After a series of admittedly “not so good” days for the prosecution in the Karen Read case as a key witness failed to connect with viewers, it was the defense’s turn to suffer a setback on Tuesday as a star witness fizzled under scrutiny.
The jury was not present for Tuesday’s extended Voir Dere hearings to determine if three defense witnesses should be allowed to testify in the case. Two of the three witnesses were previously used by a federal agency when it was investigating the district attorney’s prosecution of Karen Read at the request of the Read family.
Currently, the federal agency has not issued a report or a final statement on their investigation into supposed wrongdoing on the part of the district attorney’s office. Before the trial began, all major witnesses for the prosecution who had interviewed for the agency were told that they were not suspected of doing anything wrong and would not be facing charges.
This left a lot of information for the defense to use as it was a rare case where the defense’s call for the federal government to investigate the prosecution of their client actually did a lot of the leg work that they’ll be relying on to defend read from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s prosecution.
Two of those resources, Dr. Andrew Renstchler and Dr. Daniel Wolfe, are both from a company called ARCA that contracts out to provide crash reconstructions for the government. The men were part of a team that wrote a report that the defense claimed would exonerate Read as their report showed that the injuries on victim John O’Keefe were inconsistent with that of a vehicle strike.
The defense claimed that they were unable to interview the men until now due to their status as witnesses for the federal agency, which is why their backgrounds and what they were testifying about were withheld from the discovery process. The defense claimed they would be learning about the evidence that they would be presenting at this Voir Dire hearing.
Judge Beverely Cannone was skeptical of the defense’s assertions at best, grilling attorney Alan Jackson over the exclusion of the witnesses and their data in the discovery process. Tuesday’s testimony for both men saw both praised for their good looks and their poise while testifying (as it is their professions to do so), as compared to Joseph Paul, the prosecution’s witness in crash reconstruction.
However, once on the stand, the men did not absolutely rule out data indicating that O’Keefe was struck by Read’s vehicle. Based on the fact that their evidence was not enough to be included in findings by the federal agency and the federal agency did not press charges or intervene in the case based on their findings, it did not seem that what they brought to the case would be that damaging to the prosecution of Read.
They were a disappointment to the defense, as prosecutor Adam Lally really had no real objection to having the men’s limited testimony included as part of the defense as their findings were inconclusive.
This was not the case for the third witness the defense presented on Tuesday. Before the immaculate and radiant visages of government contractors Renstchler and Wolfe, the defense presented Dr. Marie Russell, a witness who was going to prove that the wounds on O’Keefe’s arm were due to dog bites or scratches.
Russell set off red flags with Judge Cannone as the defense admitted that they only found her to testify weeks into the case. The doctor admitted that she had read about the case in the Boston Globe and came forward as she had previous experience in dog bites and thought she could help the defense. She then contacted a friend of Jackson’s in Los Angeles, who put her in touch with the defense in the case.
Her story conflicted with the story of Attorney Alan Jackson, who claimed that the defense sought out Russell’s testimony themselves. Judge Cannone dressed down Jackson for the untruth that had been presented to her about the origins of Russell’s testimony and found that the defense had committed a rule 14 violation.
Jackson became indignant to the accusation that the defense did anything wrong and dramatically stood up to the notion that they should somehow be punished for any wrongdoing in the case. Judge Cannone stood firm in her ruling that a violation in the discovery process had occurred as the defense did not properly disclose anything about their expert witness.
It may have gone better for the defense if the witness had provided competent or compelling evidence on the stand, but her testimony boiled down to the fact that she had she did studies in the 1990s and was involved in hundreds of cases involving police trained animals, again in the 1990s, and with all of her training and expertise she could only say that the marks on O’Keefe’s arms were probably made by a dog either scratching or biting O’Keefe.
Russell did not provide a written report of her findings, offered no evidence of why her conclusions should be accepted and admitted that she did not look at the evidence provided that ruled out canine DNA on the wounds of the victim or the extensive bite marks documented by investigators from the dog that the defense claimed attacked O’Keefe.
Her testimony was a dramatic and spectacular failure for Jackson, as after all the controversy and mystery surrounding the expert, she literally testified that she was a fan who wanted to be involved in the case and really had nothing to offer with her testimony.
Judge Cannone indicated that she’d have a ruling on Russell’s testimony on Thursday, after the Juneteenth holiday break, and if she allowed Russell to testify, she’d give prosecutor Adam Lally an opportunity to present a rebuttal witness out of fairness.
The Karen Read murder trial continues Thursday.
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