Here’s what happened in the latest Karen Read hearing, in which prosecutors tried to prevent a defense expert from testifying about the cellphone search “Hos long to die in cold” and to obtain Boston Magazine reporter Gretchen Voss’ notes from off-the-record coversations.
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The Karen Read case returned to Norfolk Superior Court on Friday for a hearing to discuss, among other issues, the defense expert's analysis of the controversial "hos long to die in cold" search and whether it should be included in the new trial.
The retrial remains months away, but outside of court Friday, Read attorney Alan Jackson said his team will try to shut it down before it gets going.
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"There’s going to be a very robust motion to dismiss from us. It's in the offing," he said.
Read is accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV in January 2022 and leaving him to die in a snowstorm. She faces second-degree murder and other charges. Read has maintained her innocence and claims she is the victim of a police coverup. Her first trial, which captured attention across the country, ended in a mistrial last summer.
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A search for "hos long to die in cold" made by Jennifer McCabe, a friend of O'Keefe's, has been a major point of contention in the trial. The prosecution maintains that the search was made at 6:23 a.m., shortly after she and Read arrived at the house on Fairview Road outside of which O'Keefe was lying stricken in the snow. However a defense expert, Richard Green, contends that the digital evidence shows McCabe made the search at about 2:30 a.m., and that McCabe has helped cover up who really killed O'Keefe at the Fairview Road home, where she and others attended a small party earlier in the evening.
The prosecution wants Green's analysis thrown out. In court Friday prosecutor Hank Brennan called Green's claims "factually untrue" and that he has "no methodology" behind his analysis.
The defense defended their expert's qualifications and pushed for its inclusion.
A second issue discussed at the hearing centered around whether a journalist's off-the-record notes should be included in the upcoming trial.
In December, a judge granted prosecutors' request for access to off-the-record interviews, notes and other documents involving conversations that Read had with Boston Magazine reporter Gretchen Voss. In Friday's hearing, Voss's attorney petition for reconsideration of that material, arguing its release impairs her ability to accurately report on news and that it has wider implications for the first amendment protections of the media.
"Requiring Voss to turn over these confidential notes would damage First Amendment interests more than it would benefit the public in achieving justice for this criminal defendant," Robert Bertsche said.
Read has spoken to multiple media outlets about her case, sometimes in lengthy sit-down interviews. Prosecutors have requested portions of the content from other media for their case as well.
Boston Magazine previously turned over some material from its interview, including audio where off-the-record conversation was redacted, but Judge Beverly Cannone said that those "redacted materials suggest that the account she gave to Boston Magazine may have differed in certain respects from expected evidence at trial and from other accounts she has given; however, the redactions prevent the Commonwealth from fully understanding the defendant's statements."
A lawyer for Boston Magazine and Voss has previously said that reporters have the right to keep confidential information private.
Read will be retried for murder in April.
