Karen Reed, who was acquitted of murder after one of the most closely watched criminal trials in Massachusetts, has now turned to the civil courts, filing a complaint against the Massachusetts State Police and the Canton Police Department. In the filing she says the agencies permitted misogynists and bigots to target her, and that the police will have to answer for what they did to her.
According to legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer, the complaint centers on three major claims. There are negligence claims aimed at the state of Massachusetts through its troopers and at the town of Canton through its police, and a further allegation of what is known as civil conspiracy, a combination that frames the case as both institutional failure and coordinated wrongdoing.
To prevail, Buckmeyer explained, Reed will have to show that both the state and the city knew of the so-called bad apples within their ranks and failed to remove them once certain facts came to light. The complaint goes further, alleging that some of those officers were in fact promoted, and that the authorities allowed what Reed describes as a miscarriage of justice to continue.
The level of incompetence or negligence being alleged is so high, the analyst said, that it rises to the level of a civil claim. The conspiracy portion argues that people worked in conjunction with one another to prosecute a person who has now been found not guilty, seeking to vilify her and to criminalize actions that, in her account, were never criminal in the first place.
Much of Reed's argument was already laid out by her attorneys during her criminal trial, where she maintained throughout that the case against her amounted to a fabricated lie and a brazen cover-up. Buckmeyer suggested that her acquittal strengthens the civil case, noting that she carried that argument through the criminal proceedings and was found not guilty in large part because of it.
A key factor, the analyst added, is the difference in legal standards between the two types of case. Where the criminal trial required proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the civil claim carries the lower burden of a preponderance of the evidence, meaning Reed may have an easier path to establishing the allegations she has made against the state and the city.
For now the matter remains at the complaint stage, and Buckmeyer predicted it may never reach a full trial. He argued that the process of discovery and depositions would be so damaging to the city and the state, which have already absorbed a significant black eye from the Reed case, that they may seek to resolve the lawsuit as quickly and as quietly as possible rather than let the allegations play out in open court.