DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Defense attorneys for Karen Read are expected to argue Friday to dismiss two charges in the death of her Boston police officer, focusing on jury deliberations that led to a mistrial.
Read is accused of driving her SUV into a snowstorm in January 2022, leaving John O’Keefe to die. Her two-month trial ended when jurors declared they were hopelessly deadlocked and a judge declared a mistrial on the fifth day of deliberations.
A new trial is scheduled to begin on January 27.
In several motions filed since the mistrial, the defense claims that four jurors said the jury unanimously returned acquittals on the counts of premeditated murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, while disagreeing on the remaining count of manslaughter. To retry them on those two counts would be unconstitutional, the jurors said.
They also reported that a juror told them, “no one believed that she hit him intentionally, or even believed that she hit him intentionally.”
The defense also argues that Judge Beverly Cannone abruptly announced the dismissal without asking the jury about their position on the three charges against Read and without giving attorneys for both sides a chance to comment.
Prosecutors called the defense’s motion to dismiss charges of first-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident an “unproven but sensational post-trial claim” based on “hearsay, conjecture and a legally inappropriate reliance on the content of the jury’s deliberations.”
However, in another motion, prosecutors confirmed that they received a voicemail from someone claiming to be a juror confirming that the jury had reached a unanimous decision on both counts. They then received emails from three people who also identified themselves as jurors and wanted to speak to them anonymously.
Prosecutors said they told the trio in their response that they would welcome a discussion of the state’s evidence in the case, but that they were “ethically prohibited from inquiring into the content of the jury’s deliberations.” They also said they could not promise confidentiality.
The defense is opposing a retrial and wants the judge to conduct a “post-verdict interview,” questioning all 12 jurors if necessary, to produce the record they say should have been prepared before the mistrial was declared, showing that the jury “unanimously acquitted the defendant of two of the three charges against her.”
Prosecutors argued the defense had an opportunity to respond. After a jury briefing indicating that no agreement had been reached, the defense told the court there had been plenty of time and argued for the jury to be declared deadlocked. Prosecutors wanted to continue deliberations, which they did before a mistrial was declared the next day.
“Contrary to the representations in defendant’s motion and supporting affidavits, defendant advocated and consented to a mistrial because she had ample opportunity to object and instead remained silent, thereby removing any double jeopardy bar to retrial,” prosecutors wrote in their motion.
Read, a former associate professor at Bentley College, had been drinking with O’Keefe, a 16-year-old member of the Boston Police Department. O’Keefe was found outside the home of another Boston police officer in Canton, Massachusetts. An autopsy found that O’Keefe had died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
The defense claimed that O’Keefe was killed in the house after Read dropped him off, and those involved decided to pin the blame on her because she was a “convenient outsider.”
