Interpret the Karen Read trial

Defense · There was no collision. There was no collision. There was no collision. I want to take a minute to start off with thanking you. I want to thank you for your attention. I want to thank you for your patience. I want to thank you for your diligence. This is not an easy undertaking. Most of all, I want to thank you for your courage, because courage is what this moment demands. Not just to listen, but to stare directly at injustice and say, not here, not now, not on our watch. That's what you're being asked to do: stare down injustice. I want to start with the simple truth. You folks, not us, nobody else in the courtroom, you folks are the last line of defense. The last line of defense between an innocent woman and a system that has tried to break her, that falsely accused her, that tried mightily, mightily, to bury the truth. This case was corrupted from the start. It was corrupted by biases and conflicts and personal loyalties that you heard about. And most fatally, it was corrupted by a lead investigator whose misconduct infected every single part of this case, from the top to the bottom. In our opening comments to you a few weeks ago, we told you what to watch for. We warned you what to watch for. We begged you what to watch for. Watch for the physical evidence. Pay attention to the medical facts. Pay attention to the science and the physics. But also pay attention to the integrity, the very essence, the integrity of the investigation. Before we examine the evidence in the case, which we will do, we need to understand the very foundation of the entire system of justice in which we operate. It's the bedrock on which this entire system is built: reasonable doubt. This isn't just a technicality, and it's not a slogan. It's a constitutional shield that protects the innocent and prevents the government from punishing without proof. The Commonwealth has the high burden to prove every single element of every single charge beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. As I said, those powerful words are not just some legal jargon. They're your mandate. They're your obligation. They're your community's protection against injustice. In our system of justice, Karen Read sits here today presumed innocent, cloaked in the presumption of innocence. That presumption is not fragile. It doesn't just disappear because there's a charge, or a badge, or a theory. That presumption stands firm unless and until the Commonwealth clears that high bar, the highest bar the law provides: proof beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. That means at the end of this case, at the end of the trial, you think about one or more of the charges and you think, you know what, maybe that's true. It might be true. Then you vote not guilty. If you think it's possibly true or probably true, your vote must be not guilty. If someone among you thinks it's likely true, or even very likely to be true, your vote is not guilty. It's because none of those standards, maybe, might be, possibly, probably, likely, very likely, none of those meets the extraordinary burden of beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. A moral certainty means a level of confidence so strong, so incredibly unshakable, that you could go home, you would go home, look your loved ones in the eye, and say, I am certain. Not probably, not likely. I'm morally certain, and my certainty remains unshakable. The law defines moral certainty as the highest level of certainty known in all human affairs. Think about that. You must be that certain about the entirety, not part, the entirety of the Commonwealth's case. As we discuss this case, you'll see that the Commonwealth comes nowhere near, nowhere close, to reaching that extreme burden of proof.