Since my own jury experience, more than 10 years ago now, I’ve found myself drawn to the high-profile trials that increasingly litter my newsfeed. In 2021 I was riveted to the Derek Chauvin trial, watching from gavel to gavel when I was supposed to be “working from home” (to be honest, it was a slow period at the office). I dabbled in the Alex Murdaugh trial, as well as Gwyneth Paltrow’s lawsuit (that one could have been mistaken for a sitcom), and even—ever so briefly—the train wreck of Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard.

Most recently, my obsession drifted toward Karen Read, whom I’d first heard about in an Atlantic article about Turtleboy, her most ardent and somewhat ridiculous fan. I watched the one-sided Max documentary, and wondered if it was a PR stunt for the retrial or a pilot for Read’s second career as yet another narcissistic reality-TV star. Once the new trial was under way, I grabbed pieces of it off youtube, having little patience for the daily grind. What I saw threw me back to my initial jury experience, which had set the stage for the fictional trial in my novel Exit Wounds.

My first thought, in the aftermath of Read’s acquittal, was that yet again, a jury had had a hard time trusting circumstantial evidence. If no witness saw the crime with their own eyes—or documented it on social media—many juries seem to struggle against even a mountain of evidence.

My second thought was, This all sounds too familiar. Watching scenes from the trial, I was reminded of other criminal cases that got caught up in conspiracy theories:

• Russia, Russia, Russia: Read’s defense attorney, Alan Jackson, began his closing argument with a simple phrase (repeated): “No collision. No collision. No collision.” Change one vowel and we’re back in the Mueller investigation. I don’t know about you, but if I were on trial in bright blue Massachusetts, the last thing I’d want to do is associate myself with Donald Trump.
• If the glove don’t fit: Despite a mound of evidence and the defendant’s own words, her defense relied on seeding doubt by casting blame elsewhere. Apparently they thought it was easier to believe that evidence was planted by Canton’s version of Mark Fuhrman. And they tied it all up with a bow by having a victorious Read state on the courthouse steps, “No one has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe than I have.” If O.J. were still alive, he might join with her to find “the real killers.”

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but my gut rebels against conspiracy theories; as a rule, they don’t pass the logic test.

First of all, the idea of all that digital evidence—notably, the black box in Read’s car and the health app on O’Keefe’s phone—lining up by chance is a bit of a stretch. My favorite piece of evidence, though, is one statement Read made in a Dateline interview: “He didn’t look mortally wounded as far as I could see.” (Excuse me, what?)

Second, I wonder how many people would have to be involved in order for Jackson’s theory to be true. The more conspirators there are, the more fragile the bond. I wasn’t on the Read jury. I didn’t see or hear all the evidence, so I’m not arguing that Read was guilty. In fact, as I listened to Jackson’s closing, I found myself struck by many points (pardon the pun). It wasn’t that I believed the conspiracy per se, but he did plant enough doubt in my mind that I imagine, as a juror, I would have had to think long and hard about conviction. From my distant perspective, I think the most likely answer is that Read backed her car up in a huff, accidentally hit him, and had no idea that she had. That’s not exactly “not guilty” of manslaughter, but it skates the line.

All that said, I’m not ready to reject the verdict. But it still makes me a bit queasy.

I have to wonder what this verdict, like the 1995 O.J. abomination, suggests in a broader sense about celebrity, confirmation bias, and the human struggle between reason and emotion. It seems obvious now that the O.J. jury wanted to believe he’d been framed. The race card worked. In Read’s case, the defense took the strategy even further: not only did the police plant evidence; they actually committed the murder.

Studies have shown that, despite conventional thinking, circumstantial evidence is more reliable than direct (i.e., eyewitness) evidence. People don’t see everything clearly. People don’t remember very well. Data, on the other hand, doesn’t change its mind. It can be interpreted differently, but the data, for lack of a better word, is the data.

One of my co-jurors in that long-ago case was obsessed with the concept of reasonable doubt. The only problem was that he had no idea what it meant. He would bark the phrase out like a mantra to support his obstinance, but his arguments proved time and again that he was confusing it with “shadow of a doubt.” The rest of us were unable to disabuse him of this notion. And, like Auntie Mame the morning after a raucous party, the jury was hung.

We live in a time of conspiracy theories and willful ignorance. Democratic pedophiles in a pizza parlor. Microchips in vaccines programmed to cause autism. A stolen election. A love-in at the Capitol that just happened to include a noose for the vice president. A crowd of 700 protesters in the nation’s second largest city who need the Marines to keep them in check.

I spoke with a family member recently who tried to convince me that Nancy Pelosi orchestrated January 6 to make Trump “look bad.” When I pressed him, he fell back on the idea that “we don’t know everything,” essentially arguing that objective reality is a myth. Maybe Pelosi spearheaded the whole thing. Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene is a genius. Maybe there’s a leprechaun on the dark side of the moon. Nobody knows for sure.

And the mountain of evidence to the contrary? Maybe that’s just a buffalo on the prairie.