Karen Learn’s newest effort to have her homicide case tossed, this one for alleged “extraordinary governmental misconduct,” was denied.
Norfolk Superior Courtroom Decide Beverly J. Cannone referred to as the protection staff’s request for a dismissal “a drastic sanction justified only in response to the most egregious and truly harmful conduct.”
“In all but the worst cases, the appropriate remedy is at best, a new trial, such as the one that is scheduled to begin soon,” Cannone wrote in her 27-page resolution issued Tuesday afternoon. “Because the claimed violations here do not rise to a level that would justify the most draconian sanction of dismissal, and because the defendant’s constitutional rights can be fully protected in the coming trial, her motion to dismiss is DENIED.”
Learn, 45, of Mansfield is charged with second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle underneath the affect, and leaving the scene of an accident inflicting demise. She’s accused of killing Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of about two years on the time, on Jan. 29, 2022. She was tried final 12 months, however that resulted in mistrial. A second trial is scheduled to start April 1.
Learn’s staff filed its movement to dismiss in late February after hinting at it in a separate movement a month prior.
It was a part of a dual-pronged effort to quash the fees towards Learn that noticed the protection staff bouncing on sooner or later in early March between the federal courthouse in Boston’s Seaport to the Superior Courtroom in Dedham to argue to judges at each that the case ought to finish.
“The cumulative discovery misconduct by the Commonwealth … has been both egregious and pervasive,” protection lawyer Alan Jackson stated on the state courtroom listening to, through which he claimed that “critical evidence was intentionally … withheld from us.”
He stated whereas he has many claims of this, “in the interest of time and focus” he needed to hone in on the state not handing over movies from the Canton Police Division sally port storage the place Learn’s Lexus LX570 SUV, the alleged homicide weapon, was taken upon her arrest.
This newest declare adopted a concerted effort to have not less than two of the fees towards Learn tossed underneath Double Jeopardy protections.
The protection claims that 5 jurors have come ahead since her trial final 12 months resulted in mistrial to say that the jury was able to acquit on the homicide and leaving the scene fees, and was solely held on the manslaughter cost however didn’t know they might ship a partial verdict.
The argument was denied in sequence by Norfolk Superior Courtroom Decide Beverly J. Cannone, who’s the trial choose; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom; and U.S. District Courtroom Decide F. Dennis Saylor IV. The protection then appealed to the federal First Circuit appeals courtroom, the place the hassle stays.
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