Karen Learn’s lawyer pleaded with a Massachusetts choose to haul a dozen jurors again to courtroom over a month after her mistrial to corroborate claims by 4 panelists that they deliberate to acquit her of homicide.
“Carry the jurors in, choose,” Learn’s lawyer Martin Weinberg stated at a listening to Friday. “Hear from them. I urge you. It’s the proper factor to do.”
The 2-month trial resulted in a hung jury July 1 after the panelists despatched out a number of notes throughout their 5 days of deliberations, saying they couldn’t agree on whether or not to convict within the case accusing Learn, 44, of fatally mowing down her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, along with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm.
Prosecutors instantly after stated they deliberate to retry the sensational case.
However days later Learn’s attorneys knowledgeable Norfolk County Decide Beverly Cannone that 4 jurors got here ahead to inform the protection staff they really agreed to acquit her on two of the three counts she confronted — together with probably the most severe cost of homicide — and had been solely at an deadlock one lesser cost.
“We’re asking the courtroom to not shut the door to this new proof,” Weinberg stated throughout a roughly hour-long listening to, with Learn sitting on the protection desk. “Assist us examine this.”
Finally, if all of the panelists had been to inform the choose they deliberate to acquit Learn on two counts, Weinberg says the case wouldn’t be price retrying and would subsequently must be dismissed.
Prosecutor Adam Lally opposed Weinberg’s “inappropriate” request to deliver again the jury.
Lally stated the regulation protects the jury course of from being probed by attorneys and judges and so bringing them in to query them could be unlawful.
And the jury was clear in its notes they couldn’t attain settlement on greater than only one cost, Lally added.
“This jury instructed the courtroom a number of occasions that they reached an deadlock to the ‘costs,’” Lally stated. “They referred to the ‘costs’ twice.”
“There was no verdict returned by this jury,” the prosecutor stated, including that retrial may go ahead with none additional questioning of the since-dismissed panel members.
The choose didn’t concern a ruling Friday or say when she would decide.
Learn was charged with one depend of second-degree homicide, one depend of manslaughter whereas driving drunk and one depend of leaving the scene of a deadly crash. She faces life in jail if she’s convicted of the highest cost.
Prosecutors argued that she and O’Keefe had been out bar hopping earlier than she boozily dropped him off at a celebration along with his cop buddies — solely to again over him along with her Lexus SUV and depart him in a snowbank within the Canton, Mass. yard when a snowstorm was about to hit on Jan. 29, 2022.
However her attorneys have maintained she is the patsy in a sweeping regulation enforcement cover-up and that O’Keefe was really killed after a battle along with his buddies.
The speculation has galvanized a cult following of supporters of Learn who’ve usually proven up in droves exterior the courtroom throughout trial and hearings.
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