Karen Read retrial: Interest brings challenge to jury selection

Karen Read's second trial is set to begin next week under an avalanche of public attention — maybe even more than the first one.

A new documentary about Read is fueling even more publicity as jury selection gets underway next week.

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Read is accused of hitting and killing her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV in 2022 in Canton, Massachusetts. She denies the allegations, claiming she is being framed in a coverup.

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Her first trial ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury, with her retrial set to begin April 1.

"Social media now has exploded in the last few years, and it has affected this case," said NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne.

The traditional and social media scrutiny has been intense. Judge Beverly Cannone recently placed a gag order on all the lawyers, hoping to keep any potential jury pool free of undue influence. And last week during a discussion about jury voir dire, the judge seemed uneasy about all the public attention.

"My biggest concern here, frankly, if we didn't have the inordinate amount of publicity on this case so close to trial," she said. "I heard that there was something last night. It's been in the news, right, and it's continuing."

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Given high level of interest, the defense and prosecution have agreed to develop a separate jury questionnaire related to media coverage, so they can in look to identify jurors and any potential bias.

"This is relatively new, to delve so deeply into their social media activities and what they may have heard and what news sources they are using from social media to get their information from," Coyne said. "But it's actually absolutely necessary now."

The court will take up the issue of the questionnaires Tuesday at what is expected to be the last hearing before the trial.