Who are the lawyers in the high-profile murder case?

But for Jackson and Yannetti, the relentless media glare is nothing new.

Jackson represented Hollywood star Kevin Spacey when he was prosecuted by then-Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe’s office for allegedly groping a teenager at a Nantucket bar in 2016. The defense discovered messages had been deleted from the accuser’s cellphone, and he declined to testify further when told he could be prosecuted for destroying evidence.

The government dropped the charge against Spacey.

Years earlier as a prosecutor, Jackson secured the 2009 murder conviction of legendary rock producer Phil Spector in Los Angeles. Spector was found guilty of fatally shooting actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.

Jackson told the magazine of Pepperdine University, his law school alma mater, in 2009 that he was “relieved” for Clarkson’s family following the guilty verdict after an earlier trial ended with a hung jury.

“I cannot imagine a more satisfying career than that of a public prosecutor,” he told Pepperdine Magazine, before he moved to private practice as a defense attorney. “Our job is to seek justice for those who have been victimized. Those who hire us to do this job — the people of the State of California — expect the very best from us. They demand that we perform our job ethically and honorably, and they expect that we will fight for the rights of those who often cannot or will not fight for themselves.”

Mark J. Geragos, a prominent criminal defense lawyer based in Los Angeles who once squared off against Jackson in a legal saga dubbed the “Japanese O.J. case” by media in Japan, had high praise for his old adversary when reached by email.

The case that brought them both to the courtroom involved Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura, who hanged himself in his cell in 2008 while awaiting trial on a charge of conspiracy to murder his wife in California in 1981. Geragos represented Miura, and Jackson was prosecuting.

“Since going into private practice he’s done well,” said Geragos, whose client roster has included Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Winona Ryder, and Sean “Diddy” Combs. “He’s a very good courtroom lawyer with jury appeal and knows the law.”

Yannetti, who has appeared as a criminal defense analyst on Fox News and CNN, also worked big cases as a Middlesex County prosecutor, including when he won the convictions of two men in the 1997 kidnapping and murder of Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old from Cambridge.

“The Curley case was one of the most emotional experiences of my career,” Yannetti said in a 2009 statement. “I will not forget that shocking crime or the heartbreak endured by the Curley family and their community. Preparing for the Curley trial was heart-wrenching, and its one of those instances where I was so glad to see justice served.”

His clients in private practice have included Roland Douglas Phinney Jr., who was acquitted in 2008 of murdering a 22-year-old nursing student in Lowell in 1980, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reported. Phinney had been granted a new trial in 2003.

“This case could really be a movie or book,” Yannetti told the publication after the 2008 verdict. “I’m representing an innocent man who has been framed for a murder he didn’t commit and who has unjustly served 16 years in prison without really having any hope of ever getting out.”

Martin G. Weinberg, a prominent criminal defense lawyer in Boston, said Yannetti is well-regarded in the Massachusetts legal community.

“Although I do not know David Yannetti on a personal basis, he enjoys a reputation amongst the lawyers who know and respect his advocacy as a credible, competent, capable, and zealous criminal defense attorney,” Weinberg said via email.

Yannetti wrote in March on X, formerly Twitter, that police officers have privately reached out to voice their support in the Read case, even though he and Jackson have publicly alleged that O’Keefe died at the hands of corrupt officers.

“The most insightful and supportive feedback I have received on the #KarenRead case has come — off the record — from police officers, both current and honorably retired,” Yannetti wrote. “Nothing angers a good cop more than the corruption of bad cops.”

Jackson and Yannetti will face a prosecution team led by Assistant District Attorneys Adam Lally and Laura McLaughlin.

Lally’s previous notable cases include the prosecution of Yan Long Chow, a Quincy man acquitted in 2019 of charges that he killed his ex-wife, a popular Chinatown restaurateur, by running her over with a minivan in 2016, and the 2014 conviction of a Randolph hairdresser who killed a woman and severely injured a couple in a 2011 drunken-driving crash.

McLaughlin’s also worked in the spotlight before, including an appellate matter involving a Watertown teenager who tried to enter Milton High School in 2015 with a gun in his backpack, the Patriot Ledger reported.

District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey leads the Norfolk County prosecutor’s office.

He released a highly unusual video statement in August condemning what he described as the “absolutely baseless” harassment and vilification of witnesses in the case.

“I am asking the Canton community and everyone who feels invested in this case to hear all of the actual evidence at trial before assigning guilt to people who have done nothing wrong,” Morrissey said. “And certainly before taking it upon yourself to harass citizens who, evidence shows, have done nothing in this matter but come forward and bear witness.”

Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.

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Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected].