Karen Read trial: 3rd day of jury selection sees a pool of 57 potential jurors

BOSTON — Attorneys on Thursday have begun interviewing a third batch of potential jurors in the white-hot Karen Read murder case at Norfolk Superior Court.

The pool for today was significantly smaller than the prior two days of the jury selection, which began on Tuesday. While the other days had 90 or more potential jurors each, Thursday saw a total of 57, which allowed for slightly roomier seating in the courtroom’s gallery. Over the previous two days, attorneys have selected 11 of the 16 total jurors needed for the trial to begin.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, was indicted in June of 2022 for second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a collision causing death in the Jan. 29, 2022, death of John O’Keefe, 46, a 16-year member of the Boston Police Department and Read’s boyfriend of two years. Prosecutors say she struck him with her Lexus SUV outside a Canton home after a night of heavy drinking and left him to die in the cold.

The case has amassed not only significant local attention and a rabidly vocal local following, but also national press attention. The degree of attention prompted Judge Beverly Cannone to order a 200-foot buffer zone to keep any demonstrators from influencing jurors, a decision which was contested on First Amendment grounds.

The notoriety of the case is reflected in the juror questionnaire, which was released Wednesday, wherein three of the 29 questions directly ask potential jurors about the media coverage and another indirectly alludes to it by asking “Have you already started to make up your mind about this case?”

It’s a significant question. During the three days of jury selection, a vast majority of potentials responded during general questioning that they had at least heard of or even discussed the Read case.

Of the 57 present on Tuesday, 41 said they had heard or discussed the case. Of them, a further 20 said they had developed an opinion and eight of those said they believed they were biased in the case one way or another.

Jurors were sworn in at 9:50 a.m. Thursday following a delay that Judge Beverly Cannone attributed to checking with the Dedham District Court across the street to see if they would need part of the jury pool. They did not, so the Superior Court received the full pool.

The day began with Cannone calling the attorneys to a roughly two-minute sidebar to discuss an unspecified “issue.”

Ahead of the hearing, the prosecution filed two notices of evidence discovery. Six police reports, all from the Massachusetts State Police, were filed as evidence, as was a three-page mitochondrial DNA report from BODE Technologies, which presumably has to do with the hair police say they found on the passenger-side rear taillight of Read’s SUV.

_____