Who’s who in the Karen Read trial? Judge, prosecutor, defence...

The defence rested yesterday in Karen Read’s murder trial, setting the stage for closing arguments to be delivered today. Jurors at Norfolk County Court in Dedham, Massachusetts, will then be tasked with deciding whether or not Read is guilty of killing her boyfriend nearly two and a half years ago.

Who is Karen Read and what is she accused of?

Read, a 45-year-old equity analyst, is accused of murdering her partner John O’Keefe in Canton, Massachusetts. It is alleged that Read hit O’Keefe with her SUV during snowy conditions in the early hours of 29 January 2022, before leaving him to die.

Who was John O’Keefe?

A veteran officer in the Boston Police Department, having served on the force for 16 years, O’Keefe had been dating Read for two years. According to Boston Magazine, he had been living in Canton since 2014 and was raising his niece and nephew. O’Keefe’s sister had died of a brain tumour and, soon afterwards, his brother-in-law had been killed by a heart attack.

On the morning of 29 January, O’Keefe’s body was found on a snowbank outside the Canton home of Brian Albert, a fellow police officer. Per NBC Boston, an autopsy found O’Keefe had suffered abrasions on his right arm, two black eyes, a cut on his nose, a laceration on the back of his head and multiple skull fractures. Hypothermia is also thought to have contributed to his death.

Read claims she was framed

Read is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a deadly collision. However, her defence attorneys allege she is being framed for O’Keefe’s death as part of a law-enforcement cover-up. Read faces a life sentence if found guilty of second-degree murder, with parole possible after at least 15 years behind bars. “I’m ready to be done with this,” she said as she left the courthouse yesterday. “It’s been a long haul.”

Who is the judge in the Karen Read case?

Norfolk County superior judge Beverly Cannone has been overseeing the trial, which began in late April. Cannone, who was appointed to the bench by former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick in 2014, last year rejected a defence motion to recuse herself from the case late last year. In September, Cannone dismissed question marks over her impartiality, amid claims that she personally knew individuals involved in the case. “That simply is not the truth,” Cannone said, per CBS, adding: “There’s no actual lack of impartiality, there’s no reasonable or credible appearance of lack of impartiality.”

Who are Karen Read’s lawyers?

Read has hired an elite legal team, led by the criminal defence lawyers David Yannetti and Alan Jackson. “These particular attorneys are extraordinarily experienced; they’re real legal heavyweights with a great deal of gravitas in the legal community,” the legal expert Peter Elikann told Boston.com. “Exceptionally, highly respected lawyers. Veterans who have certainly been doing this for quite some time.”

A former prosecutor, Jackson secured a murder conviction against music mogul Phil Spector in 2009. As a defence lawyer, his notable former clients include the actor Kevin Spacey. Jackson defended Spacey in 2019, when the former House of Cards lead was accused of groping a man in Nantucket. The charges were finally dropped.

According to Jackson’s profile on the website of his law firm, Werksman Jackson, he “specializes in high-stakes criminal cases that demand the absolute best”. In an interview with Boston.com, he said of the Read case: “Once I heard the full story of John’s death and saw some of the evidence, including the injuries on his right arm, I knew something was terribly wrong. I wanted to help. I got into this business to right wrongs and there was no way I was going to walk away from this case.”

Jackson features on Boston Magazine’s list of ‘super lawyers’, as does Yannetti. Also an ex-prosecutor, Yanetti’s major scalps as a defence lawyer include a 2008 acquittal in the retrial of Roland Douglas Phinney Jr, a Massachusetts man who had spent 16 years in prison for murder. In his opening statement during the Read trial, Yanetti described law enforcement’s investigation into O’Keefe’s death as “shoddy and biased”, per Mass Live.

Who is the prosecutor in the Read trial?

Adam Lally is the lead prosecutor in the trial at Norfolk County Court. He is an assistant to Norfolk County district attorney Michael Morrissey. According to NBC, Lally has claimed during the trial that problems in Read and O’Keefe’s relationship appeared to grow more acute in the period before the latter’s death.

In his opening statement in April, Lally told jurors: “Karen Read is guilty of [...] striking the victim Mr O’Keefe with her car, knocking him back onto the ground [and in the process] striking his head on the ground, causing bleeding in his brain and swelling, and then leaving him there for several hours in a blizzard, with temperatures in the teens, wind swirling around, snow piling up on his body.”