Prosecutors within the Karen Learn case are requesting extra knowledge from the defendant’s SUV that they argue would additional bolster their case, pinpointing the automobile’s “exact areas” the morning that former Boston police officer John O’Keefe died.
Hank Brennan, appointed as particular prosecutor for Learn’s second trial scheduled for late January, is requesting extra testing be performed on the defendant’s Lexus’ telematics system, which he mentioned shops key proof.
Brennan filed the request in Norfolk Superior Courtroom final Friday.
Shanon Burgess, a digital forensic professional who’d carry out the testing, “has opined that important knowledge was doubtless not acquired in the course of the chip-off process,” final December, Brennan wrote in his submitting.
The process, Brennan highlighted, is a digital knowledge extraction that bodily removes reminiscence chips from a automobile’s infotainment and telematics programs.
“Mr. Burgess, by way of his coaching and expertise, believes the proof acquired within the ‘chip-off’ was incomplete and that extra knowledge that was not acquired exists on the chips,” the prosecutor wrote.
Particularly, the request features a evaluate of the chips beforehand eliminated and a subsequent reattachment to the board in Learn’s automobile, and “up to date programming and present software program variations” can be used to “maximize the possibilities of a whole acquisition.”
Prosecutors are in search of observe logs which they described as an “ordered sequence of GPS coordinate measurements saved by a satellite tv for pc navigation system,” proof that could be “exculpatory or inculpatory.”
The testing may additionally “probably establish any Wi-Fi connections that may (be recognized) by the automobile because it traveled on its route,” Brennan wrote.
“The Commonwealth supplied and launched at trial video depicting among the defendant’s travels on January 29, 2022,” he wrote in his request. “The extra knowledge, prone to be retrievable would help in figuring out the exact areas that the defendant’s Lexus traveled from the time that the defendant struck and killed Mr. John O’Keefe till the time the automobile was seized.”
Prosecutors say Learn struck O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer, and her boyfriend of two years, along with her SUV following a drunken argument and left him to die in a snowstorm.
O’Keefe died on the age of 46.
Protection attorneys counter that outdoors actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and native police to border Learn for his homicide.
Massachusetts State Police Trooper Joe Paul, a collision specialist and crash reconstructionist, testified within the first trial that knowledge he recovered from Learn’s Lexus SUV and O’Keefe’s accidents had been “in keeping with a pedestrian strike.”
Paul additionally testified that whereas no knowledge was recovered from the “airbag management module,” which means it didn’t register a crash, that isn’t uncommon for collisions with pedestrians.
“Placing a pedestrian isn’t going to alter the rate of the automobile as shortly as two automobiles crashing,” he mentioned.
Learn’s protection staff rested their case within the first trial after three witnesses, together with two employed initially by the FBI, mentioned the accidents sustained by O’Keefe and the harm to Learn’s SUV had been inconsistent with a pedestrian strike, no matter different proof.
Brennan, who was not concerned with the primary trial, requested a listening to inside fourteen days to “allow immediate testing and manufacturing of related discovery.”
Learn has pleaded not responsible and awaits retrial on fees of second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorcar beneath the affect and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. Her two-month felony trial led to July when the choose declared a mistrial after jurors mentioned they had been deadlocked.
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