A judge in the US state of Massachusetts on Friday rejected a request to drop two of the charges against Karen Read, who is accused of murdering her boyfriend, before her retrial in January.
Read is accused of hitting her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, who worked as a Boston police officer for 16 years, with her car in 2022 and leaving him for dead. She is charged with second-degree murder, intoxicated manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal collision.
Read’s first trial began on April 16. On July 1, the judge declared the trial void after the jury declared it had reached a conclusion on the fifth day of deliberations.
Defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the murder and fleeing the scene charges. At a hearing on August 9, the defense claimed that several jurors said they disagreed only on the manslaughter charge.
“We cannot simply accept the fiction that the jury was deadlocked on all three counts,” defense attorney Martin Weinberg said at the hearing.
Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool
Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone said the jury had not reached an official verdict on any of the charges.
“Since no verdict was pronounced in open court here, the reopening of the defendant’s case does not violate the principle of double jeopardy,” Cannone wrote.
She also claimed that the defense attorneys “agreed” with the court’s miscarriage of justice.
“Although the court did not specifically ask defense counsel whether he objected to the finding of a mistrial, defense counsel had multiple opportunities to raise objections if he did,” Cannone said.
Cannone called the defense’s new stance “a remarkable turnaround.”
“The defense now argues that the result it twice requested was ‘sudden’ and ‘unexpected,'” Cannone wrote.
At the hearing, Read’s legal team argued that it would be unconstitutional to retry her on the charges on which the jury had allegedly already reached a verdict.
“Order a hearing, Judge. Make sure Ms. Read is not the first person in Commonwealth history to be charged with murder again by the same prosecutor who tried and failed to convince the jury of her guilt before,” Weinberg said.
Norfolk Deputy District Attorney Adam Lally also mentioned the lack of an official ruling on the charges in his argument against the motion.
“The closing statement submitted to the court refers to several charges,” Lally said.
Read’s retrial is scheduled to begin on January 27.
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