BOSTON — Accused murderer Karen Read’s defense team won’t be able to suggest during their opening statement that injuries to victim John O’Keefe were caused by anyone inside the home on whose lawn he died on 2022 if the prosecution has its way.

“The Commonwealth moves for an order that defense counsel refrain from claiming in their opening statement that any of the victim’s injuries were caused by any person or animal that was inside the home at 34 Fairview Road,” special prosecutor Hank Brennan requested in a Thursday motion, yet another last-minute preparation before the trial begins on Tuesday.

Read, 45, of Mansfield, is accused of striking Boston Police Officer O’Keefe, 46, her boyfriend of about two years, with her SUV and leaving him to freeze and die in a snowstorm on the front lawn of that Canton address on Jan. 29, 2022. She is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of an accident causing death.

The defense counters that O’Keefe actually made it inside the home and was beaten to death there by others with help from the home’s German shepherd named Chloe and then placed on the front lawn. They say the prosecution’s whole theory is just a cover-up for well-connected bad actors inside the home.

To that effect, they have placed dog bite experts — as well as experts to testify to other aspects of the alleged conspiracy — on their witness list and the prosecution has its own experts ready to rebut them.

Brennan in his motion notes that the defense is barred from referencing its claims of a third-party killer, or killers, “prior to establishing a viable basis supported by admissible evidence” and thus to reference it at all in the opening would be “improper.”

The prosecutor in the most recent hearing in the case also introduced the idea of hiring an “independent reader” to read statements and text messages that are introduced at trial. It’s a request that Read’s team argued against in the hearing, with attorney Alan Jackson saying not only would it be appropriate for the witnesses to read their own messages, but that was how it was done during the first trial last year.

Jackson also said that a reader’s “inflection” could color the messages beyond their content, an argument expanded on the team’s Friday 8-page formal objection to such “inappropriate ‘theater’ especially given the high probability that such a staged delivery could be unduly prejudicial against Ms. Read.”

“Notably, at no point in its writings or oral arguments has the Commonwealth provided any legal authority or basis for its desired use of independent readers in this context, namely for the reading of text messages,” the defense objection states.

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