A staggering 2,000-plus Norfolk County residents could possibly be thought of for Karen Learn’s second homicide trial if impanelment stretches that lengthy within the blockbuster case.
It’s all aimed toward sitting an neutral jury.
A complete of 275 potential jurors will probably be summoned every day to Norfolk Superior Court docket in Dedham when impanelment begins on April 1, a “larger number than the Office of Jury Commissioner would normally summon,” in keeping with court docket spokeswoman Jennifer Donahue.
If it takes longer to seat a jury than the 4 days of opening week, the pool would drop to 243 a day, Donahue instructed the Herald. The potential jurors have been notified because the Jury Commissioner points summonses three months upfront “to meet the existing needs of the court,” she mentioned.
Seating a full jury proved troublesome within the first trial, with choice taking 5 days and the pool averaging roughly 90 county residents every day. As a consequence of what the prosecution described Thursday as “unprecedented pretrial publicity,” the method is predicted to last more for spherical two.
Meaning greater than 2,000 residents may doubtlessly be grilled earlier than they seize one of many juror seats. Donahue instructed the Herald that the court docket system doesn’t have information on how the impanelment compares to others traditionally however that “this is not the largest.”
Attorneys seated a jury of 19 for the primary trial, which featured eight weeks of testimony from 68 witnesses and led to a mistrial with 12 jurors deadlocked. Seven others served as alternates.
Assistant District Legal professional Laura McLaughlin requested Thursday that the potential jurors for the second trial be handed a one-page questionnaire coping with pretrial publicity particularly along with two pages that assist attorneys establish issues with potential candidates.
“I think that would expedite the impanelment process,” McLaughlin mentioned earlier than Decide Beverly Cannone authorized the movement. Potential jurors fill out the questionnaire after taking basic questioning from the choose.
Throughout basic questioning final yr, a majority of candidate jurors had indicated that they’d at the very least heard of or mentioned the case. A major quantity additional indicated they’d developed an opinion on the case, and an excellent quantity mentioned they had been already biased in a method or one other.
Learn, 45, is accused of putting O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years and a 16-year Boston Police officer, along with her automotive and leaving him to die in a serious snowstorm on the entrance garden of 34 Fairview Rd., in Canton — a property that O’Keefe’s BPD colleague Brian Albert owned on the time.
Protection attorneys counter that exterior actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and native police to border Learn for his homicide within the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
Learn has pleaded not responsible and a trial on the fees of second-degree homicide, and manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle underneath the affect and leaving the scene of a deadly accident.
Learn supporters have gathered in droves, holding indicators, chanting, and making their presence very well-known exterior the Dedham courthouse, because the early days of the case. Consideration to the saga has multiplied tremendously because it has gained nationwide and worldwide publicity, effectively past Norfolk County.
The case and first trial have been featured in NBC Dateline and ABC 20/20 specials and a Self-importance Honest journal collection. Simply this week, Investigation Discovery ran a three-night docuseries that included segments of an interview with Herald courts and crime reporter Flint McColgan.
“There has been an extraordinary amount of publicity even far more than the last trial and so close to jury impanelment, it makes sense to me,” Cannone mentioned of a pretrial publicity questionnaire.
File photograph
Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe (BPDNews.com)
