The choose within the Karen Learn homicide case says she’ll determine with out a listening to whether or not the protection will keep its digital forensics knowledgeable who has testified the controversial “hos long to die in cold” search occurred hours earlier than John O’Keefe’s dying physique was discovered within the snow.
Decide Beverly Cannone made the ruling after a motion-packed listening to Friday at Norfolk Superior Courtroom, laying out the schedule forward of Learn’s second trial set to start April 1, if the case makes it that far.
Learn’s protection workforce has stated it’s doubtless it is going to file a movement to dismiss the case, with a listening to on that anticipated motion scheduled for Feb. 18.
Particular Prosecutor Hank Brennan on Friday requested a listening to to find out whether or not the protection can be allowed to have laptop forensics knowledgeable Richard Inexperienced testify once more within the retrial, accusing the pc forensics technician of “baseless” claims that “lack any evidentiary support.”
Inexperienced testified within the first trial final June that key witness Jennifer McCabe made the suspicious Google search “hos long to die in the cold” hours earlier than O’Keefe’s physique was discovered, which the protection says factors towards conspiracy.
Inexperienced’s testimony that McCabe’s search at 2:27 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, differs from that of the state’s specialists, Jessica Hyde and Ian Whiffin, who’ve stated the search was made at 6:24 a.m.
McCabe testified that she made the search at the moment, saying she did so on the behest of Learn as the ladies have been close to O’Keefe’s physique within the snow, on the entrance garden of 34 Fairview Street, in Canton.
“I did not delete that search,” McCabe stated final Might. “I did not make that search at 2:27 a.m. I would not have left John O’Keefe outside to die in the cold because he is my friend, who I love.”
Brennan accused Inexperienced of being a “vessel for the defense,” pointing to how first responders testified final spring that Learn was asking them questions on hypothermia across the time McCabe stated she made the search.
Brennan additionally slammed Inexperienced’s affidavit which the prosecutor stated was crammed with “advocacy, insinuations, chemise, conjecture and claims that have no factual basis.
“In ways, it’s a very dangerous affidavit to simply make an assault of comments that a user did something,” the prosecutor stated, “purposely deleted her important phrase ‘how long to die in the cold’ without any forensic data evaluation or validation.”
Learn, 44, is charged with second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorcar below the affect, and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. Her first trial ended with a hung jury final July.
Prosecutors say Learn struck O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer, and her boyfriend of two years, together with her SUV following a drunken argument and left him to die in a snowstorm throughout that late January morning, in Canton.
O’Keefe died on the age of 46.
Learn’s protection workforce counters that outdoors actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and native police to border Learn for his homicide, pointing to McCabe’s search as key proof.
Protection legal professional Robert Alessi shot again at Brennan’s claims, arguing Inexperienced is greater than certified to testify once more and used correct methodology. He identified one other key discovering that Inexperienced has made on the search.
“There were 4,056 searches on the phone of Ms. McCabe,” Alessi stated. “There was one deletion out of 4,056. Guess which one it was? ‘Hos long to die in the cold.’ There are no odds that that can happen randomly.”
The protection legal professional then pointed to how Inexperienced prompt that would imply there was both a user-interaction deletion or “post-imaging manipulation of the data.”
“He doesn’t accuse individuals,” Alessi stated of Inexperienced. “That’s the job of a digital forensic person, to point that out and say that that raises concerns. The fact that there’s only one deletion of a search out of 4,056, I think it’s malpractice if a digital forensic examiner doesn’t point that out.”
