Watch Live: Final hearing in Karen Read trial before closing arguments Friday

CBS News

2 days ago

Jurors in the Karen Read trial have Thursday off while attorneys and Judge Beverly Cannone hold a final hearing in the trial. Closing arguments are scheduled to take place Friday, while deliberations will likely begin later in the day.
You can watch Thursday's hearing live on CBS News Boston when it begins at 10 a.m. by clicking on the video player above.
Jurors will be deciding Read's fate on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of personal injury and death.
Prosecutors say that after a night of heavy drinking, Read hit and killed her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, with her Lexus SUV and left him to die in the snow outside 34 Fairview Road in Canton. Read's attorneys say several people, including law enforcement, are trying to frame her.
Karen Read final hearing
Read's defense rested its case late Wednesday after Andrew Rentschler, a biomechanist from ARCCA, completed a second day of testimony and said he concluded O'Keefe was not hit by a vehicle. Rentschler was the 11th witness called by the defense after the defense called 38 people to testify.
The prosecution was expected to call several rebuttal witnesses at the conclusion of Rentschler's testimony. Instead, once the defense rested, special prosecutor Hank Brennan said he would not be calling any more witnesses.
A Thursday hearing without the jury present will establish instructions the jury will receive before they begin deliberations.
"It's a lengthy process. Not only do you need the specific jury instructions for each charge – second degree murder, manslaughter while OUI, the leaving the scene – but you need the reasonable doubt, what is evidence? Defendant not testifying," WBZ-TV legal analyst Katherine Loftus said. "Volume, there's a lot of it. It takes a couple hours. And then they'll start deliberating by late morning or Friday afternoon."
Read's first trial ended in a mistrial due to a "starkly divided" hung jury. In unsuccessful arguments that were rejected as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, Read's defense tried to have two charges thrown out because they said jurors revealed after the trial that they were unanimous to acquit her on charges of murder and leaving the scene. The jurors said they were only deadlocked on manslaughter.
Those discussions were never revealed in open court before the mistrial was declared.
Karen Read jury instructions
Loftus said that because of some of the confusion from jurors during Read's first trial, she expects more focused instructions given to the jury this time.
One topic likely to be discussed Thursday is the defense's request for a "missing witness instruction" for Brian Albert, Brian Higgins, and Michael Proctor.
Albert owned the home at 34 Fairview Road at the time of O'Keefe's death, and Higgins was in the home on the night in question. Both have been repeatedly called alternate suspects in the death of O'Keefe by the defense. Proctor was fired by Massachusetts State Police for his conduct as a lead investigator in Read's case. None of the men were called by the prosecution to testify.
The defense seeks a missing witness argument and jury instruction, which means the court "may instruct the jury that an adverse inference may be drawn from a party's failure to call a witness" under Massachusetts law.
During Read's first trial, deliberations began on June 25. Jurors first signaled they were deadlocked on June 28, and a mistrial was declared on July 1.