Closing arguments set for Friday in Karen Learn’s retrial for the dying of John O’Keefe

After practically eight weeks of testimony, Massachusetts prosecutors and protection attorneys for Karen Learn are anticipated to offer jurors their closing arguments on Friday as her retrial for the dying of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, nears its finish.

Prosecutors have accused Learn of hitting O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, together with her SUV in January 2022 throughout an evening out consuming with pals, alleging she struck O’Keefe whereas driving in reverse and left him to die exterior a house in Canton, Massachusetts.

Learn – whose first trial ended with a hung jury – insists on her innocence, and has pleaded not responsible to second-degree homicide, vehicular manslaughter whereas intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision leading to dying.

Learn, 45, has claimed to be the goal of a cover-up, alleging off-duty legislation enforcement inside that dwelling have been liable for O’Keefe’s dying and that they conspired to border her. However her protection at trial has been extra broadly centered on undermining the police investigation and providing jurors different theories for what, aside from Learn’s SUV, might need killed O’Keefe.

Actually, protection attorneys Thursday indicated they won’t argue a so-called “third-party wrongdoer” protection. Somewhat, the choose will enable them to argue the crime scene was not safe, to lift questions concerning the chain of custody of the proof and bias within the investigation.

The closing arguments Friday mark the apex of not one, however two trials which have divided these suburbs south of Boston for the higher a part of three years, spawning a vocal contingent of court docket watchers who fiercely advocate for the defendant, echo her allegations of police corruption and chant, “Free Karen Learn.”

Both sides will get one hour and quarter-hour on Friday to sum up their instances. Prosecutors will attempt to synthesize the various threads they explored into one compelling story, whereas the protection will work to seed sufficient “cheap doubt” in jurors’ minds to persuade them the Commonwealth failed to fulfill its burden of proof.

Each will probably be hoping their model resonates and leads jurors to render a verdict of their facet’s favor – one thing both sides was denied on the conclusion of the primary trial final July, when the jury was unable to achieve a unanimous verdict, forcing Massachusetts Superior Court docket Decide Beverly Cannone to declare a mistrial.

Learn didn’t testify in both trial, although she appeared to contemplate the thought all through the retrial. Prosecutors introduced clips taken from interviews Learn gave the media, attempting to make use of her phrases in opposition to her to focus on inconsistencies in her account and bolster their principle.

The case facilities on a window of time that began late on January 28, 2022, and stretched into the early morning hours of the next day.

That night, Learn and O’Keefe went out with pals to 2 bars in Canton, because the area braced for a historic snowstorm. The get together ultimately moved to a house at 34 Fairview Highway, and whereas Learn has mentioned she dropped O’Keefe off, witnesses who testified for the prosecution mentioned he by no means got here inside.

It’s the prosecution’s principle that O’Keefe exited the car, and that Learn put her SUV in reverse and pressed on the gasoline at about 75%. In keeping with testimony introduced at trial, prosecutors allege Learn hit O’Keefe at a velocity of about 24 mph, shattering her SUV’s taillight, sending the sufferer to the bottom and inflicting him blunt power trauma accidents to his head that incapacitated him, resulting in his dying.

When Learn returned to the scene the following morning with two different ladies, they discovered O’Keefe mendacity within the snow close to a flagpole within the yard of the house. Within the prosecution’s telling, when a paramedic who responded to deal with O’Keefe requested what occurred, Learn responded, “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

“And it was at the moment, by the phrases of the defendant, that she admitted what she had achieved that night time,” particular prosecutor Hank Brennan mentioned in his opening assertion. “That she hit John O’Keefe.”

Learn’s attorneys rejected this principle, arguing no collision occurred: Their specialists testified a few of O’Keefe’s accidents – particularly cuts and scratches on his arm – have been attributable to a canine, and that the harm to Learn’s taillight was inconsistent with it placing an individual.

The protection labored to undermine confidence within the investigation, highlighting sexist and offensive textual content messages the lead investigator, Michael Proctor, despatched concerning the defendant. Proctor was by no means referred to as to testify, however these messages finally led to his dishonorable discharge from the Massachusetts State Police.

In his opening assertion, protection lawyer Alan Jackson mentioned there was “mounting and overwhelming proof that there was no collision and John O’Keefe’s physique was moved onto that garden.”

Scientific proof, he added, “will set up that Karen Learn’s SUV was not broken by hitting a pedestrian and conversely, John O’Keefe’s accidents didn’t come from being struck.”

“People, the science is not going to lie, and the physics can not lie,” Jackson mentioned. “And that science will let you know with certainty there was no collision with John O’Keefe. You’ll add that to that rising mountain of cheap doubt.”