into John O'Keefe, causing John to suffer a head injury that left him incapacitated, and then leaving John to die alone in a blizzard (with his initial injuries from the car/ground impact compounded by the onset of hypothermia).

Furthermore, new data from Karen's Lexus infotainment system (that was not accessible during Read's first trial due to Karen's expert "using the wrong software" and "only being able to examine 1 of 3 chips on the system") may well show "time and place" movements of Karen's car during those crucial moments at 12:31am on 1/29/22, but also in the hours that followed.

If Karen did, indeed, travel back to Fairview Road (where the scene of Karen's collision with John's car is alleged to have occurred) at 5:23am that morning (right when Karen left a voicemail on John's phone screaming "John, was/is that you!?!?!") to confirm John was dead on that lawn, only to leave, again, to go collect two unwitting "witnesses," then everything becomes more clear as to the timeline of this tormented case (that has been exploited for clout, PR and money by forces on every side):

Karen Read dropped off the alleged murder weapon after picking up those two witnesses and then returned to the scene of John's death in a different car (driven by one of those witnesses), and, when the three women arrived at Fairview Road after 6am, Karen somehow "saw" John's body on the law, through a blizzard and in the dark, prior to the women passing the tree line of the home in question.

Karen knew what she did that morning. She knew all along.

The only questions now, as I have said before, are thus:

Lehr's Black Mass? Capote's In Cold Blood? Shakespeare's Macbeth? Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail? Kant's Theory and Practice? Hegel's Reason in History? Rousseau's First Discourse? Joyce's Finnegans Wake? Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company? Curtiz's Casablanca? Lang's Metropolis? Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut?

Take your pick.

Every, single, layer of history's recursive dialectical circle is made manifest in the sad saga that has become John O'Keefe's legacy.

Karen Read faces a Sisyphean reckoning. Despite Alan Jackson’s efforts, his overreaching tactics—singed Icarus wings—have toppled her seaport “war room.”

History encroaches. Flak towers crumble into bomb shelters, supporters flee, and the naïve are devoured like cannon fodder.

Imagine Read amid the ruins of her once-grand city, longing for 99 pink balloons to rise from a cratered promenade—a futile hope. No new dawn awaits. Karen's moral salvation lingers as a dream deferred in this tragic nightmare.

The world moves on, faintly recalling Read’s struggle against truth, and even less of John O’Keefe—the great man she erased from this earth, a hero who touched countless lives.

Maybe, however, there is hope yet that a resolution to this chaos is soon at hand, and I will close on this note:

This unfortunate situation is history’s curse: the best-laid plans of turtles, towels, and titans crumble before fate’s heartbreaking synthesis.

Bittersweet, we cue “As Time Goes By,” asking Sam to play it once more, lining the streets to mourn a battlefield scarred by the silenced screams of untold innocents.

To look away is cowardice. To shy from telling this tale is to evade duty. The true cost of mortal sin isn’t ours to bear—it’s etched into the sands of time, a lesson in fragile human frailty forever carved into our collective subconsciousness of guilt.

I feel no pity for Karen in the ruins of her once-lavish bunker, no sorrow for someone who turned beautiful, precious lives into pawns in a political battle of wills.

I see only a futile frail figure watching the last embers of an insidious PR empire burn to ash between her brittle fingers.

In that vicarious catharsis, I find tempered solace.

I cannot predict the days and weeks ahead, nor do I wish to peer into that ether, fearing the conclusion might crush what little spirit I have left to chronicle this chaos.

But I know our souls enter this world blessed with the power to right egregious wrongs. Whether we choose to do so—or let hatred consume us, leading to our own destruction—may be our only chance to break free from fate’s chains (glittered with garlands of flowers as if to distract us from our bondage though they may be).

The irony cuts deep: the control Read craves was always near. Moral liberation demands allocution, contrition, compassion, and apologies. Without them, history judges, exacting penalty sans repentance, perpetuating Read's Joycean cycle of torment, and made manifest in Hegel’s unyielding dialectic.

Perhaps Karen will find her own 99 balloons of hope yet amid the cacophonous polemical blitzkrieg still unfolding before our eyes. But if I have any say, they will descend from above in blue, with a black stripe—for John.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. I am a towel. Get a lawyer if you have questions about the law. Get a towel if you enjoy hidden messages about unconditional love, latent on the page in front of the world, that give you hope for a better, fairer, more compassionate world (a hope that also includes trips to Europe, for the record).