Karen Learn’s attorneys will get an additional 10 days to file what they promise will probably be a “pretty full-throated” movement to toss their consumer’s cop-killer case, constructing on a blockbuster declare of “extraordinary” authorities misconduct within the case.
Learn’s attorneys hinted at their newest movement to dismiss in a footnote to a movement filed final month, asking that the state pay Learn’s prices to ship an professional to gather Canton Police Division constructing footage from across the time of their preliminary investigation into John O’Keefe’s loss of life and Learn’s arrest for his homicide.
“A Motion to Dismiss for Extraordinary Governmental Misconduct based on the destruction of this, and other, exculpatory evidence is forthcoming,” the footnote reads.
Throughout a Thursday motions listening to, Learn protection lawyer Alan Jackson requested extra time than the Feb. 11 deadline Norfolk Superior Court docket Decide Beverly J. Cannone gave him to file what he promised can be a “pretty full-throated” movement to dismiss that may require a lot prep time from him and his workforce.
He requested for early March, and Cannone met him within the center with a brand new deadline of February 21. Particular prosecutor Hank Brennan and his workforce may have per week to reply and the perimeters will then argue in court docket on March 4.
The case
Learn, 44, of Mansfield, faces costs of second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorcar below the affect, and leaving the scene of an accident leading to loss of life. A trial final yr resulted in mistrial and she or he is scheduled for a second trial on April 1.
Prosecutors say that she struck O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer who she had dated for roughly two years, along with her Lexus SUV after an evening of heavy ingesting and left him to freeze and die on a Canton entrance yard within the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
Learn’s protection attorneys have countered all through the case that Learn has been framed by corrupt and incompetent native and state cops and prosecutors working with the proprietor of the house whose garden O’Keefe was discovered. That home-owner is Brian Albert, a now-retired Boston Police sergeant who was internet hosting an afterparty Learn and O’Keefe had been invited to. Protection attorneys say that O’Keefe made it into the house that evening and was overwhelmed to loss of life inside.
To help their principle, protection attorneys have been requesting the preservation of every little thing from the cops — beginning way back to Learn’s first look in court docket on Feb. 2, 2022, when she was arraigned forward of indictment in Stoughton District Court docket, in keeping with protection attorneys Jackson and David Yannetti.
Reimbursement
Nearly all of Thursday’s roughly hour lengthy motions listening to was dedicated to the request through which the movement to dismiss was hinted at: the protection request that the state reimburse Learn for sending an professional to select up Canton PD surveillance footage that turned out to not exist.
The edges have been far aside.
Jackson argued that Brennan and the Commonwealth despatched the professional and the protection workforce on a “wild goose chase” that ended up costing Learn greater than $12,000.
Brennan argued that he had made no guarantees as as to whether the video footage existed and had even expressed his considerations that it didn’t, however “in the spirit of transparency,” agreed that Learn’s professional might go to the station to get no matter is out there.
“I was not trying to lure them back to Canton or have them spend money. I was trying to, as I always do, be as transparent as I could and as helpful as I could,” Brennan stated. He stated that he “extended the courtesy.”
Jackson countered that the court docket shouldn’t “conflate courtesy with an obligation,” and argued that the video proof was exculpatory and the state was required to share such info and content material with the protection.
Cannone didn’t rule on the movement in the course of the listening to.
This can be a creating story.
