Jury selection kicked off Tuesday for the second trial of Karen Read, who is accused of murder and other charges for an alleged hit-and-run that left her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, dead in a blizzard in January 2022.
The 45-year-old’s first trial ended with a hung jury, and the judge later rejected multiple requests to dismiss the case.
This time around, nearly half of the first group of potential jurors told the judge they already have an opinion on the case.
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Read arrived at court around 8:55 a.m. Tuesday, wearing a gray pantsuit and carrying a water bottle. She gave a thumbs-up sign to supporters who greeted her on the courthouse steps.
Inside, her high-powered legal team is squaring off with a special prosecutor who previously defended the mobster Whitey Bulger.
Judge Beverly Cannone read the charges to more than 90 people in the first group of potential jurors and then kicked off questioning in a hearing that was largely closed to the public.
In the open portion, 76 members of the jury pool raised their hands to acknowledge they had heard of the case. Forty had already formed opinions. Sixteen said they had already had bias or prejudice for or against either the defense or the prosecution.
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Two admitted they would have “difficulty” following the judge’s instructions on the burden of proof, reasonable doubt, and the presumption of innocence for the defendant.
Another 36 told the court that sitting on the jury for weeks would cause them “substantial hardship.”
Juror selection is expected to take days, and the trial itself could run for six to eight weeks, Cannone said.
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Read is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of a deadly accident in connection with O’Keefe’s death on Jan. 29, 2022. He was 46 and found in the snow outside another police officer’s house hours after a group of people went there for an after-party to cap off a night out drinking.
A nor’easter tore through the region that night, and an autopsy found he had died from trauma to the head and hypothermia. However, the medical examiner left the manner of death “undetermined.”
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Supporters both for and against Read frequently gathered outside the courthouse at her first trial and at other hearings.
Cannone told jurors Tuesday that they would see the full evidence in the case, not the protesters outside, and the fate of the prosecution’s case rests solely in their hands.
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“John Adams said that we are a government of laws, not of men, and that the law must be deaf to the clamoring of the public,” she said, referring to the Founding Father with deep Boston roots. “He meant that while the public opinion about a given subject may ebb and flow, the law must be steady, reliable, and even-handed.”
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Read has denied the charges, pleaded not guilty and claimed that she is being framed as part of a police cover-up.
Investigators’ behavior in her first trial may have influenced the jury’s inability to reach a consensus.
Read and O’Keefe had been fighting on the morning of Jan. 28, 2022, according to text messages revealed in her first trial.
They went out drinking in Canton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and then met a group of friends and acquaintances at another bar, minutes before last call.
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Brian Albert, a Boston cop like O’Keefe, invited the group over to his house for an after-party. O’Keefe was found dead on his lawn the next day.
Witnesses in the first trial testified that Read and O’Keefe never came inside, and prosecutors allege they got into another fight before she fatally hit him in reverse at 24 mph.
Read has countered that someone else killed him and left him on Albert’s lawn amid the snowstorm.
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Cannone on Monday ruled that Read’s defense cannot try and blame Albert’s nephew, Colin Albert, for the crime.
Other potential third-party culprits floated by the defense include Brian Albert himself and ATF Agent Brian Higgins, both of whom were present at the bar and the after-party.
The judge said that Read’s defense cannot name them during opening statements – but they can introduce evidence during the trial that they believe points to them and not her.
Cannone also sided with prosecutors and blocked testimony from a former FBI agent named Michael Easter, who was expected to scrutinize alleged missteps from police in the investigation.
The lead investigator, former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, was fired last month after an investigation into lewd text messages he sent about Read while probing O’Keefe’s death, which were read in court during her first trial.
Although he is no longer a trooper, his name is on the witness list the second time around – along with 149 other people.
