The Karen Learn protection group mounted two efforts on Wednesday to have at the very least two expenses — if not the entire case towards her — tossed with lower than one month to go earlier than the Mansfield girl is scheduled to be retried for the homicide of Boston cop John O’Keefe.
Learn, 45, of Mansfield, is indicted on three expenses: second-degree homicide (Depend 1), manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle beneath the affect (Depend 2) and leaving the scene of an accident leading to demise (Depend 3).
Prosecutors declare that Learn slammed her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe, her boyfriend of about two years on the time, within the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022, after an evening of heavy consuming and one more battle within the troubled relationship and left him to freeze and die on a Canton entrance yard.
She was tried in Norfolk Superior Court docket in Dedham final 12 months, however that resulted in mistrial after the jury despatched three notes stating they have been at an deadlock. She is scheduled to be retried on April 1, however the case has been something however dormant within the interim.
Federal oversight
Wednesday started with the protection group’s strive on the federal courthouse in Boston, the place Learn protection legal professional Martin Weinberg argued that double jeopardy protections — {that a} defendant can’t be retried on expenses she was already acquitted of — needs to be upheld on the federal stage.
Weinberg had beforehand argued for dismissal earlier than Choose Beverly J. Cannone, who presided over Learn’s trial and is scheduled to preside over the subsequent one. She denied his motions to dismiss.
Then got here an enchantment to the Supreme Judicial Court docket, Massachusetts’ highest court docket, which upheld Cannone’s ruling. Then, on Feb. 18, Weinberg filed a writ of habeas corpus to the federal court docket. In brief, the enchantment says {that a} federal choose ought to free Learn from illegal prosecution.
“The Petition relies upon post-trial statements of five jurors (four directly and one indirectly) that the jury in Ms. Read’s first trial reached a final, unanimous decision to acquit her of second-degree murder,” Weinberg wrote within the memorandum supporting the writ.
Weinberg argued Wednesday that U.S. District Court docket Chief Choose F. Dennis Saylor IV ought to order a post-trial voir dire, or formal questioning, of the Learn jurors, arguing that the choose had the authority to take action.
“Let me stop you there,” Saylor stated. “Is that true?”
Weinberg admitted that he knew of no such direct precedent for what he was asking, however cited related state instances involving biased juries, which falls beneath Sixth Modification protections, and that the Fifth Modification safety from double jeopardy “are as valuable.” He additionally introduced up a jury bias probe within the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial.
Saylor didn’t seem satisfied: “But in Tsarnaev, that’s the federal court examining its own case … In this case, that would be the federal court examining a state case.”
Weinberg additionally argued that Cannone declared a mistrial with out consulting with protection counsel as she was required to do. He stated that she had “three or four alternatives” to declaring a mistrial upon the third be aware, together with asking the jurors if the deadlock was to all expenses or solely sure expenses.
Norfolk Assistant District Legal professional Caleb Schillinger stated Cannone “didn’t rush to a mistrial” however as an alternative adopted Massachusetts’ regulation requirements. Upon the primary deadlock be aware, he stated, she ordered the jury again to deliberations. Then she gave a “Tuohy-Rodriguez” warning, which is a selected set of directions to induce deliberations. Lastly, she declared a mistrial. He stated she dealt with it properly and that to go additional may have opened her as much as allegations of coercion of the jury.
“The jury had made it clear, and the judge found it clear, that they wouldn’t consent to continue deliberating,” Schillinger stated.
Saylor stated that if he had “a year to write this opinion I would be more scholarly,” however that he was going to return to an opinion as quickly as attainable so the edges may enchantment if wanted earlier than Learn’s subsequent trial date.
Again to Dedham
The second within the dual-pronged efforts of the day was again in Norfolk Superior Court docket earlier than Choose Cannone the place protection legal professional Alan Jackson argued his movement to dismiss the case “on the basis of extraordinary governmental misconduct.”
“The cumulative discovery misconduct by the Commonwealth … through their agents, has been both egregious and pervasive,” Jackson started his argument.
He stated whereas he has many claims of this, “in the interest of time and focus” he wished to hone in on the state not handing over movies from the Canton Police Division sallyport storage the place Learn’s Lexus LX570 SUV, the alleged homicide weapon, was taken upon her arrest.
Jackson argued that prosecutors and the police didn’t flip over these movies regardless of being required to take action and that the protection acquired solely “dribs and drabs” of video each throughout trial after which properly after — robbing Learn of her proper to a good trial and committing “literally a fraud on the jury.”
The movies are important, he stated, as a result of they might reveal the situation of the fitting taillight that the prosecution says was shattered when Learn slammed into O’Keefe. He stated that items of the taillight housing have been solely discovered on the garden days after O’Keefe died, that means solely after authorities had custody of Learn’s SUV, that means they may have damaged it themselves and planted it. He additionally claimed that the movies that have been launched have been altered, just like the one video proven at trial that was reversed.
“The Commonwealth cannot deny the untimely disclosure of critical exculpatory evidence,” Jackson stated. “… And they also cannot deny that critical evidence was intentionally, not by some sort of mishap, but intentionally withheld from us.”
Jackson stated that they did so to attempt to safe “a conviction at all costs” and that “the only remedy is dismissal.”
Particular prosecutor Hank Brennan stated that it’s a “baseless claim” that any video was altered and that the protection has “produced absolutely no evidence” that it was.
As for the sallyport movies, Brennan admitted that the movies ought to have been launched sooner and the entire manufacturing ought to have been extra organized. However, he stated, the error was “inadvertent” and the shortage of video was “inconsequential” to the protection’s case as a result of “that light was missing before it made it to the sallyport.”
He performed video within the court docket of two situations the place the automobile might be seen earlier than it was within the police storage. In each, he stated, the taillight was already lacking and the white mild under uncovered.
The events have a deadline of Monday for remaining motions, with responses due the next Friday. They are going to subsequent meet in state court docket on March 18.
