One of Karen Read’s lawyers was in the middle of answering a question from Judge Beverly Cannone on Tuesday when she cut him off.
“You know what? You’re going to win this, so why don’t you just let me make my ruling,” Cannone said.
The jury had been cleared from the room so the judge could hear arguments on heated testimony from the day before, over whether the defense’s crash reconstruction experts, from a firm called ARCCA, would be allowed to testify in the trial. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan hammered one of the experts with questions, seeking to prove his suspicion that the experts and the defense had more communication than they let on.
It’s a high-stakes issue for Read’s case — the ARCCA experts concluded, in a report commissioned for the federal investigation into how the Read case was handled, that it was unlikely John O’Keefe was fatally struck by an SUV, as prosecutors allege happened.
On Tuesday, Brennan laid out the “subterfuge” he saw from the defense in how they communicated with ARCCA. Cannone turned to the other side and asked defense lawyer Robert Alessi to explain just one thing, how to reconcile one of the experts deleting over 100 text messages with standard rules of conduct.
Alessi was in the middle of explaining why a court doesn’t have “jurisdiction to enforce that rule” when Cannone stopped him — Alessi sat down almost immediately.
Cannone went on to say that, despite “repeated and deliberate” violations of standing legal rules requiring lawyers to share evidence, as well as specific orders in this case, she would allow the ARCCA experts to testify.
Not only did she acknowledge that she understood Brennan’s argument, she said an “ambush” had “been set upon here.”
But, she continued, “the defendant’s right to a fair trial is paramount to everything.”
Called by prosecutors Tuesday, Jennifer McCabe testified about the moment John O’Keefe was found dead in the snow.
On “Canton Confidential” Tuesday night, legal analyst Peter Elikann, a defense attorney, said he wasn’t surprised at the ruling, explaining, “that evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect,” which is common in the law.
“There was some evidence that maybe everything wasn’t followed to the letter concerning ARCCA’s communications with the defense, but ARCCA’s testimony is so crucial to the defendant’s defense that she’s allowing it in, because anything to the contrary would outweigh it’s prejudicial effect,” Elikann said.
Every day at 7 p.m., anchors Glenn Jones and J.C. Monahan break down what happened in court with the help of our team and legal analysts.
Outside court Tuesday, Brennan didn’t answer questions, but Read said she feels great about the ruling and thanked Alessi.
“I’ve been waiting to hear about my reconstructionists, who I’ve invested a lot of money in over the last few months, and they’re finally allowed to testify,” Read said. “They’re objective, they were hired initially by the U.S. government. I didn’t even know how to spell ARCCA until February of last year.”
Asked whether Cannone was being fair to her, she said, “I believe that was fair and I appreciate it. I would expect nothing less, though.”
A key witness took the stand in the second Karen Read murder trial Tuesday: Jennifer McCabe, a friend of John O’Keefe’s, who was with Read when she found his body in the snow. She testified about the increasingly frantic search, and finding the body. Also Tuesday, more cellphone data testimony and a ruling on ARCCA experts.
