A funeral was held yesterday for Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, who died after apparently being struck by his girlfriend's car in Canton during the blizzard at the end of January. Authorities have charged the girlfriend, Karen Read, with a number of crimes. Daniel Medwed, GBH News legal analyst and Northeastern University law professor, joined host Henry Santoro on Morning Edition to discuss legal issues around the case.
Henry Santoro: Let's start with the facts of this case. It's a very sad case all around. Tell us what we know about how Officer O'Keefe died.
Daniel Medwed: So as you alluded to, O'Keefe was found in the elements outside a home in Canton right after that horrible blizzard we had in late January. Evidently, he'd gone to a couple of bars with his girlfriend, Karen Read, and she dropped him off at this house. She didn't wait to see whether he got inside. Instead, she did a three point turn and left a few hours later. Apparently, she grew concerned he hadn't returned to their residence, so she went back to this location where she found O'Keefe in a snowbank in very bad shape. He was bleeding profusely, had a number of serious injuries. She called 911.
They arrived, rushed him to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, I believe, at around 6:00 in the morning. The medical examiner cited the presence of multiple skull fractures and hypothermia. The police then started investigating this case, and their operating theory was that Read may have struck O'Keefe when she was turning around and leaving that location earlier that morning.
Santoro: So, I mean, it's a freak accident, if that's exactly what happened. What are the facts that point to her involvement? I know that there was damage to her car, correct?
Medwed: Absolutely. So that's the circumstantial evidence in the case. There's also some direct evidence. So first, as you mentioned, she detected the presence of a cracked rear taillight the next morning, and the police talked to her about it and she couldn't explain it. She hadn't noticed it before, so apparently it had been incurred the night before.
Second, in terms of the direct evidence, not only is there apparently some video footage from one of those Ring doorbells on a nearby house that can capture images in front of your home — but she also made some inculpatory statements both to a friend and to a Canton paramedic, to the effect of "maybe I hit him, perhaps I hit him, I must've hit him." So there is quite a bit of evidence, Henry, but it does all suggest that it was inadvertent, that it was more of an accident than a purposeful event.
Santoro: And they went ahead and they arrested her and she had to post bail.
Medwed: That's right.
Santoro: They were treating the case very seriously. That was a blinding blizzard. I mean, that storm was absolutely brutal. And now, Daniel, this all seems like an accident. We arrived at that already, but she came back to the scene after she realized he hadn't come home. She seemed confused about what happened. What is the exact criminal charge here? Is that drinking and driving?
Medwed: Not precisely. The drinking, intoxication is part of the narrative of this case. Absolutely. Specifically, Henry, she's been charged with three crimes: manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a collision that caused death. And the major theory here is that she acted recklessly, that she consciously disregarded the substantial and unjustifiable risk by drinking, driving, dropping him off in a blizzard, turning out of the location in the way that she did without looking back — that all of that taken together caused his death, was reckless behavior and is essentially an extreme departure from what we would expect a law-abiding person to do. That's the overall theory of the case.
"It remains to be seen whether this is just treated as a tragedy by a jury or whether it is in fact criminalized."-Daniel Medwed, GBH News legal analyst
Santoro: You mentioned the point about how her behavior caused his death, but was it her behavior or was it the weather conditions that actually played a role here?
Medwed: Well, I think the theory is that she is the first domino in a series of events that led to his downward spiral. So in criminal law, there are two components to causation. First, you have to show that the defendant was what's called the "but for" or "cause in fact" cause of the death. And but for Read's behavior, he wouldn't have died. Second, you have to show that the defendant's conduct was what's called the proximate cause of the death. That it was foreseeable that through this chain of events, he might die. And certainly leaving him out in these conditions, acting in this particular way, it was probably foreseeable that bad things could occur. But it remains to be seen whether this is just treated as a tragedy by a jury or whether it is in fact criminalized.
