Photo: Suzanne Sausville/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A motion to delay Karen Read’s second trial by a few weeks has been denied by Judge Beverly Cannone during a pre-trial hearing Thursday. Jury selection is still set to begin on April 1.
Read’s defense team made the request because they are currently waiting on a federal appeal to have two of the three charges against Read dropped. After her first trial was declared a mistrial, multiple jurors came forward to say that they had agreed Read was not guilty of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of personal injury and death. The defense argues that retrying Read on those charges would be double jeopardy.
Judge Cannone said, upon speaking with the jury commissioner, it would take 10 weeks minimum to summons the number of jurors needed if the trial were delayed.
“I’m not going to do that,” she said. “We’re going to start impaneling on April 1. It will likely take a while. If we get a jury before April 25 I’ll rehear you on your motion. We won’t swear the jury because obviously that’s when jeopardy attaches and we will take it from there.”
A number of other motions were heard by the court during Thursday’s pre-trial hearing, including whether the jury can be told that crash experts from ARCCA were hired by federal investigators. Defense Attorney David Yannetti argued that leaving out that detail would cause the jury to speculate. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan disagreed.
“Respectfully the Commonwealth does not look to hide the truth,” Brennan said. “The reality is, if the jury is going to hear information, they should hear the entire truth.”
At a previous hearing, Brennan accused Defense Attorney Alan Jackson of mispresenting the defense’s relationship with the ARCCA experts. The judge later admonished Jackson, but ruled he could stay on the case and that the ARCCA witnesses could testify in the second trial. But on Tuesday, she said the experts had to be questioned again before they testified.
Meanwhile, the prosecution has submitted their list of prospective witnesses. It includes many of the same witnesses from the first trial as well as a few additions. Notably, three of Read’s attorneys — Alan Jackson, David Yannetti, and Elizabeth — were also on the list.
In a footnote, the prosecution wrote that “it may be necessary to call defense counsels to authenticate the defendant’s numerous public statements.” Read is accused of striking her then-boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV and leaving him for dead in the snow back in 2022.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Brooke McCarthy (@BrookeWBZ) reports.