Judge scolds Karen Read’s defense for discovery violations on federal crash experts
For the second time in two months , the judge overseeing Karen Read 's murder trial dinged her defense team for violating its obligations to turn over material to prosecutors.
Judge Beverly Cannone determined that Read's defense had not fulfilled its reciprocal discovery obligations with regard to a pair of accident reconstructionists first hired by the federal government. The decision came after the first day of testimony in Read's second trial .
Cannone also determined the defense violated a court order requiring it to turn over additional material concerning the experts. She told both sides she intends to send the experts, Daniel Wolfe and Andrew Rentschler, an order for production of records — namely, their communications with Read's lawyers.
Both men will have to appear in court for a hearing on Friday, away from the jury.
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan said Tuesday that the defense turned over records showing 99 texts to Wolfe and six to Rentschler. Read's lawyers spent more than two hours on the phone with Wolfe across 20 different calls and nearly an hour on the phone with Rentschler over 23 calls.
"I find it difficult to accept that these are all for scheduling purposes," Brennan said.
Many of those text messages — between Read attorney Alan Jackson and the experts, who work for the firm ARCCA — were deleted, Robert Alessi, another lawyer for Read, admitted.
But Alessi said the defense had turned over every text message that did exist and there was nothing more they were required to turn over, despite Brennan's insistence that prosecutors were still in the dark.
"We can't be in violation of not turning over something that doesn't exist," he said.
All the communications were turned over in response to an order from Cannone that the defense do so.
Brennan is also asking Cannone to bar the experts from testifying to any new testing they have done in response to a report produced by a prosecution expert. The defense has said ARCCA will likely not have a report documenting its testing until May, which Brennan said would create a significant disadvantage for the prosecution.
"It is ambush," he said. "It is unfair, and we have no ability at this point to reconcile or deal with new opinions and new information."
"They should not be allowed to offer absolutely anything new," Brennan added.
But Alessi said the defense was moving as quickly as it could in response to new information from the prosecution.
Read's lawyers did not receive the conclusions of the prosecution expert until February and then did not get permission to retain ARCCA from the federal government until late March, Alessi said.
"We acted expeditiously in response to the information we're getting," he said, noting that the defense has the right to rebut the conclusions of a prosecution expert.
Cannone did not rule on whether ARCCA can testify as to any new conclusions.
What exactly prompted the government to retain ARCCA for a federal investigation into O'Keefe's death remains unclear. Brennan has said the investigation is closed.
The U.S. Attorney's office for Massachusetts will not confirm or deny the existence of investigations.
Karen Read murder case
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