Judge Beverly Cannone dismissed a request on Tuesday to prevent crucial defense experts from providing testimony in support of Karen Read during her retrial for murder charges in connection with the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
Despite concerns raised by the prosecution regarding missing text messages between the experts at the ARCCA crash reconstruction firm and the defense team, as well as the failure to meet discovery deadlines, Cannone acknowledged the prosecution’s grievances but ultimately decided to permit the experts to testify.
Cannone emphasized the importance of ensuring a fair trial for the defendant, stating, “I understand completely the commonwealth’s argument, the ambush that has been set upon here. However, a defendant’s right to a fair trial is paramount to everything. So I’m going to allow the ARCCA witnesses to testify. I’m going to allow what I expect will be a very robust cross-examination.”
Tuesday marked a week since opening statements, but the experts’ report is not expected to be finalized until May 7, more than two weeks after the start of the trial. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan called that unfair to the state, but Cannone denied his motion to block the experts from testifying.
Whiffin testified that the 2:27 timestamp is related to the time when McCabe opened a new tab in her phone’s internet browser. But no search was made at that time. Instead, the search came hours later in the same tab. His testimony supported the prosecution’s timeline.
The trial was expected to take six to eight weeks. Tuesday marked the first full week since opening statements began on April 22.
Whiffin defended his timestamp findings and the change in Cellebrite software, noting that if he were wrong, other forensic scientists would have spotted it and publicized their findings.
He also pointed to a similar case in Europe that he said involved the same browser tab timestamp discrepancy and was resolved the same way.
