The trial date for the Karen Read homicide case has been pushed again roughly 5 weeks to April 16, regardless of the decide’s earlier aversion to shifting the date.
The authentic trial date was scheduled for March 12, and each the protection and the prosecution pushed for extensions on the final listening to.
Their pleas for extra time had been heard on the 2 p.m. listening to Monday at Norfolk Superior Court, with Judge Beverly J. Cannone shifting the earlier date of March 12 again some 5 weeks to April 16 in addition to setting deadlines for the flurry of motions exercise the protection guarantees and the prosecution should reply to.
Defense lawyer Alan Jackson mentioned his crew had simply throughout the final 48 enterprise hours acquired an amazing lode of latest proof discovery, almost 3,100 pages, that takes greater than a gigabyte of house and there’s no doable manner his crew might course of the supplies by the prior deadlines. He mentioned that upon preliminary evaluate, the brand new discovery that the Commonwealth forked over seems all-new and “largely exculpatory.”
“An April 16 trial is not realistic,” Jackson mentioned.
Prosecutor Laura McClaughlin agreed that it was a whole lot of materials and that further time was warranted, however denied Jackson’s characterization of the fabric. She mentioned that what prosecutors handed over was at the least 90% in step with earlier discovery releases, leaving only a tenth or much less as all-new.
Jackson mentioned that the protection could be submitting new motions and supplemental supplies arguing for a dismissal of the indictments towards Read and sanctions towards Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey. He additionally alluded to the potential for extra info being launched from the U.S. Attorney’s workplace, the place unsealed letters recommend the feds are investigating the case.
Read is charged with the homicide — in addition to associated however lesser costs — of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years who each prosecutors and protection say largely co-habitated, within the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022. The loss of life adopted an evening out in town with a number of others who met and drank at two Canton bars earlier than agreeing to attend an after-party on the then-home of fellow Boston Police Officer Brian Albert in Canton.
Prosecutors say Read struck O’Keefe along with her Lexus SUV, leaving him to die within the chilly because the climate grew to become blizzard-like, exterior the Albert residence at 34 Fairview Road.
The protection has launched a third-party culpability principle, arguing that they’ve proof that O’Keefe had entered the house and was killed by others inside.
The often-contentious case is adopted by ardent Read supporters and their chief, the blogger Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney, 42, of Holden, who has lined the case to the near-exclusion of different matters since final 12 months and aggressively promotes the protection principle. Kearney, who’s in his personal authorized scorching water as prosecutors say he has gone above his rights to journal the case and has each instantly and inspired his followers to harass state witnesses and legislation enforcement investigators within the case. He is indicted on costs together with witness intimidation.
The “Free Karen Read” crowd assembled hours earlier than the two p.m. listening to Monday in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, filling the sidewalk on both facet of the road in entrance of the courthouse. Many who drove by would honk in help of their “Free Karen Read” indicators, which might elicit loud hollers of help that might be heard deep contained in the courthouse. The higher ground of the court docket was a mass of loud onlookers gaming for a seat within the court docket gallery.
When defendant Read entered the courtroom along with her attorneys and household two minutes earlier than 2 p.m., lots of these seated within the gallery whooped and applauded. This was the final scheduled listening to date earlier than the beforehand scheduled trial date and whereas each listening to is extraordinarily nicely attended, the crowds Monday had been unusually huge.
The listening to lasted some 20 minutes, however might have been for much longer if the edges had been able to argue some hefty motions on the desk.
Not least was the protection’s movement for sanctions towards Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey, primarily for his recorded assertion throwing water on the protection’s third-party culpability principle and different arguments.
That movement, filed final month, cited that assertion together with its “delayed disclosure of its knowledge of the existence of a federal investigation of the Karen Read prosecution, and deliberate misrepresentation of its knowledge” of it” deserves a whole dismissal of the indictments towards Read.
“Dismissal of the indictments, while a severe sanction, is the only sanction that can remedy the deliberate and egregious violations,” Read protection lawyer David Yannetti wrote within the submitting.
Yannetti provides later that Morrissey “has a clear interest in the outcome of this trial … his office must be disqualified from prosecution in this matter.”
Prosecutors filed a 49-page response final week.
The submitting included a prolonged abstract of the prosecution’s principle of timeline of occasions, with specific emphasis on technical evaluation of the passenger-side rear space of the Lexus. It states that the taillight on that facet was shattered and was lacking items of its plastic housing. The automobile physique across the taillight was scratched, the paint was chipped and there was a dent within the trunk door. Of additional word was a hair which prosecutors allege was present in a rear quarter panel and “pieces of an apparent cocktail style glass” according to the one O’Keefe was recognized to be consuming from at a bar previous to the incident, “was also noted on the bumper.”
Prosecutors say that plastic items that match the Lexus’ taillight housing had been present in the identical space as O’Keefe’s physique on the entrance garden.
An evaluation of Read’s blood at round 9 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, many hours after the night time out at bars, was between 0.07% and 0.08% ethanol. A forensic toxicologist mentioned that might have made her blood alcohol content material to have been between 0.13% and 0.29% at round 12:45 a.m., the tough time of the alleged homicide.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”