Karen Read returns to Norfolk County Superior Court in Dedham on Friday afternoon.
A month after her murder trial ended in a mistrial due to a “completely divided” jury, her lawyers are arguing that she should not stand trial on two of the three counts prosecutors are charging her with because she is scheduled for a second trial in January 2025.
The hearing begins at 2 p.m. Prosecutors had previously described attempts to drop the charges as unfounded and without legal basis.
Presiding Judge Beverly Cannone will hear arguments on a motion by Read’s lawyers to have the two counts thrown out of a second trial. The lawyers claim they were told by five jurors that the jury had reached a verdict of not guilty on both counts but was confused by the judge’s instructions.
Read’s lawyers are seeking to dismiss charges of first-degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident causing injury or death. A second trial on those two counts would be a violation of the Double Jeopardy Act, Read’s lawyers argue in their court filings.
In the defense’s most recent statement, attorney David Yannetti wrote that “Juror B” contacted him and said, “No one believed she had hit him intentionally or even knew she had hit him.”
Prosecutors said Read struck her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV while drunk shortly after midnight on January 29, 2022. The couple had been out drinking at bars and she had dropped him off at another Boston police officer’s house party in Canton.
While the prosecution claims she hit O’Keefe with her SUV, the defense claims he went into the house and others are responsible for his death.
Read’s trial lasted more than two months and ended in a miscarriage of justice. The following day, jurors began addressing Read’s defense attorney, court records show.
Attorney Alan Jackson wrote in an affidavit that “Juror D” said that “the jury did indeed discuss telling the judge that they had unanimously agreed to NOT GUILTY on counts 1 and 3, but they were unsure if they were allowed to say so.”
The jury felt it had to make a decision on all counts before it could return a verdict on each count, Jackson wrote.
After deliberating with the jury, they decided to inform the court that they had not reached an agreement on the second count and awaited further instructions on the other two counts that had been decided, Jackson wrote.
“Juror D stated that he/she was confused and upset that such further instructions never came,” Jackson wrote.
MassLive could not confirm attorneys’ claims that the jury unanimously agreed on any of the charges.
Jack Lu, a former Massachusetts judge, told MassLive last month that he did not find the double jeopardy arguments very convincing and said he “rejected” the lawyers’ arguments because the jury did not reach a “valid verdict.”
Last Friday, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said in a court filing that it received an unsolicited voicemail from a juror saying it was “true what recently came out and that the jury was unanimous on counts 1 and 3.”
The voicemail was left on July 21. Adam Lally, the lead prosecutor in Read’s case, said a second voicemail was left on July 26. It said they could confirm that the jury was “unanimous” on two of the three counts against Read.
But, Lally said, prosecutors did not respond to the messages because they were “ethically prohibited from engaging in discussions about the jury deliberation process.”
Read, 44, is accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her car after a night of drinking and leaving him to die in the snow outside a Canton home. Her lawyers claim she was framed and is the victim of a law enforcement conspiracy.
