Criminal Defense Attorney Lauren Johnson-Norris on @ABCNews the Trial of Karen Read 5/30/25

[Speaker 1]

Karen Reed's defense is questioning its first witness today in her murder retrial. And now that the prosecution has rested its case, the defense has a list of witnesses to go through, starting with an accident reconstruction expert. Earlier, the defense focused on a potential three-second time gap that may have impacted a report gathered in the case.

[Speaker 4]

In your opinion, was it best practice to not account for that three-second delay between the on switch and the data coming on? What, in your opinion, would be the best practice in terms of this three seconds that was noted in the exemplar vehicle?

[Speaker 5]

The best practice would be to run the analysis with that adjustment included and without that adjustment included. Because like I stated, without testing of an additional vehicle, we really don't know if the three seconds is just a specific behavior of that exemplar or if it's representative of all Lexuses of this type.

[Speaker 1]

Now, just a reminder, Reed is on trial for allegedly hitting her then-boyfriend, Officer John O'Keefe, with her car and leaving him to die in the snow. She pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and other charges. For more on this, I want to bring in ABC News Live anchor Phil Lippoff and criminal defense attorney Lauren Johnson Norris.

And Phil, the defense is going second by second here, really trying to poke holes at the prosecution's timeline, right? Because every second counts.

[Speaker 2]

And the defense's theory is, if there was any kind of collision with the car, and they're not even conceding that there was, they just got their witness on the stand to say he doesn't believe there was, and that was quickly objected to, and then a sidebar. But their theory is there wasn't a collision. And if John O'Keefe's phone was working and being used after that collision, then they say there's no way that Karen Reed could have hit him.

That's why this is so important.

[Speaker 1]

Well, and Lauren, how effective do you think this witness is for the defense?

[Speaker 3]

This witness is very effective. His sole purpose is to undermine the credibility in the analysis of the prosecution's expert, Burgess. And they've been very effective in eliciting the information about the presumptions that Burgess made that he didn't report or disclose as part of his analysis.

So being able to do that when we have a battle of the experts helps undermine his credibility and helps put forward that this defense witness is the one that jurors should believe.

[Speaker 1]

Well, and Phil, just looking ahead, I mean, where could we see the defense go from here?

[Speaker 2]

Well, Karen Reed has teased that they are going to have Trooper Michael Proctor's friends, who he was texting his inappropriate text with. Proctor was the lead investigator. Going to have them on the stand.

He's on their potential witness list. Will they call him? Will they not?

Will she testify? I think she'd like to. I don't know that her attorneys want her to.

[Speaker 1]

All right. Phil Lippoff.