Karen Read attorneys' mistrial request denied; Judge says jury "fed up" with delays
For the second time in a week, Judge Beverly Cannone denied Karen Read's attorneys' request for a mistrial after they accused the prosecution of misconduct. After the jury was sent out of the room several times for attorneys to deal with various hearings, Cannone said it is evident jurors are "fed up" with delays.
The allegations came Monday after Dr. Daniel Wolfe, a defense crash reconstructionist for engineering consulting firm ARCCA who has been the center of several contentious hearings in the trial, finished testifying after a second day on the witness stand.
Read is accused of hitting and killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, with her Lexus SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton. The defense argues O'Keefe was killed during a fight inside the home, then dragged outside.
Wolfe first took the stand Friday for questioning from Read's attorney Alan Jackson and was later cross-examined by special prosecutor Hank Brennan. Wolfe was still on the stand when court ended for the day Friday and returned for about two hours Monday before completing his testimony.
Dr. Elizabeth Laposata testifies
Dr. Elizabeth Laposata, a Brown University professor, took the stand Monday afternoon. She was the chief medical examiner in Rhode Island for 12 years. Her time in that role included work following the 1999 EgyptAir 990 plane crash and the aftermath of the deadly Station nightclub fire that killed 100 people.
Laposata said she reviewed O'Keefe's autopsy and several other documents related to his death.
She said O'Keefe suffered a coup contrecoup injury, which means there was damage to the back and front of his head.
"That tells me that Mr. O'Keefe fell back on something that had a little ridge or a little irregularity to it," Laposata said of O'Keefe's wounds.
Ruling over testimony
Attorneys argued to start the day and again during afternoon recess related to parameters of what Laposata could testify to.
Brennan sought to have a portion of Laposata's testimony excluded that discusses dog bites. Jackson argued that Laposata should be allowed to discuss the topic because she has performed autopsies involving dog bites. Read's attorneys have argued that injuries on O'Keefe's arms were not caused by Read's taillight, but instead by the dog belonging to homeowner Brian Albert.
Cannone said that Laposata would have to be subject to a short hearing without the jury present before a decision was made. That hearing took place while jurors were at lunch break.
Laposata said she has done about 50 autopsies herself involving dog bites, though the injuries were not always the cause of death. Laposata also said she supervised about 75 autopsies where dog bites were involved. Cannone asked when the last time Laposata performed an autopsy involving dog bites and she said it was about two years ago.
"She doesn't have to be a sole dog bite expert to be an expert in dog bites," Jackson argued.
Brennan argued that that Laposata should not be allowed to testify about dog bites because she does not have the proper experience.
Cannone didn't rule immediately on the issue. After the lunch recess, she ruled that Laposata cannot testify about dog bite wounds and some of her testimony about vehicle impact will be limited.
Judge says Karen Read jury "fed up"
The jurors spent a significant amount of time out of the courtroom on Monday while attorneys and the judge worked through various motions.
During a discussion after lunch with the jury still not in the courtroom, Jackson attempted to ask the judge about another topic. She told the defense attorney they would deal with it on Tuesday.
"We've done important work, but we've wasted an awful lot of the jurors' time today," Cannone said.
Several minutes later, Cannone told the attorneys in the courtroom, "You can tell just by looking at this jury they're fed up."
Mistrial request denied, prosecution admits "mistake"
One of those motions came when the defense sought a mistrial for the second time in a week.
Cannone denied the defense's Monday request to declare a mistrial with prejudice, something they also asked for on June 3. Cannone denied the first request within minutes. A mistrial with prejudice would have meant charges would be dismissed and the case could not be tried again.
Defense attorney Bob Alessi argued for the mistrial after Wolfe stepped down and jurors left for morning recess. With Wolfe on the stand, Brennan asked Wolfe if he considered that O'Keefe's sweatshirt may have had holes in locations other than the sleeve. Wolfe said he did not.
The prosecutor carried O'Keefe's sweatshirt, which was encased in a plastic frame, up to the witness stand.
"It appears I see one hole," Wolfe said when Brennan showed him the back of his shirt. Brennan then pointed out other holes in the back of the shirt.
"Those are not consistent with road rash," Wolfe said.
Brennan asked Wolfe if he considered that O'Keefe may have fallen and landed on his back. Wolfe said he did not.
Later while arguing for the mistrial, Alessi called it a "stunt" and "intentional misconduct" by the prosecution. He said the holes Brennan referenced "clearly, unequivocally, without doubt" were cut holes caused by the criminalist and had nothing to do with what happened on January 29, 2022.
Alessi removed the sweatshirt from the plastic case and held it up while asking for the mistrial.
"At some point this has to come to an end. At some point Ms. Read's rights have to be protected," Alessi said.
When asked for his response, Brennan said that while reviewing evidence "It appears that I made a mistake." Brennan agreed that the holes in the back of the sweatshirt were caused by criminalist Maureen Hartnett.
Cannone said that while the mistrial request was denied, she would allow Alessi to hold the sweatshirt up for the jury before she provided an instruction.
"Jurors, I instruct you that those holes were made by the criminalist, Ms. Hartnett, during the course of her inspection and sampling of the sweatshirt back on May 18, 2023," Cannone said when the jury returned to the room.
"The holes in the shirt were entirely misrepresented by the prosecutor," Read said outside of court Monday. "To make it look like they came from January 29, and they came from May."
WBZ Legal analyst Katherine Loftus said she doesn't think Brennan did it on purpose.
"As most of us in the legal profession know, that there are things that happen, and sometimes very big mistakes that you make, and you know only Attorney Brennan knows whether it was purposeful or inadvertent," Loftus said. "I didn't read it as purposeful. You know, he got up there and immediately said, this is my fault."
Photos taken at 34 Fairview Road
In an argument Monday morning without jurors present, the defense asked the judge to allow them to put photos into evidence showing areas of 34 Fairview Road to ask Laposata about surfaces that could have potentially caused O'Keefe's injuries.
The photos were taken by private investigator John Tederman on June 3 with permission from the current homeowner.
Brennan sought to exclude the photographic evidence because he said there is no proof that O'Keefe ever went inside the home or the area that Tederman photographed.
Cannone ruled that the photographs cannot be used as evidence, but they can be used for identification and measurements are allowed.
Tederman took the stand Monday morning for a short time to discuss measurements he took.
Dr. Daniel Wolfe testimony
Jackson began Monday by showing photos of the test dummy, which Wolfe named "Rescue Randy."
The defense attorney noted that after the dummy was impacted by the SUV used during testing, there were holes in its clothing that were inconsistent with those in O'Keefe's. Jackson also noted that the dummy had scuff marks from the pavement that were inconsistent with O'Keefe's clothing.
Wolfe also noted that in one of the tests, the entire rear windshield on the test vehicle shattered.
When Jackson finished redirect questioning of Wolfe, Brennan returned to cross-examine the witness again. Brennan focused on Wolfe using a dummy arm for testing that was lighter than O'Keefe's arm during testing.
Wolfe used an arm that weighed 9.38 pounds, compared to O'Keefe's arm that weighed 11.86 pounds.
"It's conservative from a force perspective," Wolfe said.
On Friday, Wolfe had testified that the difference in arm weights would not have made a significant difference.
Brennan asked Wolfe if he was aware of studies that say you should not use crash dummies for clothing analysis. He said he was not aware.
Brennan asked Wolfe if he would agree that a crash test dummy would not be appropriate to use when trying to analyze clothing tears because the arm material reacts differently than a human arm.
"I don't think I would agree with that, no," Wolfe said.
Brennan also pointed out that Randy is a mannequin, not an official crash test dummy, which is significantly more expensive.
What is ARCCA?
ARCCA's testimony has been a contentious issue dating back to Read's first trial and throughout pretrial hearings for the subsequent retrial.
The witnesses were hired as part of a now-closed federal investigation into the handling of the case. It was later revealed ARCCA, despite being presented in the first trial as witnesses not hired by the defense, sent a bill to Read's lawyers for nearly $24,000.
During a pretrial hearing, the prosecution also said Wolfe deleted text messages with the defense, which the crash expert said he does routinely for his job.
The defense played video video in court on Friday from ARCCA's testing. The video showed what happens when a taillight collides at various speeds with a dummy arm.
"Based on the test results, [the damage] is inconsistent with striking an arm," Wolfe testified.
On cross-examination, Brennan questioned Wolfe's credentials and aspects of his testing.
What witnesses remain in the Karen Read trial?
When court ended for the day, Cannone asked attorneys about the remaining witnesses in the trial.
The defense said after Laposata completes her testimony, their final witness will be Andrew Rentschler, who also works for ARCCA.
Brennan said the prosecution plans to call three rebuttal witnesses once the defense rests its case. They are expected to call back Judson Welcher to rebut the testimony from ARCCA followed by Teri Kun, who testified about the lack of dog DNA on O'Keefe's sweatshirt during Read's first trial.
Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of personal injury and death. Her first trial in 2024 ended with a mistrial due to a hung jury.
