A judge in the US state of Massachusetts has rejected Karen Read’s request to dismiss part of her murder charge in the alleged killing of her boyfriend, a police officer, paving the way for a retrial next year.
Norfolk County Judge Beverly Cannone on Friday morning denied Read’s request to dismiss two of the three charges against her, saying some jurors said after the mistrial that they planned to acquit her of the charge of first-degree murder.
Cannone declared the trial void on July 1 after the jury wrote several letters to the judge informing them that they were in a hopeless stalemate.
But days later, Read’s lawyers claimed that five jurors had independently stated that they had actually intended to acquit Read of second-degree murder and hit-and-run charges – but they disagreed on the manslaughter charge.
Read’s team asked that the dismissed jurors be brought back to court to question them about their verdict on each count, part of her lawyers’ efforts to have those two counts dismissed.
“Because there was no public and publicly certified verdict in this case, the defendant was not acquitted of any of the charges,” Cannone’s decision states. “The jury’s only unanimous decision here was their statement to the court that they were ‘at an impasse’ and could not reach an agreement.”
Cannone claimed that Read’s lawyers had not raised any objections to declaring a mistrial, even though the jury had “multiple opportunities” to do so over the course of two days in which they returned notes expressing their disagreement.
And the judge said it would be “inadmissible” to summon the members of the panel to court again to question them about their deliberations.
David Traub, a spokesman for the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, said the trial is scheduled to resume on Jan. 27.
“We believe the judge’s decision is consistent with nearly 200 years of case law,” Traub said.
Read is accused of running over her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her Lexus SUV and leaving him to die in his friend’s yard in Canton, Massachusetts, as a snowstorm was approaching on January 29, 2022.
She has consistently maintained her innocence and claimed she was the scapegoat for a vast law enforcement conspiracy, a theory that has earned her a cult-like following.
Read’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday morning.
