The prosecutors in the Karen Read case are challenging her defense’s ability to bring their boss to the witness stand in the upcoming trial.

Juror empanelment is set to resume tomorrow in Norfolk Superior Court and the trial could begin as soon as Thursday.

Attorneys from both sides filed lists of possible witnesses before jury selection got started last week. The prosecution listed 87 potential witnesses. The defense listed 77 of their own potential witnesses, but with a great amount of overlap with the prosecution’s list. However, one name stood out: Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey.

“When a defendant resorts to ‘the extraordinary means’ of calling a prosecutor as a witness, he must make ‘a satisfactory offer of proof’ as to the need for testimony from the prosecutor,” prosecutor Adam Lally wrote in the motion, specifying that the material the prosecutor is called to account should be “relevant” and “material,” and not simply the “cumulative” facts of the case.

The parties apparently debated this issue during a private sidebar with Judge Beverly Cannone last Thursday. Lally said in the motion that defense attorneys indicated they would ask Morrissey to testify regarding any possible “conflict” with the Canton Police Department and the subsequent assignment of the investigation to the Massachusetts State Police unit in his office to the case.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, was indicted in June of 2022 for second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter, and leaving the scene of a collision causing death in the Jan. 29, 2022, death of John O’Keefe, 46, a 16-year member of the Boston Police Department and Read’s boyfriend of two years.

Prosecutors say she struck him with her Lexus SUV outside a Canton home after a night of heavy drinking and left him to die in the cold. The defense says someone else killed O’Keefe and police and prosecutors have engaged in a cover-up.

Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey as seen in a video he posted in August 2023 slamming “internet” allegations in the Karen Read murder case. (DA screengrab)