DEDHAM – The Massachusetts Superior Court in Dedham has issued restrictions on protestors during the criminal trial of Karen Read, 44. Jury selection in the cases is scheduled to begin 0n Tuesday.
In the court’s order, issued April 4, no individual may demonstrate in any manner, including carrying signs or placards, within 200 feet of the courthouse complex, including the parking area behind the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds building.
The court also ordered that “no individual will be permitted to wear or exhibit any buttons, photographs, clothing, or insignia, relating to the case pending against the defendant or relating to any trial participant, in the courthouse during the trial.” Also, law enforcement officers testifying or in the audience are also prohibited from wearing their department issued uniforms or any police emblems in the courthouse.
The court says the restrictions are to ensure the defendant has the right to a fair trial by an impartial jury of the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution. The court’s order says that protestors have shouted witnesses, confronted family members, and “displayed material which may or may not be introduced as evidence during the trial.”
Read faces a second-degree murder charge in the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, who was reportedly Read’s boyfriend. She also faces manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in personal injury or death charges. Prosecutors allege that Read intentionally backed her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe and left him to die in the snow. Police arrested Read four days after O’Keefe’s body was found in Canton on Jan. 29.
Read says she dropped O’Keefe off at a house party and drove about three miles back to his home in Canton. She claims when she awoke at 4:30 AM and found her boyfriend hadn’t returned home, she went looking for him and found him on the snow covered lawn of the home she dropped him off at. Read’s lawyers have alleged that O’Keefe was severely beaten inside the home, attacked by the family’s German shepherd, and dumped outside.
The people inside the home claim O’Keefe never entered the home where the party was taking place.
The US Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts has convened a grand jury to investigate the state’s handling of the murder prosecution.
