The Karen Learn homicide retrial has almost sufficient jurors seated to start, which it is going to because the U.S. Supreme Courtroom declined the protection’s request to remain the court docket case.
Attorneys in the case in opposition to the Mansfield former monetary analyst and Bentley School lecturer picked up three extra jurors among the many 58 potential jurors known as on Wednesday, making a complete of 15 jurors seated for trial: eight males and 7 ladies.
Attorneys wish to have at the least 16 jurors within the closing pool to depart a wholesome variety of alternates by the top of the trial — which Norfolk Superior Courtroom Choose Beverly J. Cannone advised potential jurors might take so long as eight weeks — that there will probably be sufficient to soundly have 12 deliberating jurors. Any the rest can be deemed alternates.
Learn advised reporters outdoors of court docket yesterday that opening statements in her trial might start Tuesday.
Learn, 45, of Mansfield, is accused of putting Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, 46, her boyfriend of about two years, along with her SUV and leaving him to die in a significant snowstorm on the entrance garden of 34 Fairview Street in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022.
Efforts to dismiss
She was tried final 12 months on costs of second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorcar beneath the affect, and leaving the scene of an accident inflicting demise, however that led to mistrial on July 1, 2024, after the jury reported an deadlock by three notes.
Since Learn’s final trial, the protection has mounted efforts to have costs tossed. To this point, these efforts have failed earlier than Cannone, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom, the federal district court docket in Boston, and the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the First Circuit.
The Supreme Courtroom
On April 1, the identical day jury choice started, appellate protection lawyer Martin Weinberg filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom to think about Learn’s case. He has additionally requested for the Supreme Courtroom to subject a keep to the state courts till it has determined whether or not it is going to take up Learn’s case.
On Wednesday, Affiliate Supreme Courtroom Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denied the request to remain the proceedings.
Additionally on Wednesday, nonetheless, Learn’s Supreme Courtroom docket reported that her request for his or her evaluation of her Double Jeopardy claims was “Distributed for conference” with a consideration date of April 25, throughout which the court docket will resolve whether or not it is going to take up the case.
