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DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - The judge in the Karen Read case refused Thursday to delay the start of the upcoming retrial.
The defense had asked Judge Beverly Cannone to push the start of the trial back from April 1 to April 25, to let their federal appeal play out.
Cannone declined to do so, saying that the process had already been set in motion.
“Well, I’m not going to grant the motion. We have jurors coming in that were summonsed months ago. I called the jury commissioner yesterday and asked how long it would take to get the right numbers that we were able to get starting April 1 — a minimum of 10 weeks. I’m not going to do that,” Cannone said.
Jury selection is still scheduled to begin on April 1.
Hundreds of potential jurors have already been called to the courthouse a week from Monday.
However, Cannone said the defense could bring the motion again before the jury is sworn in.
The judge also considered the request from prosecutors for a 200-foot buffer zone to keep people back from the courthouse during the retrial.
Cannone said she has heard from local businesses concerned about possible restrictions.
The court also heard several pretrial motions on Thursday, including one from the Commonwealth’s effort to introduce evidence of John O’Keefe’s state of mind in the days before he died in 2022.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan wants to introduce evidence O’Keefe was planning to end his relationship with Read through testimony from his young niece and through his text messages.
“You can tell by the content, and the volume of them, that there is a legitimacy to them,” said Brennan. “And it is clear, based on that and other testimony, that he was in the course, attempting to end the relationship with Miss Read.”
Brennan added he won’t be using information from the New Year’s Eve trip to Aruba O’Keefe and Read took, which was a part of the first trial.
The defense cited evidence such as bar surveillance video, showing the couple getting along well hours before O’Keefe died. They say testimony about fighting would be highly prejudicial to the jury.
“There’s absolutely no evidence that even if she was aware John O’Keefe was unhappy in the relationship, he might want to break up, that that would’ve been a catalyst for murder,” said Read’s lawyer Alan Jackson.
The lawyers accused one another of misstatements Thursday, and the judge requested an end to the back and forth, saying there’s no time for that.
“I suggest we take the personal attacks completely out of this,” said Cannone. “On both sides, both sides.”
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in 2022. Prosecutors say she hit him with her SUV and left him to die in the snow outside a Canton home. Read’s lawyers say she is being framed.
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