Judge refuses to dismiss Karen Read murder case after July mistrial

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — A judge has ruled that Karen Read can be retried for the murder of her Boston police officer boyfriend, rejecting arguments that jurors said after the mistrial that they unanimously found Karen Read not guilty on two of the three charges against her.

Read is accused of driving her SUV into John O'Keefe and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022. Her two-month trial ended in July when jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked and a judge declared a mistrial on the fifth day of deliberations.

Judge Beverly Cannone's decision, released Friday, means the case can go to trial, which is scheduled for Jan. 27.

The defense had presented evidence that four jurors stated after the trial that the jury had unanimously acquitted on the counts of premeditated murder and leaving the scene of a crime resulting in death, but had been deadlocked on the remaining count of manslaughter.

Retrying her on both counts would be unconstitutional and double jeopardy, the lawyers argued. They also reported that a juror told them, “Nobody believed that she hit him on purpose or that she hit him on purpose.”

However, the judge said the jury did not inform the court during its deliberations that it had already reached a verdict on any of the charges. “Since no verdict was announced in open court here, a retrial of the defendant does not violate the principle of double jeopardy.”

Earlier this month, Read's attorney Marty Weinberg asked Cannone to consider several options to prove that the jury acquitted Read on both counts.

Weinberg said she could ask the jury whether to reach a verdict on the three counts or to let the four jurors question anonymously. If she did not want to accept the defense's statements, she could authorize the defense to ask the jury “if they would make an affidavit that could be two sentences – we have unanimously decided to acquit Ms. Read on counts 1 and 3.”

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.”

Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally asked Cannone to deny the defense's motion at the hearing earlier this month.

Lally argued that at no point did the jury indicate that it had already reached a verdict on the charges, that it had been given clear instructions on how to reach a verdict, and that the defense had ample opportunity to object to a declaration that the trial would not be successful.