The civil lawsuit in opposition to Karen Learn must wait till the tip of her legal trial, a Plymouth Superior Court docket choose dominated.
“[B]ecause this case is in its earliest stages and the criminal case is scheduled to go to retrial in three months, the court will not be inconvenienced by a brief stay, and any scheduling conflict with witnesses that might arise would presumably be resolved in favor of the criminal prosecution,” Justice William M. White Jr. wrote in his order that gave Learn what she requested for and partially fulfilled the requests of two Canton bars additionally focused within the civil lawsuit.
Learn case background
Learn, 44, of Mansfield, was charged in Norfolk Superior Court docket on June 9, 2022, with second-degree homicide (Rely 1), motorcar manslaughter (Rely 2), and leaving the scene of a collision inflicting dying (Rely 3). She is accused of mowing down her boyfriend of two years, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, together with her SUV and leaving him to freeze and die on a Canton entrance garden within the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
A trial in that very same court docket ended on July 1 with a hung jury and a brand new trial is scheduled to start on Jan. 27.
The case has not been quiet because the trial ended. Learn’s attorneys shortly after the trial ended stated that jurors got here ahead to say that they have been unanimously able to acquit Learn on Counts 1 and three and have been solely held on Rely 2 however didn’t know find out how to point out a partial verdict. This info, Learn’s workforce argues, means she ought to solely be retried on the manslaughter cost in January.
Norfolk Superior Court docket Decide Beverly J. Cannone disagreed and denied their movement, so Learn’s workforce took it to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket. Norfolk prosecutors are combating again there and a decision is pending.
Amid all that, the O’Keefe household filed a wrongful dying civil lawsuit in opposition to Learn in addition to two bars they argue over served her the night earlier than she allegedly killed John O’Keefe. The lawsuit was filed in Plymouth Superior Court docket on Aug. 26, with John O’Keefe’s solely surviving sibling, brother Paul O’Keefe, serving because the plaintiff consultant.
The choice
Justice White in his nine-page Thursday order stated that his job was to “balance the competing interests” of timeliness, the “fair adjudication of a civil wrong,” the potential prejudicial collateral of a keep, “and the potential harm to the defendant from being compelled to choose between defending herself in the civil action and protecting herself from criminal prosecution.”
The O’Keefe household has argued that delaying their civil case would result in “degradation of evidence.
“Specifically, they argue that restaurant employees and third-party witnesses may experience fading memories or become uncooperative over time,” White wrote. “Given the extensive investigation into O’Keefe’s death and the completed first prosecution, the risk that evidence will be unpreserved and witness memories fade does not appear to be substantial.”
White famous that “There is no constitutional requirement that civil proceeding must yield to a criminal one” earlier than in the end deciding {that a} comparatively transient keep — which he anticipated at six months — would trigger little hurt to the plaintiffs in opposition to the nice potential hurt in opposition to Learn ought to she should battle each court docket battles on the similar time.
“Participation in the civil case poses the danger to the defendant of an increased likelihood of conviction at the criminal trial by self-incrimination through exposure to cross-examination,” White wrote. “Despite the strategic dilemma posed by parallel proceedings, the refusal to stay a civil case pending the outcome of a criminal prosecution does not violate due process, even where the defendant’s refusal to testify in the civil case creates an adverse inference against her.”
As for the 2 Canton bars the place Learn, John O’Keefe and a slew of different witnesses within the case partied collectively simply forward of O’Keefe’s dying, White stated that their request for a keep can be in impact “to the extent that the scheduled deposition of defendant Karen Read and other discovery from defendant Karen Read are STAYED pending the” legal case retrial.
This can be a creating story.
Nancy Lane/Boston Herald
Jennifer McCabe, within the black shirt, and Paul O’Keefe, at far proper, pay attention throughout closing arguments within the Karen Learn homicide trial at Norfolk Superior Court docket in June. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)
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