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Karen Read case: Judge denies request to delay retrial
Jury selection in Read’s retrial will begin April 1 after Judge Beverly Cannone declined to delay despite a pending federal appeal.
The judge overseeing Karen Read’s case has denied a defense request to push jury selection for her retrial back to the end of April.
“I’m not going to grant the motion, all right?” Judge Beverly Cannone said during a hearing Thursday. “We have jurors coming in that were summonsed months ago.”
Defense attorney Alan Jackson had asked Cannone to delay the start of Read’s murder trial as lawyers wait for a federal appeals court to weigh in on her case. The upcoming trial is Read’s second; her first trial ended with a hung jury last July.
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The defense has gone to the United States Court of Appeals in a bid to get two of Read’s charges dropped, arguing the jury in her first trial internally — and unofficially — agreed to acquit her of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. A U.S. District Court judge and the state’s Supreme Judicial Court both denied Read’s earlier petitions.
More on Karen Read:
If the appeals court takes action, Jackson argued, “then that puts the entire case in jeopardy.”
Cannone pointed out Read’s appeal concerns only two of her three counts; a charge of manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence remains.
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“But it starts with murder,” Jackson fired back. “The sun rises and falls on a murder charge. … That’s a very different jury and a very different trial strategy than simply count 2 [OUI manslaughter], if we were to be defending count 2 or its subordinate charges.”
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan did not contest the defense motion, though he expressed concern about delays. Cannone said she conferred with the state’s jury commissioner and learned it would take a minimum of 10 weeks to arrange for the number of prospective jurors needed in Read’s case.
Jury impanelment will begin April 1 as planned, she said.
She said she’ll rehear the defense motion if a jury is selected before April 25 and the federal appeal is still pending. The court won’t swear the jury in, she said, because that’s when jeopardy comes into play.
Read, 45, is accused of drunkenly ramming her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV while dropping him off at a fellow Boston officer’s home in Canton following a night of drinking in January 2022. Her lawyers contend she was framed in a law enforcement conspiracy, floating an alternate theory that O’Keefe was attacked after entering 34 Fairview Road for an afterparty.
A Turtleboy detour
Earlier Thursday, the lawyers sparred over prosecutors’ request for communications between Read and Turtleboy blogger Aidan Kearney, who stands accused of intimidating witnesses in Read’s case. Brennan requested data from two phones seized from Kearney as part of his pending cases and accused Read of passing sensitive information along to the blogger, who purportedly used it to intimidate witnesses.
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While Brennan said the information he’s seeking is relevant to Read’s “consciousness of guilt,” Kearney’s lawyer, Tim Bradl, called the request “the ultimate fishing expedition.”
“Here we are at the 11th hour, and the commonwealth is throwing, you know, last-minute bombs out,” Bradl said, later adding, “We’re not concerned about what’s in Mr. Kearney’s phones. We’re concerned about their bizarre interpretation of the witness intimidation statute that they will try to put onto, graft onto any communications … in my client’s phones, your honor.”
Elizabeth Little, one of Read’s attorneys, joined in the opposition and noted a grand jury already rejected prosecutors’ claims that Read engaged in witness intimidation with Kearney. Judge Adam Sisitsky took the matter under advisement.
Highlights from Thursday’s hearing
The lawyers took up a laundry list of motions as Thursday’s regularly scheduled hearing got underway, including prosecutors’ request to reestablish the 200-foot buffer zone Cannone set around Norfolk Superior Court during Read’s last trial. Cannone took the motion under advisement.
The judge also called for voir dire questioning of two crash reconstructionists from ARCCA Inc., an engineering consulting firm initially hired by federal authorities to look into the case. Cannone earlier denied prosecutors’ request to keep the ARCCA witnesses off the stand, though she said Thursday the experts will face preliminary questioning before they testify if the defense is unable to comply with its Rule 14 discovery obligations.
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Cannone heard arguments on a defense request to exclude testimony from prosecutors’ accident reconstruction and biomechanics expert, Judson Welcher. In a prior court filing, prosecutors said Welcher concluded cuts on O’Keefe’s right arm were “consistent with the geometry and orientation of the right taillight” on Read’s SUV.
Tempers flared as the lawyers argued prosecutors’ motion to admit O’Keefe’s past statements about his relationship struggles with Read.
Jackson argued the statements amount to an “assassination of her character” — even if O’Keefe did intend to break up with Read, there’s no indication he ever told her so, he said. Jackson also asserted there’s no evidence Read would resort to murder if she suspected O’Keefe wanted to dump her.
Brennan pointed to testimony from witness Jennifer McCabe suggesting that as Read drove O’Keefe over to 34 Fairview Road on Jan. 29, 2022, she was fixated on her boyfriend’s prior relationship with a woman who lived nearby.
“If anything Mr. Brennan just said was true, he might have an argument,” Jackson shot back. “My goodness. It’s important to get some of the facts right. You’ve got to get some of them right.”
He suggested McCabe’s testimony concerned a conversation from later on Jan. 29, after she and Read set out to look for O’Keefe. Brennan disagreed.
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“Before accusing somebody of getting it wrong, the person accusing should be right,” Brennan parried.
Cannone urged the lawyers to refrain from personal attacks.
“Leave all the attacks, all the falsehoods, all of that, leave it all aside,” she said. “Let’s focus on the motions and get through this.”
Later in the hearing, prosecutors asked Cannone to keep the defense from calling expert Michael Easter, a retired FBI agent expected to testify about the adequacy of the investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
“This is just Monday morning quarterbacking, and it’s an attempt to bolster arguments by counsel so that they can use some type of opinion to lean on when they’re arguing to the jury they should have doubt because of the police investigation,” Brennan argued.
Jackson retorted, “There’s another word for that, or another phrase for that. It’s called presenting a defense for someone charged with murder.”
Cannone asked the defense to produce relevant legal precedent.
Defense names alleged ‘third-party culprits’
Prosecutors sought to head off Read’s third-party culprit defense blaming someone else for O’Keefe’s death. During last year’s trial, Cannone allowed Read’s lawyers to introduce evidence that others were responsible, though she barred them from using the material during opening statements.
“There is no substantive evidence that John O’Keefe ever entered that home,” Brennan argued in his motion to block the defense tactic this time around.
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He said allowing Read’s lawyers to present evidence concerning witnesses’ prior bad acts or character turns cross examination into a “mini trial.”
“Do they have a witness? Do they have evidence? Do they have any records?” Brennan demanded. “Simply assailing people’s character randomly is improper. It’s unfair, and then it causes the commonwealth to have to spend extraordinary time rebutting, which is going to confuse this jury.”
Defense attorney David Yannetti named witnesses Brian Albert, Brian Higgins, and Colin Albert as potential third-party culprits, just as he did ahead of Read’s first trial.
“I have evidence with regard to each,” Yannetti asserted.
Following a lengthy sidebar, Cannone said the defense must decide what supporting documentation to provide so she can rule on the motion.
Read will return to court at 11 a.m. Tuesday to tie up loose ends ahead of her retrial.
Livestream via NBC10 Boston.
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