Kerns trial slated for Oct. 15:
Excuse me, but I’ve heard this before…
I’m just over it,” Tobin “Toby” Kerns said last April.
With these words, Kerns, 18, captured the frustration and exhaustion he and his family have suffered through over the past two years-two long and cumbersome years peppered with bumps, curves, holdups and setbacks since his 2004 arrest.
But come October, it will all be over.
On Thursday, Judge Louis Coffin announced an Oct. 15 start date for Kerns’ trial, which will take place in Plymouth Juvenile Court. The trial will take place over the course of five days until Oct. 20, Coffin said.
Kerns was arrested for his alleged connection to a detailed plan to orchestrate a Columbine-like attack on Marshfield High School in September, 2004 after three students-Joseph Nee, Daniel Farley and Joseph Sullivan- all former MHS students, gave Kerns’ name to police in connection with the plot.
Nee, 20, was arrested in October of that year after Farley and Sullivan later came to police implicating his involvement in the planned attack. According to Kern’s father, Ben, Nee lived with them for a few weeks during the spring of 2004. He claims Nee, not his son, was the one behind the planned attack and was the one surfing dangerous sites on the Web.
Kerns and Nee are being tried separately on charges of promotion of anarchy, conspiracy to commit murder and threatened use of a deadly weapon, but both have maintained their innocence since their arrests. Nee, who was 18 at the time of the incident, is set to be tried in Brockton Superior Court while Kerns, who was then only 16, will be tried as a juvenile. If convicted, both could serve up to 43 years in prison.
Still no word on when Joe Nee goes to trial.
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