Prosecutors in the Karen Read case said that four jurors reached out to them since the mistrial — with at least one backing up the defense’s claim that the jury was unanimous in acquitting Read on two of the three charges against her, including second-degree murder.
Since the first trial of Read ended in mistrial on July 1, Read’s defense team has made multiple filings claiming a total of five jurors came forward to say the jury was only hung on Count 2: manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence. The jurors said that they were unanimous in acquitting Read on Counts 1 and 3, second-degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, respectively.
The defense argues that Read should only be tried on Count 2 in the new trial scheduled for January, since the jury has indicated post-trial that they would not convict on the other two. The prosecution fired back in a response saying, “The defendant’s unsubstantiated but sensational post-trial claim that the ‘jury reached a unanimous decision to acquit’ lacks any merit or legal foundation.”
The “Commonwealth’s Post-Trial Notice of Disclosure,” dated Thursday and docketed in the case Friday, states that prosecutor Adam Lally received multiple voicemails and emails from people identifying themselves as jurors stating the same thing.
“It is true what has come out recently about the jury being unanimous on charges 1 and 3,” the first juror said in a voicemail left on July 21, according to the filing. The same juror left another voicemail five days later, stating “Can confirm unanimous on charges one and three, as not guilty and as of last vote 9–3 guilty on the manslaughter charges … on the lower-level manslaughter charges.”
Read, 44, of Mansfield, is accused of striking Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, with her car and leaving him to freeze and die on a Canton front lawn on Jan. 29, 2022
Three additional jurors sent emails stating that they would be willing to speak anonymously. Prosecutors responded to the emails, according to the filing, by saying that request wasn’t possible.
The response stated the Commonwealth would “welcome the opportunity to discuss the evidence of the Commonwealth’s case, however we are ethically prohibited from inquiring as to the substance of your jury deliberations. That would include your individual or the jury’s collective thought process, the content of your deliberations, or the reasons for your decisions.”
The filing then summarizes the rest of the response: “the Commonwealth could not promise confidentiality and that the substance of any communications may necessitate disclosure to the defendant in court.
“All three jurors declined to further communicate with the Commonwealth and provided no information about the jury’s purported votes,” the filings states.
This is a developing story.