Wisconsin AG blasts conservative state Supreme Court candidate for being too slow to test rape kits

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Wisconsin AG blasts conservative state Supreme Court candidate for being too slow to test rape kits

2025-03-11 08:27 Last Updated At：08:30

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul waded into the state's Supreme Court race Monday, renewing an old feud with conservative candidate Brad Schimel over delays in testing sexual assault evidence kits almost a decade ago.

Kaul, a Democrat, ousted Schimel, then a Republican, from the attorney general post in the 2018 elections. Kaul hammered Schimel relentlessly during the campaign for taking more than two years to test about 4,000 kits sitting unanalyzed on police department and hospital shelves.

Schimel's opponent in the Supreme Court race, Susan Crawford, has attacked Schimel over his handling of the kits in ads. Kaul brought up the delays again Monday during an afternoon news conference organized by the state Democratic Party. He accused Schimel of not paying close attention to the testing project and prematurely declaring he had completed the work when his administration left hundreds of kits for Kaul's administration to test.

When asked what the testing delays have to do with being a state Supreme Court justice, Kaul said justices must be straightforward and Schimel isn't candid about what went on with the kits.

Schimel defended himself in the days before the 2018 election by saying the state Justice Department needed time to inventory the kits and struggled to find private labs to test them because labs were overwhelmed with untested kits from other states. Jacob Fisher, Schimel's Supreme Court campaign spokesperson, said in a statement Monday that Schimel voluntarily took the initiative to lead a first-of-its-kind effort to test the kits. He accused Kaul of playing politics and rewriting history.

Schimel and Crawford are vying for an open seat on the Supreme Court in an April 1 election. The race is officially nonpartisan, but Schimel was a Republican attorney general and has GOP backing while Democrats are rallying behind Crawford.

The race has enormous implications in swing state Wisconsin, with majority control of the state’s highest court on the line as it is expected to face issues that will affect abortion and reproductive rights, the strength of public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

Crawford and her allies are increasingly trying to nationalize the contest against Schimel by focusing on Elon Musk, a top adviser to President Donald Trump. America PAC, a group created by Musk, has spent $3.2 million on digital ads, mailers and canvassing to support Schimel in the Supreme Court race. Another Musk-funded group, Building America’s Future, has spent more than $2 million on TV ads attacking Crawford.

In 2014, the state Justice Department learned of some 6,800 sexual assault evidence kits that had not been tested. They went unanalyzed for various reasons. Prosecutors may have decided cases were too weak to pursue or been forced to drop cases because victims wouldn’t cooperate, according to Schimel's administration.

The problem wasn't unique to Wisconsin. A USA Today Network investigation in 2015 found at least 70,000 untested kits nationwide, leading to calls from victim advocacy groups to analyze them all in hopes of getting DNA hits that would identify serial offenders.

Schimel took over as attorney general in 2015. He secured a $4 million federal grant in September of that year to start testing Wisconsin's kits, but the work didn't begin until January 2017. He announced in September 2018, two months before the election, that his administration had finished testing 4,150 kits and declared the project finished. He chose not to test the rest because victims in those cases wouldn't consent to analysis or prosecutors had already won a conviction in those cases, according to Schimel's administration at the time.

Kaul announced in November 2019 that his administration finished the work after discovering Schimel had left about 300 kits untested.

The Latest: Retrial of Karen Read begins in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend

2025-04-22 23:45 Last Updated At：23:51

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — The second murder trial of Karen Read, whose case has sparked a national debate on police accountability and won her legions of devoted fans, began Tuesday with opening statements addressing theories about how her Boston police officer boyfriend ended up dead.

Read is accused of striking John O’Keefe with her SUV in 2022 and leaving him to die alone in the snow outside of a house party in the town of Canton, a suburb about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Boston. She has been charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene.

During the first trial last year, prosecutors said Read intentionally backed into O’Keefe after she dropped him off at a house party and returned hours later to find him dead. The defense said she was a victim of a vast police conspiracy and that O’Keefe was fatally beaten by another law enforcement officer at the party.

A mistrial was declared last year after jurors said they were at an impasse and deliberating further would be futile. A new prosecutor, Hank Brennan, is heading the state's case for the retrial. Attorney Alan Jackson presented the defense's opening statement.

Here’s the Latest:

As he did during the first trial, Jackson said Read’s taillight was damaged that morning as she clipped another vehicle at O’Keefe’s house, where she was staying, not from hitting O’Keefe after she dropped him off at the party.

He said the defense will introduce a video to show how the taillight was damaged.

“During the course of this trial, the commonwealth is going to desperately claim that Karen Read taillight was actually damaged by hitting John O’Keefe,” he told jurors. “They’ll have no evidence of it mind you. None. But they’ll make the claim.”

Jackson called the case “the very definition of reasonable doubt” and said prosecutors can not meet their burden of proof “when every piece of this case was handled by a disgraced investigator with a motive to protect his friends”

“By the end of this trial, you’ll conclude that Karen Read is not guilty of hitting John O’Keefe with her SUV. There was no collision,” he said. “She’s the victim of a botched and biased and corrupted investigation that was never about the truth, folks. It was about preserving loyalty.”

Jackson said O’Keefe’s injuries do not suggest he was hit by a car at all.

“Not a bruise,” the defense lawyer said.

Jackson told the jury that they will learn O’Keefe had abrasions consistent with being bitten by a dog. He said the injury to O’Keefe’s head was also not consistent with falling backwards onto the ground, as prosecutors alleged.

Jackson said medical evidence will also establish that hypothermia was not a factor, as prosecutors alleged. He said O’Keefe was injured somewhere warm and then moved, and that establishes reasonable doubt.

Jackson described the state’s case as hinging on fired state trooper Michael Proctor, whom he described as a “cancer.”

Proctor was the lead investigator in the Read case. Jackson said Proctor is the key to the state’s case and is also its “Achilles heel.”

Jackson listed a litany of failures in the investigation, including that investigators didn’t search the house, secure the crime scene or properly collect evidence. He then touched on sexist and crude texts about Read’s family and colleagues that surfaced during the first trial and eventually led to Proctor’s firing.

Jackson characterized Read as victimized by a police culture that sought go protect fellow cops.

Read’s defense team used its opening statement to describe her as a victim of a cover-up and to stress that she didn’t kill O’Keefe.

“At the end of the day folks, there was no collision with John O’Keefe,” Jackson said.

The defense attorney said the case will show that O’Keefe wasn’t hit by Read’s car. He acknowledged that O’Keefe’s death was a “tragic loss,” but said the investigation was corrupted by bias and deceit.

“The evidence in this case will establish ... above everything else three points — there was no collision with Jon O’Keefe. There was no collision. There was no collision,” Jackson said. “John O’Keefe did not die from being hit by a vehicle. The facts will show that. The evidence will show that. The data will show that. The science will show that and the experts will tell you that.”

Read and O’Keefe were headed to the end of their relationship before O’Keefe died, Brennan said.

He described how the couple’s relationship was faltering before O’Keefe died. They were arguments a few days before O’Keefe was killed and that O’Keefe had asked Read to leave, he said.

Brennan said text messages will be presented showing the tension between the couple and how Read would become irate when her calls weren’t returned.

“You will read those text messages and you will realize this was the beginning of the end of this relationship,” he told the jurors.

Brennan told the jury that O’Keefe was a “family man” who was a pillar of his community and was much more than just a police officer.

O’Keefe was a single parent of two children whom he adopted when his sister and her husband died within months of each other, Brennan said. Brennan said he cared for the children as if they were his own and provided them stability and love.

O’Keefe’s tumultuous relationship with Read changed all that, Brennan said.

“They led a good life,” Brennan said. “Enter Karen Read.”

Brennan began opening statements by describing the scene where O’Keefe was found dead.

He opened by describing how firefighters and paramedics got a call about a cardiac arrest. They jumped into the ambulance and headed out in near blizzard conditions. Their ambulance was sliding along the road and they couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of the siren.

Arriving at 34 Fairview Road, they came upon a chaotic scene.

“He stepped out into bedlam,” Brennan said. “He heard a woman screaming.”

They came upon Karen Read, who he said told paramedics, “I hit him, I hit him.”

“It was at that time in the words of the defendant that she admitted what she had done that night, that she hit John O’Keefe,” Brennan said.

The judge addressed the heavy public interest in the trial before opening statements began.

Judge Beverly Cannone told the jury to ignore public comment about the trial while it is going on. She also told jurors it’s important not to conduct independent research or look at news coverage of the trial.

“You will decide what the facts are, where the evidence is contested, you will determine where the truth lies,” she said. “This trial will be decided by you, an independent jury.”

Cannone also told the jury not to use social media during the trial.

The jurors have entered the courtroom and received their instructions for the trial.

After giving them the instructions, the judge asked if they had refrained from discussing the case or doing any independent research about it.

The court also heard the charges against Read.

Judge Beverly Cannone said she received four motions over the weekend that need to be addressed.

She ruled that the defense can’t mention a consulting firm in their openings, which led the defense to request to be heard. They then entered into a sidebar with the defense arguing the firm should be mentioned.

The courtroom is packed, with little room for anyone other than essential court personnel and media.

The trial seats about 10 people on both sides. Read’s family is on one side and the O’Keefe’s are on the other – about 10 on each side.

Read could be seen chatting and smiling with her attorneys Alan Jackson and David Yannetti. Reporters are behind them, sitting on stools.

Barriers are set up on both sides of the street in front of the building. Several state troopers and police officers are also positioned around the courthouse.

Police ordered a truck driver who slowed down to yell “Free Karen Read” to move along, and also chased off someone who was shooting video with their phone.

Read arrived at court just before 8:50 a.m. to some cheers from assembled supporters.

Family members from both sides also arrived just before 9 a.m.

Read smiled briefly as she entered the court. She did not answer a question about whether she was ready for her second trial.

The court had a police presence to try to maintain order as supporters gathered outside.

Supporters of Karen Read have assembled outside court in advance of her new trial.

The scene among supporters is similar to a reunion, with people hugging one another and calling out their names.

Ashlyn Wade, a Read supporter from Canton, where John O’Keefe was killed, said she was there to hopefully see Read cleared of charges.

“I’m here for justice,” she said. “The murderer going to jail and Karen being Exonerated — that would be justice.”

Dennis Sweeney, dressed as the judge in the case and wearing a pink T-shirt emblazoned with the word “assassin.” which was inspired by Read’s defense team, said he returned for the second trial because: “Karen Read is factually innocent and we want her freed.”