Karen Read Trial - Take 2 (3 Viewers)

[daeler]

And yet they push on with fervent enthusiasm. Does it really seem like a good faith seeking of the truth? Doesn't to me when so much deception and lies come from them. Looks more like win at any cost.

If you ask me, most of the American justice system is about expediency not justice.

This trial is just worse than most.

 

[ASHES]

If you ask me, most of the American justice system is about expediency not justice.

Yes when over 90% of cases end in plea deals it seems like that. But it can be good for both sides, and everyone overall, as long as certain checks and balances are maintained. It ain't the best but it's the best we got.

This trial is just worse than most.

I don't think there's anything expedient about this trial. They didn't interview witnesses or investigate other evidence until over a year later. They're taking a clear loser to trial twice, more as a punitive measure against Read for not taking the deal, as well as everyone covering their own asses. The judge and Commonwealth seem to be doing everything to make it as difficult and expensive and long-lasting as possible for the defense and Read.

"If she pleads out it will end, if she fights it will be an episode."

The only expedience in this case would have been for her to plead. And that would have been the right thing to do if she had hit him, but based on the evidence, she didn't.

 

[ASHES]

Should be resuming here shortly, within the next 15 minutes, with cross examination continuing of the fake Commonwealth expert Shanon Burgess. I expect perhaps besides questions about pocket states and whatnot, he may face more questions about his recently privated LinkedIn profile. He says he wasn't aware of that happening, but he also gets alerts for activity on the profile so he has some level of control. If his job did it, we'll see if they've said anything to him about it yet.

 

[ASHES]

New microdots video. We investigated this topic earlier with courtroom behavior that implies some type of ex parte communication between Bev and Brennan. This shows the latest example, this time during Burgess's testimony. (9 minutes)



It also leads nicely into where we will be resuming today if you need a quick refresher on yesterday's events.

 

[ASHES]

Back in the witness seat, Mr. Burgess to resume cross.

 

[ASHES]

Asked if on direct he testified about his experience, he agrees. Asked if on direct his certifications came up in questions, he says that's incorrect. Asked if there was no discussion in his direct about having certifications in Cellebrite and Magnet Axiom, he says "no if I misheard your question it was uh-"

Alessi interrupts: "I asked about certifications, I'll repeat it sir in case I misspoke, on your direct examination, your certifications were brought up in questions correct?"

Burgess: "Yes correct."

Asked if however, under direct examination, no questions were asked of him at all about his supposed education. He says that's correct.

We're off to a great start! I don't think this will go on much longer though, he's fairly well done. I don't expect the redirect to take much time either, Brennan is going to want this guy out of the jury's sight ASAP.

 

[ASHES]

Asked if he never brought up his educational background at all during direct examination, he says that's correct.

Asked if a forensic examiner must prioritize accuracy, he agrees. Asked if a forensic examiner must prioritize reliability, he says correct. Agrees both are important.

Asked if it is a criminal proceeding they are in, he agrees. Asked if therefore accuracy and reliability are especially important in a criminal case as compared to a civil case, he says he thinks they'd be equally important but yes. (is he serious? No but yes?)

Asked if accuracy and reliability are especially important when seconds and minutes matter as they matter in this case, he agrees. Asked if he testified yesterday that the events on the timeline in his PowerPoint presentation that was shown to the jury yesterday were all accurate in his own words "down to the second", he says that is correct for the Lexus. Asked again if for the Lexus, they were accurate to the second, he says correct.

Alessi has him take a look at his slides that he displayed for the jury on direct examination yesterday.

He is asked if this is an accurate representation of Read's drive to 34 Fairview and the O'Keefe residence, he says yes it is.



Asked if, according to his timeline, Read's SUV powered on at 12:12:36am January 30th, he says correct.

Asked if his timeline on this slide is accurate to the second as he stated yesterday, he says for the power on and off events yes.

Moving to the next slide:


He gives Burgess a heads up they're going to be going through a handful more slides.
Asked if the above slide is a true and accurate representative of his analysis of Read leaving the O'Keefe residence at 5:07am, he agrees it is.

Asked if according to his timeline, Read powered on her vehicle at 5:07am on January 30th 2022, he says correct.

Asked if the time on this slide was accurate down to the second as he stated on direct, he says yes according to the Lexus.

Asked if the next slide is a true and accurate representation of his analysis of Read traveling to the Dighton location (her parents), at 12:35:01PM January 30th. He says it is.


Asked if according to this data, Read powered on her vehicle to travel to Dighton at 12:35:01 January 30th, he says yes that's correct. Asked if the time on this slide is also accurate down to the second as he previously testified, he says yes.

 

[gboisjo]

Clock Drifting, it happens. With a slight adjustment both Read's in car clock info and O'Keefe's phone info line up perfectly. Perfectly in those critical moments when Read backed into O'Keefe.
All of Alessi's lawyerly bullshit and yesterday's attacks on Burgess's character can't change the the hit the defense has taken on this one.

Clock drift refers to several related phenomena where a clock does not run at exactly the same rate as a reference clock. That is, after some time the clock "drifts apart" or gradually desynchronizes from the other clock. All clocks are subject to drift, causing eventual divergence unless resynchronized.

Clock drift - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ASHES]

Clock Drifting, it happens. With a slight adjustment both Read's in car clock info and O'Keefe's phone info line up perfectly. Perfectly in those critical moments when Read backed into O'Keefe.
All of Alessi's lawyerly bullshit and yesterday's attacks on Burgess's character can't change the the hit the defense has taken on this one.

Clock drift - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It isn't a character attack, it's a serious question of credibility. He lied about his education on his LinkedIn and CVs and company website bio. Multiple times. He isn't qualified to even be testifying as an expert. He's destroyed the Commonwealth's case even more if that was even possible. The idea his opinion about time variance is going to be taken seriously by the jury is pure copium.

Burgess is indefensible.

 

[ASHES]

Next slide:


He is asked if this is a true and accurate representation of Read's vehicle being towed by MSP from her parents' home in Dighton, he agrees it is. Asked if, according to his analysis here, Read's vehicle powered on at 4:11:46pm and towed to Canton PD, he says that's correct. Asked if his timeline on this slide is also accurate down to the second as he previously stated on direct examination, he says yes the power on timestamp yes.

Next slide:

He agrees this is a true and accurate representation of the analysis he did on Read's SUV arriving at CPD. Asked if according to this, Read's SUV powered off at 5:36:42pm at CPD, Brennan objects, Bev overrules. Asked if his time on this slide is accurate down to the second as he testified on direct examination yesterday, he says yes according to the Lexus.

(Spoiler alert: I think we're about to hear about some evidence that shows all these times just sworn to as being accurate aren't really so accurate.)

 

[ASHES]

Mr Burgess is asked by Alessi "if in fact none of those 5 timelines that we just reviewed from your presentation were accurate at all, and certainly not down to the second, am I right or am I wrong?"

Burgess says "you are wrong."

Alessi goes back to the first slide, and asks him if he's aware that all of the relevant events in the timeline that he described in his presentation, that these events actually occurred January 29th 2022, not January 30th 2022?

(I was certainly confused by those dates when I saw them. I almost corrected my notes about the testimony but stuck with what the slides said. You can go back and see they are all wrong on the date, I'm not going to post all 5 again as they are displayed to the jury to show the wrong date.)

His answer to that question is "this is January 30th, 2022, January 29th correct." He is asked "once that timeline (in his slide) crosses into midnight, it's January 30th, not January 29th, correct?" He agrees that is correct. He's asked if in actuality then, these 5 timelines as he testified to them yesterday are not accurate down to the second because he got the wrong date. Burgess says "Well parlance yes, but they're still accurate to the second."

Told they're going to pursue this line.

Asked if these 5 timelines are exactly 24 hours off from the time when the events actually occurred, he says "No, so these events occurred on January 30th."


LMFAO he's writing his own timeline of the crime where it shifts a day?!!? How's that for testifying about clock drift @gboisjo hqhahahahabababbaahahaha!!!!

 

[ASHES]

Before Alessi can speak "If I misspoke and said the 29th."

Alessi: "Ok. You understand my point?"

Burgess says he does, but I don't think he does because he still thinks that the mistake was saying it happened on the 29th and he still believes it happened the 30th. Let's see if Alessi can clue him in or if Brennan has to do it on redirect.

Asked if the core basis for his job, his role, in this case, is to reconcile time discrepancies as he said, down to the second. Burgess agrees.

Asked if his discussion of the timeline on all the slides about the key events are incorrect, Burgess says "No it's not incorrect."

(He's still thinking the event happened the 30th not the 29th.)

Asked if he is saying the applicable date as he described yesterday on his timelines is correct, he says "the timeline is correct."

Alessi says "but my question is your discussion about it yesterday." Burgess says "if I misspoke and said the 29th then yes I misspoke on that yes."

Oh my dear, I almost feel bad for him. He doesn't see what's coming. He still hasn't comprehended the date of the alleged collision was the 29th not the 30th and all his slides are wrong.

 

[ASHES]

He is directed to change his focus to different time. He is asked if to mitigate the inconsistenties he analyzed yesterday, between multiple independent clocks, his position is that forensic methodology recommends cross-referencing timestamps from multiple sources to identify discrepancies and when possible, leveraging time anchors, events that contain both a system timestamp and an external physical event to identify and correct timing discrepancies, Burgess says that's all correct.

Asked if yesterday they talked about the scientific method, and how it's designed to prevent bias from affecting the analysis, he agrees. Asked if yesterday he agreed that experts should never selectively gather and interpret evidence to confirm a preexisting belief, while ignoring evidence that contradicts those beliefs, he agrees.

Asked if doing that is called confirmation bias, which he said he understood yesterday, he says that's correct.

Asked if it would be improper to do that, he says "Yes." Asked if it would raise the spectre if not the reality of unreliability if that occurred, he agrees it could. Agrees it could lead to errors in forensic analysis.

Now taking a look back at his January 30 2025 report.

Asked if in that report, he did not issue an opinion or conclusion with regard to the timing of what he calls the text string event 2 (1162-2, the reversing event.)

He agrees he didn't issue an opinion or conclusion about the reversal event in his January 30 2025 report. Asked if he even mentioned the phrase text string event or 1162-2 in that report, he says no he did not.

Asked if in that report that he did evaluate the time variance between the Lexus infotainment system and O'Keefe's phone data, he says correct.

Asked if in fact in that report he compared the call logs on Read's infotainment system with the call logs on O'Keefe's iPhone in order to evaluate whether there was a variance. He agrees that's correct.

Alessi asks him if the report is correct that it's his position that the timestamp call log data, specifically the recorded calls between Read and O'Keefe (when she was leaving messages), along with the infotainment system power event logs, were analyzed for what he calls "clock skew" by cross referencing them against other independent data sources, Burgess says "No, so that would have been comparing the timestamps from Mr. O'Keefe's iPhone with the timestamps from the defendant's Lexus."


He says no but the thing he's saying is yes. He's agreeing with Alessi after saying no to that.

Asked if a forensic comparison of these data sets was aimed to identify timestamp discrepancies, he says correct.

Alessi: "To identify potential clock skew correct?"

Burgess: "correct"

He's asked if potential clock drift could effect potential reconstruction, he agrees it's all in the January 30th report.

 

[ASHES]

He's now being shown the next exhibit to be admitted. He's been handed the document and asked to review it. He's done with the review after a moment, and Alessi asks if he recognizes that document. He says he does.

Asked what it is, he says it's a graph he put together that's comparing call timestamps from the infotainment module to O'Keefe's iPhone. Asked if that graph is in his January 30 2025 report, he says it is. Asked if he created the chart, he says he did and agrees it's a fair and accurate representation of the information he discussed on page 33 of his aforementioned report. It will be admitted.

Once again Brennan wants the whole report entered into evidence (to bury the bad information of course), so Bev calls a sidebar.

Looks like Brennan lost that, page 33 of the report is entered into evidence and then handed to Burgess for questioning.

He's asked "despite claiming that the purpose in your January 30 report was 'identifying timestamp discrepancies, potential clock skew, and clock drift,' you did not compare the time of the 3 point turn between the infotainment system and O'Keefe's phone". Burgess says "Not at that time no."

Asked if instead, he identified the potential variance by analyzing various calls on the infotainment system of the Lexus versus O'Keefe's phone, he says correct.

He's asked if the data, in that exhibit, captures a precise moment in time that is easily compared between the 2 devices, he agrees it does.

The page of the report is being published.




He's asked if according to his own table, those are potential offsets in the right hand column, 2 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second, etc, he says correct.

He's asked if he failed to apply this variance to the infotainment time on the Lexus associated with the text string event 1162-2, , he says "Correct, may I explain?"

Alessi tells him he's going to proceed, he's sure Brennan will have questions and let him explain however he may choose to do that.

Asked if this is simple arithmetic, it's either an addition, or subtraction of the offset, he agrees. Asked if "And yet, in your initial report on January 30 2025, you did not take that final analytical step did you?"

Burgess answers "no because these clock variances do not apply to that timeframe."

Alessi: "you do know what analytical step I'm talking about correct?"

Burgess: "The-no I don't, don't believe so."

(The step of doing what he did above during the reversal trigger event.)

Talking about his actual opinions in the report next, he's asked if he indicated only that "the difference between the Lexus infotainment and O'Keefe's cell phone ranged between 8 seconds and 16-21 seconds during 5:21:36am and 5:30:31am on January 29th 2022", Burgess says "between 5:21 and 5:30am yes."

Next he's going to be asked about what information he's learned since his January 30 2025 report.

 

[ASHES]

They're talking about the Welcher slide he saw March 5th with the timing analysis by Welcher of the 1162-2 text string event.

Burgess is asked if he and Welcher are talking about the same thing when Welcher says infotainment event and he says text string events, he needs to see the Welcher slide to know.

The Welcher slide is published (first time we and the jury have seen it.)

Entire slide:


Relevant portion highlighted:


Burgess is asked if referring to Dr. Welcher's analysis, the 1162-2 event that Welcher calls an infotainment trigger and that he calls a text string event, he agrees they're talking about the same thing, he's asked if the 1162-2 event occurred at 12:31:38am, he agrees that's when the trigger began (the trigger threshold was met.)

He's asked if he testified yesterday that he read Whiffin's January 2025 report which established a timeline of the last interaction events on O'Keefe's phone, he agrees.

A document is being shown on the screen. He's asked to see if these times are consistent with his memory of what the applicable events are.

Asked if he sees the column that says "biometric device unlock with faceID at 12:32:04am" Burgess says yes.

Alessi asks him if that's after the 12:31:38am 1162-2 text stream event that was in Welcher's slide, he says "correct, the unadjusted Lexus clock yes."

Alessi says he's going to repeat the question.

"The 12:32:04am device unlock with faceID event was after the 12:31:38am - 12:31:43am text string event 1162-2 that is stated in Dr. Welcher's report correct?"

Burgess: "correct."

 

[ASHES]

Asked if he sees the lock event that occurred at 12:32:09am, he says yes he does. He is asked if that is also after the 12:31:38am-12:31:43am 1162-2 event, he says "yes the unadjusted time."

Asked if the 12:32:09 lock event is after the 12:31:38am-12:31:43am range that's stated in Welcher's report, he says correct.

Sheesh, always have to give him the questions twice so he stops gilding the lily.

 

[ASHES]

Only able to listen for a few hours. Will update anything of interest when I have a chance.

 

[gboisjo]

It isn't a character attack, it's a serious question of credibility. He lied about his education on his LinkedIn and CVs and company website bio. Multiple times. He isn't qualified to even be testifying as an expert. He's destroyed the Commonwealth's case even more if that was even possible. The idea his opinion about time variance is going to be taken seriously by the jury is pure copium.

Burgess is indefensible.

The science doesn't lie. For your information most lawyers don't check experts education, they take them at they're word. Alessi is knit picking around the edges trying to confuse the jurors. Brennan's re-direct will clean it up with succinct, precise sentences, no wasted words. Something the ass wipe Alessi hasn't got a clue about.

 

[ASHES]

The science doesn't lie. For your information most lawyers don't check experts education, they take them at they're word. Alessi is knit picking around the edges trying to confuse the jurors. Brennan's re-direct will clean it up with succinct, precise sentences, no wasted words. Something the ass wipe Alessi hasn't got a clue about.

This is a load of garbage. Experts do not routinely lie about their education. Lawyers and courts do verify credentials routinely. Burgess is a fraud. His only purpose is to fuzz up the timeline but Alessi is showing the jury exactly what BS he and Brennan have cooked up. This whole timeline charade is crumbling. Even taken at face value, the new timeline with up to 29 second variance is still 4 seconds short of covering O'Keefe's health data steps.

It's difficult to believe anyone takes him seriously after some of the worst testimony in recent memory, as far as doing damage to one's own case. Neither Aperture expert pulls Brennan's feet from the fire. Burgess and his time bullshit are toast. None of his slides had correct data. You can't ignore that.

Welcher and his too early collision data are next.

 

[ASHES]

Let's pretend @gboisjo is correct, Burgess is correct and the actual time of collision is between 12:32:10am (after O'Keefe locks his phone) and 12:32:20am (the latest time given by Burgess's variance).

How does Read make a 10 minute drive in the snow (how long the Commonwealth says the drive takes) in under 4 minutes to arrive at 1 Meadows at 12:36, the time the Commonwealth says she arrived home?

There is video of her driving back and forth throughout Canton that night and morning. There's no video of her speeding like a demon after midnight between 34 Fairview and 1 Meadows. If there was you can bet it wouldn't be among the missing videos in this case. Plus they have her phone location and GPS data which shows no such outrageous speed at that time.

 

[daeler]

The science doesn't lie. For your information most lawyers don't check experts education, they take them at they're word. Alessi is knit picking around the edges trying to confuse the jurors. Brennan's re-direct will clean it up with succinct, precise sentences, no wasted words. Something the ass wipe Alessi hasn't got a clue about.

He is knit picking because they changed the report. also the science may not lie but if you can't do the science properly, like this guy, it does lie.

 

[ASHES]

He's asked if the previous reports he read, The Welcher page, the DeSobra report and the January Whiffin (all individuals with actual credentials) report all indicated a time for the 1162-2 text string event (the collision) as occuring between 12:31:38 and 12:31:43 which was before the final user interactions on O'Keefe's phone according to the phone data, says with inaccurate or unadjusted timestamps. That's his answer for everything now, even timestamps that don't require adjustment.

He acknowledges they don't say inaccurate or unadjusted time stamps in any of their reports, but he keeps saying it.

 

[ASHES]

Asked again if after seeing what was discussed regarding DeSobra, Welcher and Whiffin, all of whom established the reverse trigger as happening before the last user activity on O'Keefe's phone, he decided to issue a new report on his own that would be dated May 8th 2025, he says that's correct.

Going to look at his May 8th report. He is asked if he departed from his January 30 2025 report's analysis to reach a conclusion that attempts to put the 1162-2 text string event after human interaction with O'Keefe's phone, he says "no I did not depart from my original report, I clarified."

lol ok buddy.

He is asked if it's correct that in the January report he did not address at all whether the 1162-2 text string event occurred before or after the last user input on O'Keefe's phone, he says that's correct. Agrees that is in his May 8 report.

 

[ASHES]

His +3 seconds at power on for the Lexus screen animation adds an additional 3 seconds to his time variance calculation, putting his final calculation of the collision event 7 seconds past the last user activity on O'Keefe's phone.

 

[ASHES]

Asked if he testified on direct to that 3 second variance in his January report, he says he did. Asked if however, he did not mention this 3 seconds offset in his new May 8th report, he says he did not.

Asked if nowhere in his May 8 2025 report is the 3 second offset discussed as in his January 30th 2025 report. He says that's correct.