Defense lawyers urged to reexamine convictions led by fired Karen Read detective

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Read team asking court to toss 2 charges is a question of ‘responsibility,’ says criminal defense attorney

Criminal defense attorney Randy Zelin shares his perspective on the latest developments in Karen Read’s second trial on ‘Fox Report.’

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Michael Proctor’s firing from the Massachusetts State Police over his handling of the Karen Read investigation could be a wake-up call to defense attorneys around the state whose clients have been convicted based on his work.

Proctor, a 12-year veteran, lost his job after an investigation into his handling of the case kicked off following Read’s mistrial last year. During his testimony, a series of rude and lewd text messages he sent about Read were read in court, tanking his credibility in the eyes of at least some jurors. 

The internal review found he had improperly shared “sensitive or confidential information” about the homicide investigation on top of the “derogatory texts.”

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Michael Proctor (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger/IMAGN)

“Our state police are wonderful guys and would never want to have a John O’Keefe situation in their own family,” Grace Edwards, an Essex County-based trial attorney, told Fox News Digital. “But what Michael Proctor did is he destroyed the public trust, and there’s no way that people aren’t out there saying, what else did he do, and what else are other people doing?”

If Proctor showed similar misconduct in other cases, it could be grounds to reopen them, she said. 

KAREN READ APPEALS DOUBLE JEOPARDY RULING TO US SUPREME COURT

Karen Read (Patriot Pics/Backgrid for Fox News Digital)

“It caused me tremendous pause to say, should I be going back and looking at my cases with the state police?” she added. “I think that every attorney who had a case where Michael Proctor was the lead investigator should go back and take a look at it.”

The defense team for Brian Walshe, 50, is doing just that. He is charged with the murder of his 39-year-old wife, Ana, and Proctor was the lead investigator on his case, too.

Walshe’s lawyers have already demanded copies of all text messages Proctor sent about the case.

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Brian Walshe (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)

The Massachusetts State Police fired Proctor last month after a months-long internal investigation into lewd text messages about Read he sent while investigating O’Keefe’s death, texts that he conceded were unprofessional and that Read’s defense has seized on to illustrate alleged bias in the investigation.

Prosecutors in the Walshe case have downplayed Proctor’s involvement in their investigation as minimal and said they do not plan to call him to the stand, but the defense told the court he was present for numerous witness interviews and for evidence collection from the start of the case and onward.

Brian and Ana Walshe on their wedding day in 2015 (Obtained by Fox News Digital)

GO HERE FOR FULL COVERAGE OF THE 2ND KAREN READ TRIAL

Read faces murder and other charges in connection with the death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, who was her boyfriend at the time of his death. He was found dead on another officer’s front lawn the morning after a blizzard. Prosecutors allege she backed into him with her Lexus SUV and left him to die of trauma to the head and hypothermia.

Charges in a deadly hit-and-run case could bring as little as a two- to 10-year sentence under Massachusetts law, however, a conviction on the murder charge could mean life in prison.

Edwards said the heaviest charges may have been included as a scare tactic to try and persuade Read to take a plea deal.

John O’Keefe (Boston Police Department)

“Just the idea of a state prison sentence is very scary, and they get scared, and they plea, and they get something lesser,” she said. “You’ve got to have attorneys out there who are willing to go toe-to-toe with the prosecutor and say, fine, we’ll go to trial.”

Read chose the latter route, and that fight is what exposed Proctor’s texts.

She has pleaded not guilty, always maintained her innocence and has suggested that she is being framed.

Jury selection is currently underway in Read’s second trial. The first ended with a hung jury.

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Karen Read and John O’Keefe (Karen Read)

Edwards is predicting a number of surprises the second time around and that Read’s fate will hinge on how jurors respond to evidence the defense hopes will demonstrate an abundance of reasonable doubt in the case.

Special prosecutor Hank Brennan is a high-powered Massachusetts defense attorney who once represented mobster James “Whitey” Bulger in federal court. Read’s defense keeps adding new players, and her lawyers recently petitioned the Supreme Court to throw out two of the three charges against her.

Proctor declined to discuss the case himself, but family members told Fox News Digital last month that he had an “unblemished record” prior to the Read texts.

Michael Proctor (Kayla Bartkowski/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The review and a federal investigation into the fiasco both opened and closed without criminal charges against Proctor. 

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“The messages prove one thing, and that Michael is human, not corrupt, not incompetent in his role as a homicide detective, and certainly not unfit to continue to be a Massachusetts state yrooper,” his sister, Courtney Proctor, said at the time.

Fox News’ Andrew Fone contributed to this report.