The judge in Karen Read's looming retrial has issued a gag order on the lawyers in the case, preventing them from sharing information that might sway potential jurors or prejudice an impartial trial.
The order from Judge Beverly Cannone, issued Friday, is a win for prosecutors, who'd asked that she limit what the defense team said outside of court. But Cannone denied the prosecution's request to sanction Read lawyer David Yannetti for quoting in a motion information that wasn't supposed to be shared with the public, something Yannetti has said was a mistake.
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Cannone explained that she didn't agree to prosecutors' previous request for a gag order because there was no trial date set at the time, minimizing the possibility that comments made outside of court could affect what happened there.
But the new request cited interviews done since that ruling, including last month, in which defense attorney Alan Jackson either disparaged witnesses in the case or allowed Read to disclose what happened during secret grand jury proceedings.
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"Based, on these interviews and defense counsel's consistent, publicly-reported interactions with reporters and bloggers throughout the first trial, the Court agrees with the Commonwealth that an order limiting extrajudicial statements of counsel is both appropriate and necessary to ensure a fair and impartial trial and finds that no reasonable, less restrictive alternative to the order is available," Cannone wrote.
Read Cannone's ruling on the gag order here:
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan had argued in favor of the ruling at a recent court hearing, saying, "the ongoing, deliberate, purposeful poisoning of the potential jury pool is not only wrong and unfair, it needs to be stopped."
The gag order won't affect Read, who told reporters after that hearing, "I like talking. I like to reveal the truth.
Gag orders are rare, but not out of question, NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne said, before Cannone made the ruling.
The retrial is due to being April 1, and motions and rulings have been arriving at Norfolk Superior Court. Also Friday, Cannone denied Read's request to bring another another lawyer in the case who's been also representing blogger Aidan "Turtleboy" Kearney in his witness intimidation and harassment case, which is tied to Read's. Cannone cited the possibility of a conflict of interest from working on the two cases at the same time.
Cannone has not yet ruled on Read's motion to dismiss the case.
