Karen Read Retrial, Week 4.5: The Prosecution Implodes With the Most Embarrassing Testimony in the History of the Legal System

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't revisit the Masshole Trial of the Century Part 2 so soon after posting about it on Friday. I'd prefer to take more time and let events unfold. But the one day of testimony we've had since was anything but ordinary. 

I'd have a hard time getting my License to Blog renewed if I didn't throw in the occasional sports metaphor to describe this trial, so let me check that off my punchlist now. You know how sometimes a franchise can't seem to fill a certain key position, not matter how hard they try? The Cleveland Browns had a thousand quarterbacks over Joe Thomas' career. The 76ers went through the whole "Process" era without a reliable point guard. While the Red Sox won in the post-Nomar era, they had to replace their shortstop every year for almost a decade. And in the case of the Commonwealth trying to find a way to convict Karen Read of murdering Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe with her SUV in 2022, they've struggled to fill a major spot on their prosecution roster:

Expert witness. 

Expert. 'ek-spert: one with the special skill or knowledge representing mastery of a particular subject 

You may remember the first trial, when the Commonwealth's crash reconstruction "expert" (we're defining that in the loosest possible way) was Trooper Joseph Paul. 

It came out in cross examination that Paul's "expertise" (again) was that he once took a course in the subject. It might have been at the State Police Academy. Or it could've been an Adult Ed class at the local community college. Or he might have once owned a copy of The Simpsons: Hit and Run. My memory is a little hazy. 

But I do remember Paul's testimony. Which he delivered with the calm, confident certainty of Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. This video is NOT edited:

And how he answered questions with exact, scientific precision:

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And how he said he was "told" something at the crime scene. After getting grilled to reveal who told him that and doing everything he could to not mention the name of lead investigator Michael Proctor, Paul delivered this absolute banger of an answer:

Reportedly, jurors were slapping their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing at some this examination. But I still wonder if out in the hallways during recess if The Crime Scene Whisperer and the ADA shook hands and gave a shoulder bump like, "NIIICE! The crime scene told you! Nailed it, bro!"

Well today, 11 months later, Trooper Paul is off the hook. He's no longer the author of the worst testimony in this case. He's been replaced by new prosecution "expert" who could be the worst witness in the history of trials since they were first invented in Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago. Introducing Shanon "With Two N's" Burgess, from the data firm Aperature. Who instantly became to witness stand meltdowns what Cy Young (sports metaphor #2 and I'm just getting loose) is to wins: The holder of a record that will never be broken. Or even approached. 

I want to go easy on Burgess, I really do. My sainted mother would've said of a guy like him, "He means well." But since this is a murder case and a defendant is on trial for her life, I'm not sure if his part in this can be considered well-intentioned. Burgess is a living example of the sitcom trope where someone testifies in a trial and it all goes hilariously wrong. Newman claiming he was speeding to save Kramer from killing himself because he could never become a banker, only with less credibility.

Really, even before the clerk swore him in, we knew he'd been lying about his education, his qualifications and his … wait for it … "expertise.":

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… Burgess’ CV or online profiles, because of course it’d be a big problem if one of Hank’s pivotal experts is exposed for being dishonest about the very credentials that “qualified” him as said expert in the first place. 

Here’s a clip from an interview on YouTube with ArcPoint Forensics from December 2024, where he’s asked about his background, and notably, when listing his education, Burgess only mentions his Associate’s degree and says nothing about his supposed Bachelor’s degree—the superior of the two.

Briefly, not only has Burgess been repeatedly moving the goal posts on his Curriculum Vitae of when he got his degree, it came out in cross that he still doesn't have it:

That's 17 years pursuing a degree he'll no longer need. Because even if he gets it, he's unemployable now:

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To emphasize the point, any time, every time, an expert witness takes the stand, the very first question is to state their name and list their qualifications. Their education, training and experience. That happens 100% of the time, without fail. At least until Monday, May 19th, in the Year of Our Lord 2025. That's when jurisprudence history was made by prosecutor not asking; just hoping the jury would take his word for it. 

Then as the trial was going on, Aperature removed the link to Burgess' page:

And then threw a watermark across his profile to make official what everyone had already surmised. That Shanon "With Two N's" Burgess is not, in fact, and expert:

You may find what I'm about to tell you surprising. For good reason. But here goes:

It got worse from there. 

Burgess' direct and cross, re-direct and recross, were all slow motion blimp explosions. Oh, the humanity. From it being revealed that he changed the report he first submitted back in January as the trial was going on, in order for it to line up with previous witnesses:

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Worse still, he admitted to speaking with ADA Hank Brennan after Brennan told the court he was pleasantly surprised to receive this amended report completely out of the blue. Burgess sending it to him of his own volition:

… to receive it on May 8th which can’t be true.

Thus making a liar out of the lead prosecutor. Which we know from the way Burgess began his letter. Totally giving the game away in the most nonexpert, amateurish, neophyte way:

Again though, things were only going to get worse. What probably shouldn't be surprising is that Burgess proved he's uniquely not qualified to collect data, which is the field of study he's been pursuing since [does the math] before the Marvel Cinematic Universe began. In essence, while putting together his report examining the digital data someone else compiled, Burgess confused gigabits (Gb, a unit of digital information equal to 1 billion bits used to measure data transfer rates)  with gigabytes (

GB, a unit of digital information equal to 1 billion bytes or 8 billion bits, used to measure storage capacity or file sizes). To a novice, that could be confusing. To an alleged expert in that field, it's like your dentist confusing your upper right second molar with your left testicle and removing it by mistake. 

And has been pointed out, this is how Brennan treated defense expert witness The Crash Daddy, when he wasn't being precise enough with his language:

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As you can see from the above videos, Shanon With Two Ns got flustered early on and his body could not hide the stress it was under. His face turned redder than the taillight shards that spoke to Trooper Paul at the crime scene and stayed that way for the duration. And maybe this is just my mom's caring, empathetic voice in my head like I've been hearing my entire life, but I have to feel bad for the guy. 

Burgess was put in this position - where he has no business being - by a prosecution team that didn't vet him. At all. They have all the resources in the world. (I know; I just sent a massive check off to them on April 15th.) They have an entire nation of educated, competent, qualified people to do this work. And they went to Alabama to acquire the services of a guy not fit to work the phone kiosk at the mall. Without so much as checking his reviews on Angi. They hired a Dollar General "expert," and got what they paid for. And in doing so, scored the worst Own Goal since James Darden asked OJ to try on the gloves in front of the jury, only to find out too late his heart just wasn't in it.

This about sums it up:

What week this is going to be. And to think it's only Tuesday.