A second trial against Karen Read should not take place because the jury had actually agreed in a stalemate that she was not guilty on two of three counts, her defense team argued during a hearing in Dedham on Friday.
Attorney Martin Weinberg, who joined Read’s defense team after the trial concluded, argued that although the jury never formally returned a verdict on the two charges it had supposedly agreed on, holding a second trial would subject Read to “double jeopardy,” which is prohibited by the Constitution.
“Don’t make Ms. Read the first person in Commonwealth history to be charged with murder again,” Weinberg said.
Read is accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her car and leaving him to die in a snowstorm on Jan. 29, 2022, after a night of drinking with friends. O’Keefe, 46, was found unconscious the next morning on the lawn in front of a home in Canton, where the group had returned after visiting a local bar.
Later that morning, his death was confirmed in hospital.
Read pleaded not guilty and her defense team claimed that she was being framed for O’Keefe’s death. Her attorneys, David Yannetti and Alan Jackson, say O’Keefe was actually killed in the house and the crime was covered up by police.
After two months of testimony, Judge Beverly Cannone declared the trial void on July 1 because the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict after several days of deliberations. Prosecutors have said they plan to retry Read, and a second trial is tentatively scheduled to begin on January 27, 2025.
In the days following the mistrial, Read’s defense attorneys said they were contacted by five of the 12 jurors, who said the jury had unanimously found the defendant not guilty on two counts: second-degree murder and hit-and-run causing injury or death.
According to the defense, they only disagreed on the second charge, namely manslaughter under the influence of alcohol.
The jury list was seized and none of the jurors made public statements. However, in court documents, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said it received an unsolicited voicemail from a juror saying it was “true what recently came out and that the jury is unanimous on counts 1 and 3.”
However, prosecutors said they could not participate in discussions about jury deliberations because they were confidential and jurors’ anonymity could not be guaranteed.
Weinberg said Friday that if the court does not find the testimony of the five jurors convincing enough to drop the two charges, Cannone could hold a closed hearing where members of the first jury could testify anonymously, or ask the jurors for signed statements.
He cited other cases where jurors have been recalled after the conclusion of a trial to provide information about possible bias or outside influences in their deliberations, but acknowledged that there was no precedent for such a procedure in a situation such as the Read case.
Prosecutor Adam Lally said that not only was there no precedent, but there were “decades, if not centuries” of precedent that suggested the court should not accept the testimony of the five jurors as a formal acquittal. In addition, the defense was “pretty much twisting the logic into a pretzel.”
“No verdict has been reached,” he said.
He called Weinberg’s suggestion to recall the jury “totally inappropriate.” He reiterated that jury deliberations were confidential and pointed out that the jury may have been exposed to outside influences since the end of the trial.
Weinberg argued that Cannone should have asked the jury if they could agree on a partial verdict. Lally disagreed, saying Read’s lawyers had every opportunity to object at the time of the verdict.
“This is a lawyer who had no fear or qualms about raising arguments against the court’s decisions, even when it involved an apparent insult or action against the interests of the defendant,” Lally said.
Cannone considered the arguments and made no decision on Friday on whether to dismiss the lawsuit.
