A federal investigation into the dealing with of John O’Keefe’s dying not casts a shadow over the native case of accused assassin Karen Learn, the prosecution confirmed.
“There is no longer any federal investigation into the investigation of John O’Keefe’s death or any related matter,” particular prosecutor Hank Brennan mentioned in Norfolk Superior Courtroom throughout a Learn listening to Tuesday. “It is closed. It is over.”
Brennan’s feedback marked the primary time there has ever been any readability on the federal investigation into the case, which got here up piecemeal throughout pre-trial hearings final yr and in questioning of witnesses throughout that trial who had additionally testified on the federal inquiry.
Brennan mentioned he was given specific permission from the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace in Boston to reveal that the federal case was closed.
Learn, 45, of Mansfield, is accused of hanging Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, together with her automobile and leaving him to freeze and die on a Canton entrance garden on Jan. 29, 2022. She was indicted on three prices: second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle below the affect and leaving the scene of an accident leading to dying.
She was tried on these prices final yr, however the case resulted in mistrial due to a hung jury. Since then, the Learn protection group has launched efforts to dismiss two of the costs — together with the homicide cost — after 5 jurors allegedly instructed them post-trial that they had been able to acquit on these prices and had been solely held on cost 2, the OUI manslaughter cost.
Learn’s protection first requested Decide Beverly Cannone to ballot the jurors after which drop these prices, which she denied. Then they took the argument to the state Supreme Judicial Courtroom, which upheld Cannone’s resolution. They lastly took their efforts to federal court docket.
Tuesday’s listening to was the begin to every week that will probably be chock-full of Learn hearings, each on the Superior Courtroom in Dedham and on the federal court docket in Boston.
Wednesday features a federal listening to at 9:30 a.m., and the events are scheduled to reconvene in Dedham at 11 a.m. for the protection to argue their movement to dismiss “on the basis of extraordinary governmental misconduct.”
On Tuesday, the events additionally mentioned varied motions already argued and pending.
First up was the earlier matter of the protection’s alleged moral misconduct involving two professional witnesses, which concerned a cost.
Cannone complained that protection lawyer Robert Alessi waited till the center of his presentation to speak about this cost, however Alessi countered that he was making his presentation of protection interactions with the 2 witnesses from ARCCA — which testified that O’Keefe couldn’t have died from a automobile strike — in chronological order for probably the most readability.
Then got here challenges to witnesses.
Alessi argued that prosecution witness Dr. James Crosby, a retired sheriff’s lieutenant and a canine conduct advisor, must be barred from testifying for 2 broad causes: one, that in accordance with state authorized follow and Cannone’s personal guidelines within the case, a non-medical physician is barred from testifying on wound evaluation and, two, that his {qualifications} and methodology are suspect usually.
“He provides zero — and I mean zero — words to tether his methodology to a common practice,” Alessi argued over Crosby’s assertion that wounds to O’Keefe’s arm had been from a pointy object and never a canine chew.
The protection has secured a spot for their very own professional, Dr. Marie Russell, to testify that they’re certainly canine bites. She testified on the finish of the final trial, as effectively.
Brennan countered that not like Russell earlier than this case, Crosby has beforehand testified in courts on canine bites.
Alessi additionally needs to bar meteorologist Robert Gilman from testifying that the bottom was “hard as a rock” in Canton the morning O’Keefe died, as floor hardness shouldn’t be the experience of meteorologists.
Lastly, Brennan needs the protection sanctioned for sharing data on disgraced State Police Trooper Michael Proctor in public filings, thus disobeying a protecting order from the court docket.
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