‘I just struck a stake through his heart.' Karen Read's lead defense attorney discusses trial with Vanity Fair
Here are some highlights from Jackson's interview with Vanity Fair, which had
Both trials would've cost Read a pretty penny if she paid full freight
Defense lawyer Alan Jackson, left, questions State Police Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik during the Karen Read murder trial in Norfolk Superior Court on May 9, 2025.
Mark Stockwell/Pool
Jackson told the magazine that his firm would've billed
a combined
$10 million for both trials; Read's first murder trial ended in a hung jury last year, and attorneys Jackson, Elizabeth Little, and David Yannetti were joined for the retrial by Robert Alessi, a bespectacled New York litigator who aggressively challenged much of the forensic evidence, and Victoria George, a lawyer who had served as an alternate juror during trial one.
Read, a former financial analyst, drained her savings and
Advertisement
The defense would've fought efforts to jail Read on the OUI conviction
Judge Beverly J. Cannone addresses the jury during the Karen Read trial in Norfolk Superior Court on June 17, 2025.
Nancy Lane/BH
Jackson told Vanity Fair that had Judge Beverly J. Cannone sent signals in the immediate aftermath of the verdict that she was considering jail time for Read
for the OUI conviction, the defense was prepared to fight to keep her free.
'If the court even hinted that she was going to give her custody time and make her perp walk out of that courtroom with a guilty on the OUI, we were fully prepared. And Karen was prepared. She was buckled down for the possibility that Judge Beverly Cannone
would give her a year of jail.'
Had she received a year behind bars, 'we were going to immediately appeal it,' Jackson told the magazine.
But once special prosecutor Hank Brennan told Cannone the government was ready for sentencing after the verdict came down, the defense said they wanted Read to be treated like any other first-time drunken driving offender, and Cannone indicated she would do that, giving Read
'The first thing that flooded over me was, It's over — this odyssey that Karen's been going though, that I've been through — it's done,' Jackson said.
Jackson thought prosecutors were 'embarrassed' by Michael Proctor, erred by not calling others
Investigator Michael Proctor takes the stand on June 10, 2024, during the trial of Karen Read.
Kayla Bartkowski/Associated Press
A notable omission from the government witness list at the retrial was former State Police Trooper Michael Proctor, lead investigator in the Read case.
During the first trial, he was forced to read a number of crude and misogynistic
Advertisement
'You were so embarrassed of Michael Proctor you couldn't even put him on the stand,' Jackson told the magazine.
He also said he thought prosecutors made a 'glaring, glaring error' at the retrial by not calling 'certain witnesses, including Brian Albert and Brian Higgins, Nicole Albert, Matt McCabe, Chris Albert.'
Brian Albert is the now-retired Boston police officer who owned the Canton home where O'Keefe's body was found outside near the road, while Higgins is an ATF agent who swapped flirtatious texts with Read and who was present at the afterparty at Albert's house. Nicole Albert is Brian Albert's wife, Matt McCabe is Nicole's brother-in-law whose wife Jen was at the afterparty, and Chris Albert is Brian Albert's brother.
'They didn't want them to be subjected to a very vigorous cross-examination because the Commonwealth knew they would not withstand it,' Jackson said.
Speaking of cross-examination, Jackson really enjoys it
'I want the jurors looking at me, to see the look on my face, my body language, I want them to listen to the tone of my voice and then turn back around and watch how the witness reacts,' Jackson offered up in almost cinematic detail. 'That is the fun of a trial, a good, solid cross-examination. And it requires an enormous amount of preparation. Every single question I ask is highly scripted because I'm building to something else. It's like a symphony. It's a beautiful thing to execute.'
He recalled one moment when he was cross-examining State Police Sergeant Yuri Bukhenik, who told Jackson that he 'asked the question, I wanted to answer.' Without hesitating, Jackson said 'I know the answers to all of my questions.'
Advertisement
'The jurors all chuckled,' Jackson recalled. 'And I just struck a stake through his heart. You have to be really comfortable in your own skin to be able to have an argument and know that you're going to win it in front of a jury. And national television, too.'
Read was 'elated' after the verdict but has a challenging road ahead
'As much as she is relieved and elated and so very, very thankful to all of the people who have given her undying and unyielding support … it's been an unbelievable amount of stress for her to deal with for the last three and a half years," Jackson told the magazine. 'And it's not like a light switch. You can't just turn that off.'
He said he gave Read some advice before he left Massachusetts to return home to Los Angeles.
'You're a different person coming out of the back end of this thing than you were going into it,' he said. 'And it's going to take you a minute to figure out what the new normal is for Karen Read.'
Karen Read emerges from Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on June 18, 2025, after the jury delivered its verdict in her murder retrial.
Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
Travis Andersen can be reached at
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
6 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Defendants released in Massachusetts as pay dispute with public defenders remains unresolved
BOSTON (AP) — Defendants are being released in Massachusetts in the wake of a prolonged dispute over pay for the state's public defenders, and one of those set free was charged with a serious crime. The first four defendants without legal representation were freed Monday by a Boston judge following a ruling last week by the state's highest court to implement a process that requires releasing defendants without attorneys after a week. Among them was a man accused of strangling his pregnant girlfriend. Under the so-called Lavallee protocol, more are expected to be released in the coming days unless lawmakers address demands from public defenders for a moderate pay increase. The state agency representing public defenders had proposed a pay increase from $65 an hour to $73 an hour over the next two fiscal years for lawyers in district court, an increase from $85 an hour to $105 an hour for lawyers in Superior Court and $120 an hour to $150 an hour for lawyers handling murder cases. But the 2026 fiscal year budget of $60.9 billion signed Friday by Democratic Gov. Maura Healey didn't include any increase. Public defenders mostly in district courts have refused to take on new cases since May, arguing they are the lowest-paid public defenders in New England. 'While the court's decision last week to implement the Lavalle protocols is welcome news and a critical step in making sure that people are not held in custody without lawyers, it is far from a solution to the crisis the courts are in,' said Shira Diner, a lecturer at the Boston University School of Law and the immediate past president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. 'Every day that our courts are without bar advocates is another day the criminal legal system isn't running the way that it's supposed to,' she said. 'Without appropriately compensated lawyers in court, the system cannot function." Democratic legislative leaders would need to consider a supplemental budget in the coming weeks to accommodate a pay raise, but there was no immediate sign that a plan was in the works. 'The right to legal representation is a crucial element of the Constitutional guarantee to a fair trial," a spokesman for the House said in an email statement. 'At the same time, the House has a responsibility to Massachusetts taxpayers to ensure that we budget in a fiscally responsible manner, especially during this period of significant economic uncertainty.' Republicans were quick to pounce on the issue and suggest Healey, who is up for reelection next year, was to blame. 'This situation is spiraling into a full-blown constitutional crisis and Governor Healey is nowhere to be found," said Paul Craney, the executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which promotes fiscal responsibility, in a statement. The Committee for Public Counsel Services, which oversees public defenders, petitioned the Supreme Judicial Court to allow the Lavalle protocol to take effect due to the work stoppage. Along with releasing defendants after seven days, the protocol also requires that charges be dropped for a defedant lacking legal representation after 45 days. The judge ruled to enact the protocol on Thursday, though she declined to raise the pay rate for public defenders. 'Despite good faith efforts by CPCS and the local bar advocate organization(s), there is an ongoing systemic violation of indigent criminal defendants' constitutional rights to effective assistance of counsel due to CPCS's incapacity to provide such assistance through its staff attorneys or through bar advocates," Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt said in her order, noting as of June 29 that there were 1,144 defendants in the district courts of Middlesex and Suffolk counties without attorneys. More than 60 were in custody. Massachusetts is just the latest state to struggle with ways to adequately fund its public defender system. In Wisconsin, the new two-year state budget signed into law last week by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would increase the pay of public defenders and district attorneys in each of the next two years. That comes after the Legislature in 2023 also increased the pay to address rising caseloads, high turnover and low salaries. Public defenders in Minnesota averted a walkout in 2022 that threatened to bring the court system to a standstill. A year later, the legislature came up with more funding for the state Board of Public Defense so that it could meet what the American Bar Association recommends for manageable caseload standards. Oregon, meanwhile, has struggled for years with a critical shortage of court-provided attorneys for low-income defendants. As of Tuesday, nearly 3,500 defendants did not have a public defender, a dashboard from the Oregon Judicial Department showed. Of those, about 143 people were in custody, some for longer than seven days. In a bid to respond to the state's public defense crisis, lawmakers last month approved over $2 million for defense attorneys to take more caseloads in the counties most impacted by the shortage and over $3 million for Oregon law schools to train and supervise law students to take on misdemeanor cases. ___
Chicago Tribune
6 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Tinley Park man gets 12-year split in Munster gas station shooting
A Tinley Park man was sentenced to a 12-year split term Tuesday for shooting a man at a Munster gas station in a fight over a woman. Marque Jackson, 49, pleaded guilty in January to aggravated battery. He faced 9-16 years in prison. Instead, Judge Natalie Bokota sentenced him to six years in prison, three years in Lake County Community Corrections and three years on probation. Jackson has the option to petition to modify his prison sentence, potentially allowing him to get released far earlier. He indicated he would not appeal. The victim, Pares Ratliff, who was on the stand June 12, said in court documents that he tracked his girlfriend from Illinois on Sept. 2, 2023, to Mark O's bar in Munster. She was there with Jackson and a female friend. Ratliff confronted Jackson at a gas station across the street. He attacked Jackson, who eventually chased and fired up to eight shots, hitting Ratliff in the face. Bokota said Tuesday it went too far. In arguments, Deputy Prosecutor Lindsey Lanham asked for 16 years, arguing Jackson had a 'significant' criminal history that included a 'history of violence,' like assault and theft. She said Jackson continued to pursue Ratliff, who was retreating from the confrontation. Lanham said Jackson got an 'extreme benefit' from the plea and argued she could have proved the original attempted murder charge. The first sentencing hearing on June 12 was rescheduled when defense lawyer Lakeisha Murdaugh said she wanted to introduce part of Ratliff's hour-long YouTube video to Bokota, where he recounted the shooting. Lanham objected then, saying it was a 'comedy' video and may contain information that would embarrass him if played in open court. Bokota watched the video before Tuesday's hearing. Murdaugh said Tuesday she understood Ratliff was a 'comedian,' but sometimes 'comedy is reality.' She argued Ratliff 'provoked' Jackson, although it didn't excuse her client's actions. He drove '50 miles' from Illinois and was tracking the woman for 'a lot of that evening.' He 'went to confront her' and 'waited in the bushes' for Jackson. He confronted and assaulted Jackson, then tried to de-escalate the situation. His criminal history – from 1992-2004 – was decades ago, she said. Today, he has a 15-year-old son. He was a Pace bus driver and had helped raise his younger siblings and a cousin's children after they and his parents died. 'He is sorry,' she said. 'He is a person who has experienced violence.' Lanham retorted that the gas station video of the shooting was 'clear.' Jackson said he was 'younger' and 'foolish' when he was in trouble with the law. Since then, he has changed. He's looked over his son to make sure he didn't live the same life. He noted he was already in the juvenile justice system when he was his son's age. 'My work there is not done as a parent,' he said. 'I never wanted for this to happen.' On June 12, Ratliff testified he was traumatized by the encounter. The bullet pierced his cheek and exited near the corner of his eye. He was still spooked by loud noises, like fireworks. His nose still bled every time he sneezed. 'I don't know how I survived that to be honest with you,' he said. 'I think about it every day.' Tameka Washington, who was not at the bar, said she was Jackson's long-time girlfriend and the mother of his teenage son. 'We depend greatly on Marque for everything,' she said. According to a probable cause affidavit, Ratliff told police he went to the gas station to confront Jackson, a man he didn't know, after he saw him on video chat spending a lot of time with his girlfriend at a bar across the street. At the gas station, Jackson appeared to be 'touching' and 'talking' with the woman. A witness later told police they saw Ratliff 'come out of the bushes' to fight Jackson. Ratliff chased Jackson around the gas station until Jackson got a gun out of his 2013 Ford sedan and pointed it toward him. Ratliff lost interest in the fight and backed away across the street. Jackson pulled up across the street and opened fire. A bullet struck him in the face. Gas station surveillance captured the fight. License plate readers tracked Jackson's car and his credit card was used at the nearby bar just before the shooting.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Woman killed, another hurt in hit-and-run in Sunland Park
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A crash late Thursday night, July 3 in Sunland Park that killed one pedestrian and injured another person is a hit-and-run, New Mexico State Police said. At about 10:45 p.m. Thursday, New Mexico State Police responded to a crash at Sunland Park and Appaloosa Drive involving a vehicle and at least one pedestrian. One dead, one injured in Sunland Park 'pedestrian accident' A male and female were struck by what appears to be a maroon/red Ford Truck, which fled the scene, New Mexico State Police said. The 26-year-old woman, identified as Graciela Citlali-Tonazin Sahs, died at the scene. A male, no age given, was taken to a hospital where his condition is unknown, State Police said. Sunland Park Fire said that the person who was taken to the hospital suffered serious injuries. The driver of the vehicle fled the scene and their identity is unknown at this time, New Mexico State Police said. The crash remains under investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
