Published at 12:28 PM, January 31, 2025
DEDHAM, Mass. (Court Television)– Prosecutors came out swinging at one professional witness at a hearing Friday, calling his work “forensically and clinically unsound” as they combat to have him disallowed from Karen Read’s approaching murder retrial.
Karen Read sits in between her lawyers, Alan Jackson and David Yanetti, throughout a hearing on Jan. 31, 2025. (Court Television)
Read is charged with the second-degree murder of her partner, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, who was discovered dead in the snow beyond a good friend’s home after a night out drinking. Read has actually declared she is innocent and the victim of an extensive cover-up. She stood trial on the exact same charges in 2024, however it ended in a mistrial when the jury might not reach a consentaneous decision.
Arranged to start on April 1, the retrial will include a lot of the very same witnesses as the very first trial, however Special Prosecutor Hank Brennan desires an essential defense witness, Richard Green, to be omitted. Green’s statement at the very first trial focused around Google browses done on witness Jennifer McCabe’s phone. McCabe, who Read’s defense has actually indicated as being at the center of the supposed conspiracy, utilized her phone to browse “the length of time ti pass away in cikd” and “hos long to pass away in cold,” however the concern of when the searches were carried out is main to the defense’s case. While the prosecution states the searches were done at Read’s demand after 6:30 a.m. when O’Keefe’s body was discovered, the defense states the searches were carried out at 2:27 a.m., before Read understood her partner was missing out on.
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On Friday, Brennan asked Judge Beverly Cannone to set up a Daubert hearing to challenge the admission of the proof. A Daubert hearing develops whether a proposed specialist witness fulfills the required certifications for their testament to be confessed into court.
Brennan argued that Green’s statement consisted of “unwarranted claims” and was “an effort, truly, simply to develop confusion, to disparage and to make claims that are factually incorrect.” Particularly, Brennan disagreed with Green’s viewpoint that the 2:27 a.m. search was “erased either by purposeful user interaction or manual post-imaging adjustment of the information by some unidentified person.”
It’s a recommendation that a witness, without any other proof, was associated with a conspiracy to murder someone. That’s the reasoning he desires the jury to hear,” Brennan stated. “That’s an extremely extreme claim when you do not have any realities to back it up.”
Read’s latest lawyer, Robert Alessi, argued that there is no requirement for an additional hearing since Green is “incomparably certified,” and no objections were raised at the very first trial to his viewpoints or approach. Alessi even more argued that there’s no requirement for a secondary hearing since the dispute issues Green’s viewpoint and not his method.
Judge Beverly Cannone stated in a composed order numerous hours after the hearing that she is comfy deciding about the movement without an extra hearing.
The defense has actually independently shown that it prepares to submit a movement to dismiss the case however is waiting on extra discovery to do so. Judge Cannone informed them they should submit that movement by Feb. 11. The movement will be dealt with at a hearing on Feb. 18.
