Karen Learn case worlds collided in Norfolk Superior Court docket when activist blogger Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney joined the accused on the protection desk because the prosecution sought knowledge from his telephone.
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.
A trial final 12 months on the fees resulted in a mistrial. She is scheduled to be retried on April 1.
Kearney, 43, of Holden, is a staunch defender of Learn’s by way of his YouTube movies and a community of blogs and social media accounts underneath the “Turtleboy,” model. He’s charged with a number of counts of witness intimidation within the Learn case. He’s additionally the de facto chief of the “Free Karen Read” motion.
“The information is relevant and material to Karen Read’s case,” Learn case particular prosecutor Hank Brennan mentioned throughout Thursday’s first listening to, by which he sought the information from two of Kearney’s telephones concerning Learn witnesses or their relations and with Learn herself.
“There was a relationship between Ms. Read and Mr. Kearney wherein Ms. Read would give information to Mr. Kearney,” he argued.
His argument was then interrupted by the arrival of Learn and her authorized staff, to which Brennan protested that Learn has no standing on his Rule 17 evidentiary movement for Kearney’s telephone knowledge.
Learn protection legal professional Alan Jackson countered that the request has to do with making an attempt to determine some sort of “consciousness of guilt” on Learn’s half which mechanically makes it her enterprise. The decide sided with Jackson and allowed the staff to remain on the desk and communicate on her behalf.
“This is the ultimate fishing expedition, your honor,” mentioned Kearney protection legal professional Timothy Bradl, who had no objection to the Learn staff’s presence. He added that “the court should deny this because it’s an 11th hour request.”
Decide Adam Sisitsky later within the day allowed most of Brennan’s request.
Trial date
The second listening to was for much longer: it’s the ultimate scheduled listening to earlier than Learn’s second trial starting on April 1.
That date was in query throughout the listening to, with the protection arguing that it needs to be pushed again to April 25 or probably the most handy date after that date to permit room for his or her present federal enchantment — which they hope will take away the homicide cost — to run its course.
“The sun rises and falls on the murder charge,” protection legal professional Jackson argued.
Learn’s staff has mounted a sequence of efforts to have two of the fees eliminated within the case since quickly after final summer season’s mistrial. They are saying 5 jurors have come ahead to say that the jury was able to acquit on the homicide and leaving the scene prices and was solely held on the manslaughter cost however didn’t know they may ship a partial verdict.
This info, the protection argues, implies that to retry Learn on these two prices could be a violation of her Double Jeopardy protections — which means the constitutional proper to not be retried after being acquitted. The argument was denied in sequence by Norfolk Superior Court docket Decide Beverly J. Cannone, who’s the trial decide; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket; and U.S. District Court docket Decide F. Dennis Saylor IV. The protection then appealed to the federal First Circuit appeals court docket, the place the hassle stays.
Ought to the First Circuit make a transfer, Jackson argued, “then that puts the entire case in jeopardy.” Ought to one or each prices be dropped by the appeals court docket after the trial jury is impaneled and sworn, he mentioned, the protection would name for a mistrial and all of the court docket’s effort — and expense — of getting the trial prepared could be in useless.
Cannone denied the movement. She mentioned the upcoming jury pool was summoned “months ago” and that to develop a brand new pool would take some 10 weeks. She mentioned that if the First Circuit makes a transfer, they’ll cope with it then.
The events subsequent meet in court docket on March 25.
The consultants
Two witnesses from a specialised forensic agency known as ARCCA have develop into a significant level of rivalry within the case in latest hearings. In the latest ones, the edges had been cut up on outline their presence to the jury.
The witnesses, Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, testified final 12 months that there was no manner O’Keefe died from a automobile strike. However protection legal professional David Yannetti mentioned he and his staff needed to communicate in “oblique terms” about their background. They had been really employed throughout the federal probe into the investigation of Learn however the protection was barred from instantly mentioning that in trial.
Yannetti says that brought about some members of the jury to take a position to the consultants’ background, which might prejudice them towards Learn.
Brennan countered that it doesn’t current a good picture to the jury if they’re informed that the consultants had been initially employed by the feds. It creates the “image or projection” that they had been employed impartial of the protection staff and that they continue to be so now, which he mentioned will not be true.
The connection
Brennan needs to inform the jury about O’Keefe’s frame of mind forward of his demise, and particularly introduce the speculation that O’Keefe was making ready to finish the connection with Learn.
Jackson known as the concept “preposterous” and that the 2 had been getting alongside “extraordinarily well.” Additional, even when that was the case, they had been “not tethered to each other in a way that if one wanted to break up with the other one, one was going to murder the other.”
Third-party wrongdoer
The protection needs to argue a third-party wrongdoer protection, with Yannetti figuring out Brian Albert, the proprietor of the house on whose garden O’Keefe died; Brian Higgins, an ATF agent with a romantic curiosity in Learn who was on the home that night time; and Brian Albert’s nephew Colin Albert.
They’re the identical the protection named forward of the primary trial. Cannone allowed them then to allude to it in trial however indirectly current it to the jury. At this listening to, she says she’ll want proof earlier than she permits the protection to make use of it.
Buffer zone
Effectively earlier than final 12 months’s trial, the blocks surrounding the Superior Court docket in Dedham developed a carnivalesque environment. Learn supporters would collect in droves and maintain indicators and chant and make their presence very well-known. A “buffer zone” was established for the precise trial, which pushed these supporters — and a swelling group of anti-Learn activists — again 200 toes from the courthouse.
However the crowd and the supportive honking was nonetheless audible from the courtroom, particularly because the previous courthouse’s home windows needed to be cracked in makes an attempt to alleviate the courtroom of the summer season warmth.
Particular prosecutor Brennan mentioned that the noises “could be influential, intimidating, concerning” and requested for changes to the buffer zone’s geography in an try and preserve such noises from influencing the jury.
Jackson mentioned that the protection takes no place on the argument.
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