Prosecutors within the Karen Learn homicide case gained’t be having access to her dad and mom’ cellphone information which they stated may have bolstered their argument that the defendant knew she struck and left John O’Keefe to die in a snowstorm.
Norfolk Superior Courtroom Choose Beverly Cannone has denied the prosecution’s request for Verizon handy over all of the cellphone information of Learn’s father and mom for the day of O’Keefe’s demise to the following day, and the decision element information of the interval of Dec. 30, 2021, to Jan. 30, 2022.
“Despite the detailed arguments articulated in the supporting memorandum and at oral argument, the affidavit in support of the motion is insufficient on it’s face,” Cannone wrote in her choice on Friday.
Particular prosecutor Hank Brennan advised Cannone on Tuesday that if she granted entry to William and Janet Learn’s cellphone information, they might have pointed to the defendant’s guilt.
“The inference that a 40-something-year-old woman is calling her parents at 1:30 in the morning after this tumultuous event,” Brennan stated, “the inference is strong evidence that Ms. Read knew she had done something terrible, she knew she had struck John O’Keefe, and she knew that she had left him behind.”
Brennan emphasised that the 30-day request from Dec. 30, 2021, to Jan. 30, 2022, was solely for name information to see if Karen Learn tended to name her dad and mom in the course of the night time.
He argued she known as her mom thrice within the early morning of Jan. 29 – at 1:14 a.m., 4:38 a.m., and 4:42 a.m. — however none of these calls had been answered.
“If there were phone calls at 1:30 in the morning I would not argue the inference that it was remarkable. That would be an unfair inference. But in the absence of any other calls, it is terribly remarkable that she’s panic-calling her parents at 1:30 in the morning.”
“Here’s why it’s important: The type of injury John O’Keefe suffered that led to his death was a type of an injury that was treatable. If he had received treatment within one to two hours, I expect there are medical procedures that could have saved him.”
Learn, 44, is charged with second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle underneath the affect, and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. Her first trial ended with a hung jury in 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.
Protection attorneys counter that exterior actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and native police to border Learn for his homicide.
Prosecutors and the protection are requesting the second trial be pushed again from late January to April.
Protection legal professional Elizabeth Little argued the prosecution didn’t must entry William and Janet Learn’s cellphone information since they’d already obtained the defendant’s cellphone. She highlighted how Learn known as her father solely as soon as, at 6:32 a.m., after discovering O’Keefe’s bloody physique lined in snow.
Little described the prosecution’s movement as an “invasion” of William Learn’s “privacy.”
The state Workplace of the Chief Medical Examiner discovered that O’Keefe died from blunt-force trauma to his head and hypothermia, per a principal post-mortem, whereas a neuropathology examination detected important accidents to the sufferer’s mind itself — each bleeding in addition to bruising to the entrance and temporal areas of the mind.
Throughout his argument at Norfolk Superior Courtroom on Tuesday, Brennan described procedures that would have probably saved O’Keefe’s life together with both drilling into his mind to create bleeding which will have prevented swelling or cracking his skull.
“Certainly, he would have suffered significant impairment,” Brennan stated. “My expectation on my research is that … life-saving procedures within the first two hours would have saved or could have saved John O’Keefe.”
Greg Derr/Pool
Karen Learn at a listening to earlier this month. (Greg Derr/Pool)
