A pair of potential ballot questions reshaping the work landscape for app-based drivers will be permitted to advance, Massachusetts highest court ruled Thursday, clearing the way for voters to make landmark decisions with national implications.
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What is a SERT report, and why did the Karen Read jurors want to see it?
At one point during Wednesday’s deliberations in the Karen Read murder trial, jurors came out and asked Judge Beverly Cannone if they could see the “SERT” report from the Massachusetts State police search of the property at 34 Fairview Road in Canton, Massachusetts, where John O’Keefe’s body was found.
Cannone denied their request, telling them all the evidence had already been presented.
“You have all the evidence in the case,” Cannone said. “What you have is the evidence in the case. You won’t be receiving any additional evidence.”
Read is charged with murder in the 2022 death of O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend. She’s accused of dropping him off at another officer’s house party and then hitting him with her SUV. But her defense team says she was framed.
But what was the SERT report jurors requested Wednesday, why did the judge deny their request, and could their question give us a hint at which direction their deliberations are leaning?
On June 3, jurors heard testimony from Massachusetts State Police Lt. Kevin O’Hara, the team commander for hte state police Special Emergency Response Team, or SERT. He testified about how his team was called out to 34 Fairview Road in Canton on the day of O’Keefe’s death to assist investigators with an evidence search.
O’Hara also testified that his team helped recover six or seven pieces of broken tail light and one of O’Keefe’s sneakers. Jurors were shown a series of photos of the snowy yard displaying where the pieces of tail light and the sneaker were found.
Michael Coyne, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, gave some insight into the jurors’ question and Cannone’s response during Wednesday’s episode of “Canton Confidential.”
“Well, what she’s saying is the evidence is closed at this point, so therefore, only in rare circumstances would you ever reopen it,” he said. “And the SERT return — the return from the search warrant itself that police have to file in court — was not part of the evidence the commonwealth offered or that the defendant offered. Since evidence is closed, they only can use what was properly submitted before the court. So they can’t reopen the case to provide that evidence.”
Coyne said he also thinks the jurors’ question indicates they are taking the case very seriously.
“What it says is they’re going to dive into this a lot more deeply than I think the defendant would like… and certainly some of us had thought that the jury would not be out, we’re already over 10 hours,” he said. “Not that the time means whether we’re looking at guilty or not guilty, but my guess is Ms. Read is sleeping a little less soundly tonight than she was the last couple nights.”
Sue O’Connell, NBC10 Boston’s courtroom insider and commentator, had a similar take.
“What it says to me is they are reviewing the evidence, which is exactly what you want jurors to do, right? Not just go right in and take a vote and not look back and see what the testimony was and what the evidence presented in the courtroom was. What it says to me is they are looking at all the aspects of this case.”
She said the SERT testimony contained a lot of different information about the number of tail light pieces that were found on the lawn at 34 Fairview Road and where and how the evidence was stored.
“There were some small inconsistencies and some big inconsistencies,” O’Connell said. “So I believe that question was, ‘Hey, we’re trying to put this together to figure out what happened.’”
“Of course, the rub here is there is no SERT report,” she added. “There might be one, but it was not introduced into evidence. So they went back having to figure out for themselves how those tail light pieces fit together and how it helps them to form their opinion on whether Karen Read is going to be found guilty or not guilty.”
After storms hit region, dry and mild weather returns to New England for next few days
Strom clean up continues across southern New England from the severe storms Wednesday night. Luckily, the weather cooperates over the next couple of days.
Sunshine emerges Thursday, but as soon as it does, a secondary “cool front” will move in from northwestern New England. This, combined with daytime heating, will allow clouds to develop and some isolated pop-up showers to develop through sunset as the front heads through.
Highs Thursday stay in the low 70s north, low 80s south. As the temps go up, our humidity lowers to dewpoints in the 50s by evening. Then, Thursday night, some extremely dry air returns, so it’s another comfy and dry night to open the windows.
Lows dip to the 50s in city centers and into the 40s across the suburbs and north and west.
Highs on Friday and Saturday stay in the mid to upper 70s with tons of sun and dry air. It’s a beautiful couple of days!
Humidity returns by Sunday as temps increase to the mid-80s. Another storm system approaches and will bring in a round of storms and showers by the afternoon through evening.
If the timing coincides with peak daytime heating hours, we may again see a round of severe storms. Stay tuned on this since the timing can still change.
After Sunday, high pressure returns and keeps away any rain through Wednesday next week for any July 3rd cookouts and celebrations.
Independence Day has a chance for rain or storms late in the day, but for now it does not look like a washout and the chance is pretty low.
Could there be a hung jury in the Karen Read trial? It happened last year with the same judge
With jurors entering their third day of deliberations in the Karen Read murder trial, more people are starting to ask whether there could be a hung jury in the controversial case.
If the jury fails to reach either a unanimous or majority verdict after a reasonable time, the judge can declare a hung jury and the case would have to be retried before a new jury.
Prosecutors say Read struck John O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend, with her SUV and then left the scene in January 2022, leaving him unconscious in the snow after a night of bar hopping. Read’s lawyers argue that she was framed.
On Wednesday night’s episode of “Canton Confidential,” we asked legal expert Michael Coyne, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, what the probability of a hung jury is in the Read trial and what that would mean.
“You know, again, this case breaks the mold,” Coyne said. “The fact is there are people — my sister-in-law says it’s a hung jury, others say guilty, others say not guilty — I don’t think we know yet.”
“What we do know is there are people, inside Massachusetts and across the country, who are strongly on one side or the other. If one of those folks is on the jury and feels just as strongly as a lot of people out there and the other 11 are going the other way, you have a hung jury.”
Statistically, Coyne said the chances of a hung jury are relatively low. But Judge Beverly Cannone — the judge presiding over the Read trial — did recently declare one in another recent case.
“But, in fact, if you remember, the last big murder case before Judge Cannone was the one from the Weymouth police officer, and initially that was a hung jury on the murder charge, and they came back and retried him and he was found guilty.”
Coyne was referencing the murder trial of Emanuel Lopes, who was charged in the killings of Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna and 77-year-old Vera Adams in 2018. Lopes was ultimately found guilty following his second trial earlier this year.
Cannone had declared a mistrial in the original proceedings in July of 2023 after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision after three weeks of testimony and days of deliberation.
“It’s not an anomaly that you’d see a hung jury, especially in a case as contentious as this,” Coyne said. “That may very well be where we’re at, and what that really means is then the government has to try that case again, in all likelihood. Imagine that.”
Overnight storms down trees and wires, thousands without power across New England
Massachusetts and parts of southern New England got hit by some serious storms overnight, bringing lightning, strong winds and heavy rain to the area.
There was even a tornado warning just before midnight in Plymouth and Bristol counties.
The wo…
Woman charged with murder following fatal stabbing on Cape Cod
A woman is facing a murder charge after she allegedly stabbed a man to death in a car on Cape Cod on Wednesday night.
Around 7:19 p.m. Wednesday, Barnstable police received a 911 call reporting a crash in the area of TD Bank on Route 28 in the vill…
