Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WVZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that all of us by now know
Speaker 2: the legal result in the criminal case, the criminal case
Speaker 2: against Karen Reid. Yesterday she was acquitted on all of
Speaker 2: the serious charges, including a murder to manslaughter and also
Speaker 2: leaving the scene of an accident. She was convicted on
Speaker 2: operating under the influence, which was the least of the charges.
Speaker 2: So I think all of us know that story. But
Speaker 2: I saw this morning a survey of Norfolk County eligible
Speaker 2: drawers which was conducted I guess overnight with us now
Speaker 2: is the pollster who did this poll, Brian Win. He
Speaker 2: is with a polling company called Opinion Diagnostics. Brian, the
Speaker 2: results of the poll are to me very surprising. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you had the same reaction. But before
Speaker 2: we go to the poll, tell us about Opinion Diagnostic.
Speaker 2: You're a Massachusetts based polling and market research firm. How
Speaker 2: long you've been around, and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about the methods that you use to conduct this poll.
Speaker 2: Right after the jury came down with their decision, So
Speaker 2: let's talk about opinion. First of all, Welcome, Brian. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about your company, Opinion Diagnostics.
Speaker 3: Welcome well, thanks thanks Dan for having me and thanks
Speaker 3: for letting me share this survey and the results with
Speaker 3: your listeners. So Opinion Diagnostics is a polling firm. I
Speaker 3: started back in twenty twenty three, but before that had
Speaker 3: done polling and political consulting for a variety of clients
Speaker 3: over the course of fifteen years. And they've been in
Speaker 3: Massachusetts now for really since two thousand and eight. I
Speaker 3: actually came up here for college at Boston College and
Speaker 3: never left. I had the opportunity along the way to
Speaker 3: do work in politics and masters usets. I moved up
Speaker 3: here originally to work for Governor Baker on his first
Speaker 3: camp or his second campaign, his first winning campaign in
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. I had the opportunity to serve as the
Speaker 3: executive director of the mass Use Republican Party and then
Speaker 3: as Governor Baker's campaign manager in twenty eighteen. Politics and
Speaker 3: public policy for a long time here in mass but
Speaker 3: now I'm a full time poster.
Speaker 2: Do you do polling for a commercial industry, businesses as
Speaker 2: well or as it all political?
Speaker 3: So it breaks into three different categories. The first is political,
Speaker 3: the second is more of traditional market research for corporations,
Speaker 3: and then there's sort of the intersection of those things,
Speaker 3: which are issues of public policy that oftentimes are either
Speaker 3: solving that for business or elected officials or for just
Speaker 3: sort of good governments organizations to figure out how to
Speaker 3: how they should work with and address the problems that
Speaker 3: they have when talking to the electorate.
Speaker 2: Okay, one of the things that I stress with polsters
Speaker 2: who I respect, and I certainly respect seeing what you
Speaker 2: did on this ball, but with people like Dave Paleologus
Speaker 2: who's been a friend for many years, Spencer Kimball, David Suffolk,
Speaker 2: Spencer Kimball at Emerson, and when people are skeptical of polsters,
Speaker 2: I always always explain to them that it is in
Speaker 2: the interest of a polster to first and foremost be accurate.
Speaker 2: They're almost like the equivalent of a baseball umpire. I mean,
Speaker 2: the baseball umpire doesn't really care if it's a strike
Speaker 2: or a ball. But if it's you know, three feet
Speaker 2: off the plate and they call it a strike, or
Speaker 2: if it's right down the middle and they call it
Speaker 2: a ball, they're not going to be an umpire very
Speaker 2: long anywhere. And the same way with polsters. So you
Speaker 2: went into this last night obviously in the hours after
Speaker 2: the verdicts came down to the Karen Reid case, and
Speaker 2: you tell us what you did. You reached out to
Speaker 2: a lot of people, and so I think the quality
Speaker 2: of this poll was done properly. The results to me
Speaker 2: are kind of surprising. So let's talk about the procedure
Speaker 2: that you employed last night around this time.
Speaker 3: Sure, so I've done more than four hundred poles in
Speaker 3: Massachusetts over the years, and so I'm well versed and
Speaker 3: experienced and how to conduct these in this state. This
Speaker 3: poll was interesting because of how quickly I wanted to
Speaker 3: be able to move on it. So this was drafted
Speaker 3: and ready to go and ready to go at a
Speaker 3: moment's notice. And we sort of had the false alarm
Speaker 3: on Tuesday when it seemed like the jury might reach
Speaker 3: a verdict on Tuesday night after those jury questions, and
Speaker 3: so was ready to go on Tuesday night, but ultimately
Speaker 3: when in the field on Wednesday night, this poll was
Speaker 3: available for respondents to take from five pm until eleven
Speaker 3: to fifty nine pm. The people we wanted to survey
Speaker 3: were eligible jurors in Norfolk County, which to be an
Speaker 3: eligible juror in Norfolk County. You need to be a
Speaker 3: United States citizen, you need to be over the age
Speaker 3: of eighteen, and you need to be able to reasonably
Speaker 3: understand English. And we targeted individuals with the survey that
Speaker 3: we sent the survey to that we thought met those criteria.
Speaker 3: But we also confirm thatt during the course of the survey.
Speaker 3: So ultimately we selected out of the five hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty five thousand people in Norfolk County that meet that
Speaker 3: criteria to serve as a juror. We selected seventy thousand
Speaker 3: of those individuals in a random sample that we thought
Speaker 3: we would reach out to. Every one of those seventy
Speaker 3: thousand individuals received a text message last night, and in fact,
Speaker 3: I know that many of your listeners probably live in
Speaker 3: Norfolk County and a lot of them probably received this
Speaker 3: text message ask to them to take the survey. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy people that met the criteria did
Speaker 3: in fact take the survey. And to add extra confidence,
Speaker 3: every person that received the text message had a unique
Speaker 3: alpha numeric code in it to make sure that you
Speaker 3: couldn't share the survey. If two people took the survey
Speaker 3: with the same code, we could see that, and we
Speaker 3: could flag that. And in fact, normally when we do surveys,
Speaker 3: maybe three to five people share the survey say, you know,
Speaker 3: theyfore the text message to a friend, or they post
Speaker 3: on social media. In this case, this was the largest
Speaker 3: number I've ever seen. There was one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: one duplicate responses, and I could tell from the responses
Speaker 3: that somebody had posted it on social media. Now we
Speaker 3: consider those results to be unscientific because we're trying to
Speaker 3: take a random sample of the eligible jurors in Norfolk County.
Speaker 3: So we discarded those one hundred and sixty one responses.
Speaker 3: So this is one one hundred and seventy responses from
Speaker 3: people that we have a high degree of confidence that
Speaker 3: they are eligible to service jurors, that it was individuals
Speaker 3: that we affirmatively contacted and so have a lot of confidence.
Speaker 3: And overall, this survey has a margin of error plus
Speaker 3: and minus two point nine percent. So any number that
Speaker 3: I quote tonight, that's the top line number. We could
Speaker 3: think that number could be plus three minus three roughly,
Speaker 3: but somewhere in that range. With ninety five percent confidence,
Speaker 3: what prompted.
Speaker 2: You to be poised and ready to do this poll.
Speaker 2: Obviously you thought about it ahead of time. This wasn't
Speaker 2: a spur of the moment poll, I assume, And if
Speaker 2: I'm asking a business question to which you cannot answer,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you did not do this at the behest
Speaker 2: of anyone other than your own idea. Here, there's no
Speaker 2: political candidate who wanted this poll done. There's no lawyers,
Speaker 2: defense lawyers, prosecutors, nothing, No one sponsored the poll.
Speaker 3: Correct, Correct, there's no sponsor in this poll. This was
Speaker 3: something that I decided to do and that our firm
Speaker 3: decided to do ourselves because we had interest in the
Speaker 3: case and.
Speaker 2: Thought that it would be interesting to share everybody had
Speaker 2: interest in this case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And frankly, we thought that we were sort of
Speaker 3: uniquely qualified to move quickly and get the data and
Speaker 3: get it out into the ecosystem. And so this was
Speaker 3: something we did not at the behest of anyone. But
Speaker 3: I will say my phone has been ringing off the
Speaker 3: hook today with these results.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we're going to get to the results. I think
Speaker 2: they're surprising. Uh, without exposing we'll get to the results
Speaker 2: right after the break. Were you surprised by the by
Speaker 2: some of the results I.
Speaker 3: Had suspicions that a majority of people would be sort
Speaker 3: of in favor of Karen Reid uh and think that
Speaker 3: she was innocent. But the numbers and how large that
Speaker 3: those numbers were were somewhat startling to make.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2: My guest is Brian Winn. He runs a company called
Speaker 2: Opinion Diagnostics, been around for about three years, uh, and
Speaker 2: it is it's making an impact tonight with this pole
Speaker 2: fascinating results. We're going to go to the numbers, and
Speaker 2: then I'm going to ask all of you to We'll
Speaker 2: do a little poll of some of you if you'd
Speaker 2: like to talk to a pollster. Six one seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty six one seven, nine, ten thirty. I'm fascinating
Speaker 2: by polls, know a lot of pollsters. I find that
Speaker 2: most pollsters are much more accurate that we give them
Speaker 2: credit for. And you can be the judge of that
Speaker 2: when we get some of the numbers for you. Right
Speaker 2: after the break, you have the phone numbers. Those are
Speaker 2: the most important one numbers six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty six seven. Coming right back on Night Side
Speaker 2: with my guest Brian Winn of Opinion Diagnostics.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: So let's go to the top line here. My guest
Speaker 2: on the line with us right now is the owner,
Speaker 2: the founder of Opinion Diagnostics.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And this is a polling firm that that is is
Speaker 2: going to have a pretty big footprint. Brian Winn is
Speaker 2: his name, uh, and going to have a very big footprint.
Speaker 2: Founded twenty twenty three, but it has been around for
Speaker 2: a while even before that. So amongst this the group
Speaker 2: of pollsters of people who you pulled the quote unquote
Speaker 2: eligible jurors and you feel this is within a margin
Speaker 2: of era of a little less than three percent. What
Speaker 2: percentage felt read was guilty?
Speaker 3: So we asked people. Uh. So we read to people
Speaker 3: right after the verdict in case they hadn't seen it.
Speaker 3: We told them what the verdict was, which is that
Speaker 3: she had been acquitted of numerous charges, but she had
Speaker 3: been convicted of operating a motor vehicle under the influence
Speaker 3: of liquor commonly known as OUI. When we asked people, first,
Speaker 3: you believe the jury reached the correct verdict? So acquittal
Speaker 3: on a manslaughter but conviction on Oui. And of people
Speaker 3: that were familiar with the trial, which was ninety three
Speaker 3: percent of all jurors in Norfolk County said that they
Speaker 3: were familiar with the trial. So of that ninety three percent,
Speaker 3: seventy percent said yes, the jury had reached the correct verdict,
Speaker 3: compared to only eleven percent that said no.
Speaker 2: And by the way, you didn't ask them about murder.
Speaker 2: It looks to me as if you asked them about manslaughter,
Speaker 2: and I did.
Speaker 3: And the reason for that is what we got to
Speaker 3: in the next in the next two questions. And so
Speaker 3: the first question we asked is if for if on
Speaker 3: the manslaughter charge, right, because her Oui was a lesser
Speaker 3: included of the manslaughter charge.
Speaker 2: Yep, right.
Speaker 3: So the question was how close was the jury to
Speaker 3: finding her guilty of one of the higher of those
Speaker 3: lesser included charges. They found her guilty of the lowest
Speaker 3: of the lesser included charge. And so we asked people,
Speaker 3: should she have been found guilty of manslaughter or should
Speaker 3: she have been found not guilty because you have reasonable
Speaker 3: doubts but she might have committed the crime, but you
Speaker 3: have reasonable doubts or should she have been found not
Speaker 3: guilty because she's totally innocent of that crime. And among
Speaker 3: the people that were familiar with the trial, only six
Speaker 3: percent thought that she should have been found guilty because
Speaker 3: she committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, compared to
Speaker 3: fifty four percent that said she should be found out
Speaker 3: guilty because she's totally innocent. So a majority of people
Speaker 3: familiar with this trial, fifty four percent say that she
Speaker 3: is totally innocent, not even that she's innocent because of
Speaker 3: a reasonable doubt, which is another twenty four percent on
Speaker 3: top of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that gets you to that gets you to three
Speaker 2: quarters of the respondents would have would have voted to
Speaker 2: acquit on manslaughter and sixteen percent are unsure. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure the people who were unsure if they were in
Speaker 2: a jury room. Boy, that is a stunning number to me.
Speaker 2: I don't think she was guilty of manslaughter. I think
Speaker 2: the case was overcharged, But I still think that that
Speaker 2: there's a certain number of people who are going to
Speaker 2: be always influenced by the present presentation of the government,
Speaker 2: and the government obviously they didn't have a chance of
Speaker 2: going into this this trial in my opinion.
Speaker 3: Oh not not at all. And the last top line
Speaker 3: that we asked, and this goes to the presentation of
Speaker 3: the government and the evidence that they showed to the jury.
Speaker 3: We tried to predict what Norfolk County jurors would do
Speaker 3: in the upcoming civil trial. Remember, Karen Reid is still
Speaker 3: going to have a civil trial. That's a wrongful death lawsuit,
Speaker 3: and the standard, as many people probably know, is different
Speaker 3: in a civil trial. It's preponderance of the evidence. Is
Speaker 3: it more likely than not that Karen Reid is liable
Speaker 3: for the wrongful death of John o'keef. And we asked
Speaker 3: people did they think that the preponderance of evidence showed
Speaker 3: that she was liable or did the preponderance of evidence
Speaker 3: not show that she is liable? And seventy three percent
Speaker 3: said that based off the information that they knew, that
Speaker 3: the preponderance of evidence showed that she was not liable
Speaker 3: for the death of John o'keef. And so with that
Speaker 3: in mind, it is incredibly difficult to imagine how a
Speaker 3: wrongful death lawsuit is going to proceed given just the
Speaker 3: evidence that we have, and presumably at this point, through
Speaker 3: multiple years and two different trials, and all the things
Speaker 3: that weren't presented a trial, but were sort of known
Speaker 3: from outside of it without any additional information coming out.
Speaker 3: To start off with, roughly three quarters of everyone familiar
Speaker 3: with this case and roughly sixty eight percent of every
Speaker 3: person that's in eligible jur in Northfook County thinking that
Speaker 3: the evidence that current that currently exists is not enough
Speaker 3: evidence to find her liable of ronful death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's it's almost a ten to one ratio.
Speaker 2: Sixty eight percent feel that the preponderance evidence does not
Speaker 2: prove liability. Seven percent think that does. That's a ten
Speaker 2: to one sixty eight to seven, you know, sixty.
Speaker 3: Eight Put that into statistical terms if you were trying
Speaker 3: to find it. And jury selection is not a random process, right,
Speaker 3: As people remember, in the beginning of the care and
Speaker 3: Reed trial, they went through many, many jurors to find
Speaker 3: jurors that they were impartial. Almost ninety percent of the
Speaker 3: jurors said that they were familiar with the case during
Speaker 3: jury selection, but they tried to find jurors that were impartial.
Speaker 3: So if you were to say, need I need to
Speaker 3: randomly select twelve people from Norfolk County to be on
Speaker 3: a jury in a civil trial, wrongful death, and what
Speaker 3: are the odds that is sixty eight percent of all
Speaker 3: the people in Norfolk County think that she is totally
Speaker 3: that the propondence of the evidence shows that she is
Speaker 3: not liable. What are the chances of getting twelve people
Speaker 3: in a row? And if you do the mathm that
Speaker 3: it's a one in eight hundred and sixty nine thousand
Speaker 3: chants that a randomly selected jury would have twelve people
Speaker 3: that think that the propondence the evidence either shows that
Speaker 3: she is liable or that are unsure or just don't
Speaker 3: know about the case. So one in eight hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty nine thousand chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another question that you highlight. Amongst eligible jurors
Speaker 2: familiar with the case, sixty four percent believed that John
Speaker 2: O'Keefe was killed by someone else.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's that's truly the crux of this right,
Speaker 3: And so the next section of this poll, after those
Speaker 3: the verdicts and what people would do with their jurorsey
Speaker 3: is what do they believe about the facts of the case.
Speaker 3: And when you get into the facts of the case,
Speaker 3: the one that is maybe the most startling, and it's
Speaker 3: it's the largest is sixty four percent like you said,
Speaker 3: believe John o'keeith was killed by someone other than Karen Reid.
Speaker 3: And so that sort of is the reason why you
Speaker 3: would think that she that these jurors would not see
Speaker 3: the preponderance of evidence of her being liable. You know,
Speaker 3: the preponderance of evidence standard, which is lower, not going
Speaker 3: to be You're not going to beat that standard of
Speaker 3: sixty four percent of people believe that someone else killed them.
Speaker 3: How can you say that she's liable for his death
Speaker 3: when sixty four percent of people believe that someone else
Speaker 3: killed them. And it goes down from there. Sixty three
Speaker 3: percent of these of these eligible jurors believe that evidence
Speaker 3: was planted to help ensure that Karen Reid was found guilty,
Speaker 3: and sixty one percent believe that some of the injuries
Speaker 3: on John o'keeith's body were caused by a dog.
Speaker 2: And the dog that is in question is the dog
Speaker 2: that was in the house.
Speaker 3: So presumably that would be the dog that's in the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not some dog was out for a midnight stroll.
Speaker 2: Eleven percent, again a starkly different number, believe that some
Speaker 2: of the injuries were caused by a vehicle, and only
Speaker 2: nine percent nine percent believe that the investigation was full
Speaker 2: and fair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that vehicle number is startling, because really, what the
Speaker 3: second trial came down to was are the injuries on
Speaker 3: John o'keith's body caused by a dog or are they
Speaker 3: caused in a vehicle? Right, And that's sort of the
Speaker 3: central argument between the prosecution and the defense, and so
Speaker 3: who wins that argument? Well, sixty one percent believe that
Speaker 3: the injuries are caused by a dog and eleven percent
Speaker 3: believe they're caused by the vehicle. And so if you're
Speaker 3: looking at the witnesses that testified and having read some
Speaker 3: of the insights from the jurors today that have done
Speaker 3: media interviews during the course of today, the jurors believe
Speaker 3: that the injuries were caused by a dog, and most
Speaker 3: of them had serious doubt that there is a vehicle involved.
Speaker 3: And some of them say that they are completely certain
Speaker 3: there is no vehicle involved. And it seems to reflect
Speaker 3: the data that this survey showed.
Speaker 2: Okay, now we got to take a break here for
Speaker 2: the news at the bob of the hour. But there's
Speaker 2: some other questions that I think are very important, both
Speaker 2: retroactively and prospectively. I'll get to those next, and I'll
Speaker 2: also invite callers to join the conversation. Six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty.
Speaker 2: This is I don't know if any other poll that
Speaker 2: was done this quickly following of jury verdict in such
Speaker 2: a high profile trial. This never was done, I believe,
Speaker 2: in the in the wake of the OJ Simpson trial
Speaker 2: or any other trial that I can think of. But
Speaker 2: this is amazing because this really does show what jurors
Speaker 2: or potential jurors, the group of jurors from which were
Speaker 2: chosen feel about this case literally the day and the
Speaker 2: day after, the day, the evening of the verdict. So
Speaker 2: these are these are I think amazing numbers, and I
Speaker 2: think it was a brilliant idea to run this poll.
Speaker 2: And we'll talk more about it, and I'd love to
Speaker 2: have some of you join the conversation. We're back on
Speaker 2: Nightside right after the news at the bottom of the.
Speaker 1: Hour's Boston's News Radio. It's Night Side with Dan Ray,
Speaker 1: Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest here tonight is the founder and the owner
Speaker 2: of a company called Opinion Diagnostics. Diagnostics Brian Wynn has
Speaker 2: done what I considered to be an amazing poll of
Speaker 2: Norfolk potential Norfolk County jurors. These are people who would
Speaker 2: be eligible for the jury pool from which the Karen
Speaker 2: Reid jury was chosen. Now what I want to do, Brian,
Speaker 2: is I got some phone calls here already, so I
Speaker 2: want to go to at least one or two, and
Speaker 2: then I want to get back to other conclusions that
Speaker 2: this poll has drawn, and I want to ask some questions.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, let me start it off with Mike
Speaker 2: in Dallas, Texas. Mike, welcome to Nightside. I don't know
Speaker 2: if ever had the pleasure of your company here on
Speaker 2: Nightside before. How are you, sir?
Speaker 4: No, Dan, I'm a first time call or long time
Speaker 4: listener ever since I was a child in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 2: Come on, so you're a run of applause to you, Mike.
Speaker 2: We do have listeners in Texas, so you're not the
Speaker 2: first listener from Texas. But I thank you very much
Speaker 2: for listening to us down there and calling and calling
Speaker 2: us tonight. What question or comment would you like to make?
Speaker 2: We have Brian Winn with us, who's in charge of
Speaker 2: this company that conducted the poll, Opinion Diagnostics, So.
Speaker 4: My question is this in a soivil trial. Of course,
Speaker 4: if she will have to give a deposition, she will
Speaker 4: have to testify in a civil trial. And I'm curious, Brian,
Speaker 4: as to whether your survey revealed anything about how the
Speaker 4: public views Karen Reid as a person, whether that dynamic
Speaker 4: will actually maybe change the results or change the opinion
Speaker 4: of people as to whether they're going to give her
Speaker 4: a clean bill of health in a civil case.
Speaker 2: Brother, if I could mike real quickly, you sound like
Speaker 2: you're a lawyer.
Speaker 4: Actually, wow, I'm a law professor.
Speaker 2: How about that? Huh? What law school? If I could,
Speaker 2: I'm a lawyer, as you probably know if you listen,
Speaker 2: I'm going to BEU Law School, Boston University Law School graduate.
Speaker 2: Do you teach? So?
Speaker 4: I teach to the University of North Texas at Dallas.
Speaker 4: We're a young law school. We've been around for eleven years,
Speaker 4: but I practiced law for thirty four years before I
Speaker 4: entered the academy.
Speaker 2: Wow, boy, well, congratulations, you're uh, you're sort of from
Speaker 2: my generation. That again, the reason I was able to
Speaker 2: take a pretty good guess at that, as you sound
Speaker 2: like a lawyer, and uh, and take that as a
Speaker 2: compliment because she's coming from one lawyer to another. A
Speaker 2: great question. Uh, Brian, would you take a shot at
Speaker 2: Mike's question.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm not sure that my survey answers your question
Speaker 3: beyond the fact that if people truly believed that he
Speaker 3: was killed by someone else, or that evidence was planted,
Speaker 3: or that these injuries were caused by a dog, and
Speaker 3: they find that she is, you know, totally innocent of
Speaker 3: the crime of which she was which she was accused
Speaker 3: in this in the criminal case, I don't know how,
Speaker 3: even even if she comes off as the worst human
Speaker 3: being in the world, how a jury could find her
Speaker 3: liable if in a civil case, if they truly believe
Speaker 3: that she was sort of uninvolved in always in this case,
Speaker 3: what I can tell you was, having read some of
Speaker 3: the stories shared by the jurors today, I think I
Speaker 3: saw the two jurors and an alternate juror at least
Speaker 3: as of nine PM, and done interviews and one of
Speaker 3: the jury's and I'll share this this is sort of
Speaker 3: outside the survey, but the juror said, when she walked in,
Speaker 3: she thought that she thought that she was not going
Speaker 3: to like Karen Reid. She thought that she sort of
Speaker 3: got the wrong vibe from Karen Reid, and during the
Speaker 3: course of the trial, the juror said that her read
Speaker 3: on Karen Reid changed to be somebody that was fighting
Speaker 3: for her life and had been put in an impossible position,
Speaker 3: and she grew to admire her. So that's the words
Speaker 3: of one juror. I can't speak to any other random
Speaker 3: juror in any other case, but maybe a small case
Speaker 3: study of how people might see her. Now, remember people
Speaker 3: didn't hear from her because she didn't testify in this case,
Speaker 3: but the prosecution played all of the clips from her
Speaker 3: HBO documentary. And I'll just say this is this is
Speaker 3: my personal view on it. I watched the HBO documentary
Speaker 3: when it came out a few months ago. I didn't
Speaker 3: think Karen Reid came off particularly well in that documentary.
Speaker 3: I don't think she came off as particularly likable. And
Speaker 3: that's just that's just sort of my personal opinion. And
Speaker 3: so that's that's the Karen Reid that that jury was
Speaker 3: presented with the one that was in the HBO documentary.
Speaker 3: They you know, her in person in a civil trial
Speaker 3: might be far better than that.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm someone who believes that sometimes in the
Speaker 2: quote of public opinion, you can influence the judicial system,
Speaker 2: as I think I was able to do in the
Speaker 2: Joe Salvati case, the Salviati Lamoni case up here, which
Speaker 2: some of you in my audience I know still remember.
Speaker 2: But I think it was a still a fundamental mistake
Speaker 2: to have her go on television, you know, because those
Speaker 2: those audio clips were used against her, and it might
Speaker 2: have been that those audio clips if she hadn't gone on,
Speaker 2: maybe she would have swept the table. Let me ask, Mike,
Speaker 2: the law school professor, would you have allowed Karen Reid
Speaker 2: to go on television? I think she was on Dateline
Speaker 2: and maybe a couple of other shows in advance of
Speaker 2: that second trial.
Speaker 4: I watched the show The Body in the Snow. I
Speaker 4: would never in a million years have her done those interviews.
Speaker 4: I think she came across very poorly. I think she
Speaker 4: made admissions against interest, and I think it was a
Speaker 4: terrible strategic mistake. But in the end, I guess it
Speaker 4: just didn't matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and wait, we're gonna have some other statistics here, Mike.
Speaker 2: I'm honored that you called. I truly mean that, and
Speaker 2: I hope that you'll call more often. If you get
Speaker 2: up to Boston, give me a call. We'll grab a coffee.
Speaker 4: I'd like that very much. Have a good evening, gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mike. Send me an email so I can be
Speaker 2: in touch. I'll have no giving direct.
Speaker 4: How do I get your email?
Speaker 2: You hold on here and I'm going to have no
Speaker 2: give you my direct line and my email. No, we'll
Speaker 2: give the professor Mike, who shall have forever been known
Speaker 2: as Professor Mike here on Nightside, my email in my
Speaker 2: and my direct phone number. Okay, don't hang up, Mike.
Speaker 2: You just all right. They'll take care of that. Let's
Speaker 2: get another call for you. Brian here, and we're going
Speaker 2: to get a little closer to home. We're going to
Speaker 2: go directly to the to the heart of this Canton
Speaker 2: Carol from Canton. Hi, Carol, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 4: How are you, Hi, Dan, Thank you for having me,
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Very much for calling you. Brian Winny, they had to
Speaker 2: Brian win He is a ban a really good pusson.
Speaker 5: I'm disgusted. I'm disgusted by the all because I am
Speaker 5: one of the very few that believe carried it is
Speaker 5: totally guilty of what she's charged what's not second degree murder,
Speaker 5: but the hictil homicide would have been good. I don't
Speaker 5: think there's any third party. His friends beating him up, sorry,
Speaker 5: out in the yard. I don't believe those dog bites.
Speaker 5: I have three, you know, four dogs, and I know
Speaker 5: what dog bites look like. And I'm just I'm just
Speaker 5: really upset with the whole with the whole thing, really
Speaker 5: am I just wanted to be down and I don't
Speaker 5: want to be seep ink anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd like to ask you, Carol, Can I ask
Speaker 2: you what? Carol? Can I ask you one question? What
Speaker 2: amongst your friends in Canton? The town itself has been
Speaker 2: its battered from pillar a house here in many in
Speaker 2: many respects, what is the feeling amongst your friends? Realizing
Speaker 2: that probably most of the people who are your friends
Speaker 2: are going to be people who somewhat.
Speaker 5: Agree with you, We're very divided, very divided. Some of
Speaker 5: my family agree with me, so my family doesn't. I
Speaker 5: have a bet with a friend and now I owever
Speaker 5: her dinner, Well.
Speaker 2: Do make make sure it's a friendly dinner and don't
Speaker 2: let her rub it in.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, yeah, the way that people don't do that
Speaker 5: in Canton. We don't beat up each other and throw them.
Speaker 2: And I have a lot of friends. I have a
Speaker 2: lot of friends in Canton, and it's a good town.
Speaker 2: Have you called before? This is your first call, This is
Speaker 2: my first call. We want to give you a round
Speaker 2: of applause too, our digital studio audience. We really appreciate
Speaker 2: first time call.
Speaker 5: And I really think the jurors were afraid to charge
Speaker 5: her with anything more because they probably would have been
Speaker 5: a harass for the rest.
Speaker 4: Of their lives.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: And everybody else, well, I don't know that you have comments.
Speaker 5: Go to parents. She had nice flow.
Speaker 4: She you know, she looks good. But I did I
Speaker 4: did want to.
Speaker 3: I did want to comment quickly, go ahead, say right there.
Speaker 3: We did in this survey. One of what we did
Speaker 3: in the survey was we took a sample of people
Speaker 3: that live in Canton. Now it's not a gigantic sample,
Speaker 3: it's fifty four people out of that one. Ken is
Speaker 3: a relatively small part of Norfolk County, right compared to
Speaker 3: like Quinsy, for example, which is the largest. And the
Speaker 3: results in Canton were generally the same as they were
Speaker 3: everyone else, but much more I'd say the temperature was higher. So,
Speaker 3: for example, ninety three percent of people in the whole
Speaker 3: county know about the Karen Read case, but it's one
Speaker 3: hundred percent of those fifty four people in Canton, obviously, right.
Speaker 3: And if you ask people whether whether they believe, whether
Speaker 3: they believe that the verdict should have been guilty overall
Speaker 3: the whole county, it's five percent. In Canton it's twenty one.
Speaker 3: And whether or not she was not guilty because she
Speaker 3: was completely innocent, and the whole county it's fifty. In
Speaker 3: Canton it's forty nine, so a little lower, but you
Speaker 3: do have but you have zero percent of people.
Speaker 2: With to let it, let him finish, hold on, he
Speaker 2: was just finishing his sentence. Go ahead, go ahead by.
Speaker 3: There in the in the full county, we had fifteen
Speaker 3: percent of people that were unsure about the verdict in
Speaker 3: the town of Cannon. Of those fifty four people we surveyed, zero,
Speaker 3: literally not one of them said that they were unsure. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: it'll people either were guilty or not.
Speaker 5: Getting people like to jump on the bandwagon.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, Carol, thank you for your call.
Speaker 2: I hope the interview more up and on other topics
Speaker 2: as well, thank you, thank you all. Can I we'll
Speaker 2: take a very quick break if you'd like to ask
Speaker 2: Brian Won a question. We have some other really start
Speaker 2: lead statistics which we can get to and we can
Speaker 2: drill down them on them a little bit. Six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty six one seven, nine three, one ten
Speaker 2: thirty O'Brien, it's it's amazing. You get two people who
Speaker 2: have never called night Side before on this topic, a
Speaker 2: law professor from Dallas.
Speaker 3: That's what this case does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's also what happens on this also what
Speaker 2: happens on this this radio station. To be honest with you,
Speaker 2: it has a tremendous reach and a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I'd love to find out from Mike how he first
Speaker 2: found WBS. We have a lot of what I would call,
Speaker 2: you know at ex pats from New England who move
Speaker 2: I have people in New Mexico and other states, far
Speaker 2: flong states who stay in contact Alaska. I have listeners
Speaker 2: that I know of in Alaska. But it didn't sound
Speaker 2: to me like Mike necessarily had roots back here. So
Speaker 2: I'll figure out. But it's it's an amazing radio station,
Speaker 2: and this is an amazing story. So I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2: We'll take a quick break if you'd like to ask
Speaker 2: Brian win a question. He's the founder of Opinion Diagnostics,
Speaker 2: and there are some statistics here which also portend the future,
Speaker 2: and we'll get to those right after the break.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: My guess is Brian Wynn. He is the founder of
Speaker 2: a new, well relatively new company, been around for a
Speaker 2: couple of years, but he's been doing this for a
Speaker 2: longer time. This company's called Indian Diagnostics. Was Opinion Diagnostics
Speaker 2: found in twenty founded in twenty twenty three or was
Speaker 2: it previous in his previous incarnation also Opinion Diagnostics.
Speaker 3: Brian no, it was founded as Opinion Diagnostics in March
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three. So we just celebrated our second
Speaker 3: anniversary about three months ago. But like I said, I've
Speaker 3: been doing polling for fourteen years now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in this situation, you're a founder and an
Speaker 2: owner as opposed to someone who is working on a
Speaker 2: campaign or someone who is a contract worker. So let's
Speaker 2: go to some of these statistics which I think are interesting,
Speaker 2: current former elected officials in Norfolk County's criminal justice system
Speaker 2: have lost public support. Why don't we hit the three
Speaker 2: I'm surprised that the judge is not held in higher repute.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so only eighteen percent of eligible jurors approved of
Speaker 3: Judge Beverly Cononi's handling of the case or job performance
Speaker 3: on the case. And so we explained in advance what
Speaker 3: just to make sure that sort of less informed people
Speaker 3: understood that a judge was not the one making the
Speaker 3: decision in a criminal case, it was a jury. We
Speaker 3: explained what a judge did, and then we asked people whether,
Speaker 3: based off their knowledge of the case they approved or disapproved.
Speaker 3: That it was of people familiar with the case, it
Speaker 3: was eighteen percent approved, in fifty four percent disapproved.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, as a lawyer, I was critical of
Speaker 2: Judge Canoni after the first case when the jury came
Speaker 2: back and said that they were deadlocked. I firmly believe
Speaker 2: that she should have asked a simple question, are you
Speaker 2: deadlocked on all three counts? Or have you arrived at
Speaker 2: a consensus and an agreement on any of the counts,
Speaker 2: And if you believe what some of the jurors said,
Speaker 2: she would have been acquitted on the murder indictment the
Speaker 2: first time around, and also leaving the scene of an accident.
Speaker 2: So I think that this jury was very similar by
Speaker 2: the questions or asked, and a lot of the the
Speaker 2: additional expense could have been avoided. Now her behavior, her
Speaker 2: actions were upheld. They were not overturned by the s
Speaker 2: JAC or by the US Supreme Court, which decided not
Speaker 2: to grant Scherai. But I think the State Supreme Court
Speaker 2: should have issued an advisory opinion that in cases where
Speaker 2: there are multiple counts and the jury comes back and
Speaker 2: says they are hung or they're deadlocked, or whatever terminology
Speaker 2: they use, a judge should be required because partial vertics
Speaker 2: are acceptable. You could have a partial vertical accounts one
Speaker 2: and two or two in three three.
Speaker 3: To put a fine point on that. Alan Jackson said
Speaker 3: in an interview earlier today that he believes he's the
Speaker 3: first duo of defendant and defense attorney to be acquitted twice. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: you've never seen never seen that ad I think you're
Speaker 3: correct on that double jeopardy is institutionally protected or prohibited.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well I think that that. Well, again, it's
Speaker 2: tough to get sir, sure are with the US Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: but I think the Massachusetts State Supreme Court missed an
Speaker 2: opportunity to provide guidance for superior court judges. Okay, Massachusetts
Speaker 2: State Police, once considered a top police agency, they're under
Speaker 2: intense criticism. Three quarters of the people polled agree with
Speaker 2: the decision to fire the lead investigator, who was on
Speaker 2: television last night, I believe, with ABC saying what a
Speaker 2: great job he had done. This fellow named Michael Proctor.
Speaker 3: Correct. So that's seventy six percent agreed that he should
Speaker 3: have been fired by the state Police. Only six percent
Speaker 3: disagree with the remainder unsure. And then you know, sort
Speaker 3: of just a startling indictment of his actions in this case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and his behavior, and then of all the people
Speaker 2: involved with his case, the biggest loser at this point
Speaker 2: appears to be the district attorney, Mike Morrissey, who's up
Speaker 2: for reelection in twenty twenty six. What did the numbers
Speaker 2: show for the big incumbent district attorney?
Speaker 3: So for me, someone that had worked in politics, these
Speaker 3: might be the most startling numbers in the entire poll.
Speaker 3: So we asked, remember this was all eligible jurors, and
Speaker 3: you don't need to be registered to vote to be
Speaker 3: a juror, but you do need to be over the
Speaker 3: age of eighteen and a United States citizen. So about
Speaker 3: ninety five percent of the individuals that took this survey
Speaker 3: or are registered voters, so they would be eligible to
Speaker 3: vote in twenty twenty six. And we asked just that
Speaker 3: ninety five percent of the survey respondents whether or not
Speaker 3: Michael Morrissey had performed his job well enough as Norfolk
Speaker 3: County District Attorney to deserve reelection or is it time
Speaker 3: to give a new person a chance? Four percent said
Speaker 3: he deserves reelection, sixty percent said it's time to give
Speaker 3: a new person a chance. Is pretty standard wording I
Speaker 3: use in questions in political surveys I do for my
Speaker 3: clients and have used this wording for probably the better
Speaker 3: part of the last eight or nine years, and never
Speaker 3: have I seen results that are within twenty points of this.
Speaker 3: You know, there are individuals that are elected officials under
Speaker 3: indictment that probably have better numbers for their deserves re
Speaker 3: election than Mike Morrissey does.
Speaker 2: Right now, Wow, wow, I would I'm look, yeah, politicians
Speaker 2: have to have to read polls, and I'm sure that
Speaker 2: he is. I don't think he'll run for re election.
Speaker 3: And here here's his big his big problem is, if
Speaker 3: you are a Democrat, eight percent believe he deserves reelection,
Speaker 3: in fifty three percent believe in your person deserve I
Speaker 3: should have a chance. Now, he already has Democratic primary
Speaker 3: opponents that have already announced in a running against him.
Speaker 3: So how he wins the Democratic primary is beyond me.
Speaker 3: And then even if he were to make it to
Speaker 3: a general election, only about three and a half percent
Speaker 3: of all the Republicans and independence combined believe he deserves reelection,
Speaker 3: and so how he would win against a Republican and
Speaker 3: a general election is beyond me. I saw here he
Speaker 3: issued a four word statement earlier today something to the
Speaker 3: effect of the jury has spoken, or the jurors have
Speaker 3: spoken to me, is you know, putting back my head
Speaker 3: as a political strategist, I don't. That to me seems
Speaker 3: like a resignation that his term is as district attorney
Speaker 3: is over, and I think these poll results.
Speaker 4: Bear that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's waving the white flag, that is for sure
Speaker 2: in my opinion, Brian, I love this hour and we'll
Speaker 2: do it again. I really thank you for this. I
Speaker 2: think people have learned a lot and it's an amazing
Speaker 2: poll and I think people should go find it and
Speaker 2: look at it Opiniondiagnostics dot com and they will find
Speaker 2: it pretty easily on the website. I assume it's highlighted
Speaker 2: on your website tonight.
Speaker 3: Top top of the website tonight, canvass it ro.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed the conversation today and also our hour tonight.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: We will talk and thank you to you and your
Speaker 3: listeners really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely great hour. Thank you so much. All Right,