On June 18th, the Karen Learn saga lastly lurched to its inevitable finish, when a Norfolk County jury, assigned the unenviable job of spending spring and early summer season watching corruption theater in Dedham courtroom, acquitted Ms. Learn of all the intense prices towards her.
For Learn, the Mansfield lady charged with operating over and killing her boyfriend and Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe in January 2022, this was her second trial. One other jury final July reached practically the identical conclusion, just for courts to say it didn’t depend.
Within the first trial, the jury wasn’t knowledgeable it might report out a partial verdict. Having determined unanimously to acquit Learn on the 2 severe prices, however caught on the third, the jury was declared hung, leading to a mistrial on all prices, giving prosecutors a mulligan — double jeopardy be damned.
By 2025, Learn’s case had ballooned from a intently watched legal trial right into a nationwide spectacle. Pink-clad Learn supporters camped exterior courtroom day by day, nationwide retailers piled on, and HBO and ABC cranked out documentaries. Round New England, ladies sporting pink hats that learn “Proctor” — a rebuke of Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, the disgraced investigator whose obscene texts helped torpedo the prosecution — grew to become a well-recognized sight.
On the day of the decision, leaving a retailer in Dedham close to the courthouse, I used to be struck by the quantity of reports helicopters overhead. I used to be watching trial protection on my cellphone, displaying a gentle courtroom shot of the ceiling fan — presumably to protect the jurors. It jogged my memory of the opening sequence of “Apocalypse Now,” the place “The Finish” by The Doorways performs over choppers in Vietnam, blended with Martin Sheen staring glass-eyed at a spinning ceiling fan.
All of it felt jarringly misplaced. We see issues like this in L.A. and D.C. –– not Norfolk County.
CNN and Fox Information, who hardly ever cowl something in Boston, each aired the decision stay. Fox’s protection awkwardly tried to use its nationwide rah-rah pro-police rubric onto native information that didn’t assist it.
Someplace alongside the road, the Boston authorized institution misplaced management of the Karen Learn case. First got here journalist Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney: his intrepid reporting and huge on-line following frenzied the general public a lot the Norfolk DA jailed him over it. The Atlantic then profiled him and the Learn case.
The FBI investigated the investigators, its findings rejecting the state’s principle of O’Keefe’s dying. Nationwide reporters and true crime junkies dug in, whereas native officers — already lacquered in scandal — seemed so crooked a body job appeared not simply attainable however possible.
Legally, this was an unresolvable case with insurmountable doubt from obtrusive police errors, oversights, and bias — or worse.
Lead investigator and cheap doubt manufacturing facility Michael Proctor did greater than anybody to blow the case, together with his personal texts learn in courtroom the place he referred to as Learn a “whackjob c***” and stated “hopefully she kills herself.” Proctor later advised ABC Information in an interview that –– amazingly –– he wouldn’t change “something” about the way in which he dealt with the investigation.
Maybe issues can be totally different if it weren’t the case that completely all people who touches energy in Massachusetts retains taking place for corruption. From State Troopers accepting bribes of snowblowers and driveway paving jobs, to the US Lawyer resigning in shame for a breathtaking litany of ordinary misconduct, to metropolis councilors taking handoffs of embezzled money in metropolis corridor loos –– the Learn saga wasn’t simply unsurprising, it affirmed what locals already believed about how issues work right here.
Learn’s case blew issues open. Daylight, because the saying goes, is the perfect disinfectant. The case highlighted how impartial voices can circumvent the gatekeeping place of company media and rally the general public. It shifted native energy constructions, normalized questioning what we’re advised by authorities, and undermined the standing of the state’s legal prosecution bar.
The Learn case additionally introduced one thing else: a distinctly populist, class-based cultural second with out native precedent. The general public, even one accustomed to corruption, determined sufficient was sufficient, and protested a prosecution symbolic of all that’s fallacious with this place and officers who’ve been in workplace for 50 years –– in a area the place “major” is a grimy phrase.
For that, I’m pleased with my state.
Tom Blakely is a federal judicial legislation clerk who served in the USA Division of Justice, practiced at a global legislation agency and writes about quite a few authorized subjects. Tom serves on the board of Boston Faculty Regulation College the place he hosted the Simply Regulation Podcast. Tom is an avid sports activities fan, enjoys the outside and splits his time between Cape Cod and Washington, D.C..
