Attorneys for Karen Read adopted up a comparatively subdued motions listening to with filings demanding their shopper’s indictment be dismissed and that the Norfolk District Attorney be disqualified and sanctioned.
The motions additionally point out, as has been beforehand reported however not substantiated, that the Norfolk DA’s workplace was below federal investigation for its dealing with of the Read case.
The first movement filed late Friday afternoon and signed by legal professional David Yannetti asks that Judge Beverly Cannone of Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham “sanction the prosecution for constitutional due course of violations, and for violations of moral necessities imposed by the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, and for egregious misrepresentations to the tribunal and opposing counsel.
“Additionally, the defendant moves to disqualify the Norfolk County District Attorney because of his clear interest, other than pursuit of justice, in the outcome of this prosecution,” the movement continues.
Read is a Mansfield girl indicted for the homicide of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe — her boyfriend of two years on the time — in late January 2022.
A courtroom clerk instructed the Herald {that a} second protection movement was impounded and couldn’t be launched.
The movement additionally states that on Dec. 4, prosecutors supplied the protection for the primary time letters between the Norfolk DA’s workplace and the U.S. Attorney’s workplace in Boston despatched between May and November “regarding the existence of a federal investigation of the Karen Read investigation/prosecution.”
The Herald reached out to the Norfolk DA’s workplace for response and was instructed by a spokesman that “The office is reviewing the defense filings but has no comment at this time.”
Included among the many letters is one dated May 18, 2023, from Norfolk DA Michael Morrissey to the Office of Professional Responsibility on the U.S. Department of Justice requesting “that an ongoing investigation being conducted be transferred to another office without history of conflict, bias, and abuse of prosecutorial discretion.”
The letter allegedly additionally states that a number of witnesses within the Read case had “received subpoenas to appear before a Federal Grand Jury.”
The U.S. Attorney’s workplace declined a Herald request for remark.
The movement additionally calls for that Morrissey be sanctioned for posting a video assertion final August that calls the protection theories “conspiracy theories,” and, Yannetti summarizes, “personally vouched for numerous, named Commonwealth witnesses, explicitly stating … (they) did not commit … any crime that night’ … that they ‘have not engaged in any cover up,’” and extra.
Yannetti says that such a press release goes towards the DA’s legally required duties together with one which the DA “refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused.”
Yannetti argues {that a} dismissal of the indictments towards Read “is the appropriate sanction,” arguing that “the defendant’s opportunity to obtain a fair trial has been irremediably harmed by District Attorney Morrissey’s extensive vouching for Commonwealth witnesses and his denigration of defense theories in advance of the test of trial.”
On Friday, the final day evidentiary motions might be filed within the case, Judge Cannone heard two motions arguments: one on the sharing of DNA swabs of MSP troopers assigned to research the case so the protection might use them in their very own investigation and one other on whether or not the protection might compel copies of communications between Jennifer McCabe — who the protection has fingered together with others as being culpable in O’Keefe’s demise — and an investigating trooper and his spouse.
A 3rd movement on a proposed protecting order of the Norfolk District Attorney’s workplace communications with federal authorities was not argued as a result of Cannone stated that the protection had served solely the DA’s workplace with papers and never the U.S. Attorney’s workplace “and they have a right to be heard.” A digital listening to on that matter was scheduled for Jan. 23 at 3 p.m.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”