The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will issue its ruling this morning in Karen Read’s appeal asking that her murder charge be dropped on the basis of a double-jeopardy claim.
“Today’s opinions: Read v. Commonwealth (SJC 13663); Gannett v. Board of Bar Overseers (SJC 13449); Commonwealth v. Maraj (AC 23-P-1142), available after 10 a.m.,” the short tweet from Office of the Reporter of Decisions of the SJC announced this morning.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. A trial last year ended in mistrial and she is scheduled for a second trial on April 1.
Prosecutors say that she struck O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer who she had dated for roughly two years, with her Lexus SUV after a night of heavy drinking and left him to freeze and die on a Canton front yard in the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
Read’s defense attorneys have countered throughout the case that Read has been framed by corrupt and incompetent local and state cops and prosecutors working with the owner of the home whose lawn O’Keefe was found. Defense attorneys say that O’Keefe made it into the home that night and was beaten to death inside.
Her attorneys say that several jurors reached out after the mistrial to say that they were only hung on Count 2, which is the OUI manslaughter charge, and were ready to acquit on the other charges. They say that no other juror has disputed this claim and that to continue to try her on these charges would be double jeopardy.
“The very day after the trial court declared a mistrial, counsel for Ms. Read began receiving unsolicited communications from five of the twelve deliberating jurors … indicating, unequivocally and unconditionally, that the jury had a firm and unwavering 12–0 agreement that Ms. Read is not guilty of two of the three charges against her, including the charge of murder in the second degree,” attorney Martin Weinberg wrote in a 55-page argument to the SJC.
Weinberg had argued the same thing to Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone, who proceeded over Read’s trial earlier this year, using affidavits from Read’s trial attorneys detailing the juror disclosures. Cannone was not moved and a month ago denied the motion to drop the second-degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident causing death charges in Read’s new trial.
This is a developing story.