Jury selection for Karen Read’s second trial will resume Monday morning, after four days of selection last week ended with 10 jurors seated.
More than 200 people were summoned to Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham for potential jury service in the Read case each day this week. Not all are likely to show up, with about 70 new potential jurors being questioned each day.
Almost 300 potential jurors were questioned individually at sidebar across four days of selection last week.
- Read more: What makes jury selection in the Karen Read trial so hard? It’s not just publicity
Each day of selection begins with Cannone reading a statement of the case, laying out what prosecutors say Read did: backing her SUV into her then-boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, outside a Canton home following a night of drinking.
She tells jurors that Read is presumed innocent and has no obligation to prove her innocence during the trial.
Cannone also references the intense publicity that has consumed the Read case, saying, “public comment will likely continue,” but “the rule of law will be upheld.”
Read thanks the potential jurors after each lawyer introduces themselves.
Cannone then reads out the entire witness list, which contains 150 names, before she asks the entire group a series of questions, including whether they have seen or heard about the case and if they have a “substantial hardship” that could prevent them from serving.
Jurors are then left to fill out a three-page questionnaire.
Only after all that are jurors called up individually to sidebar to be questioned by the judge and the lawyers.
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident causing injury or death in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe.
