Prosecutors in the Karen Read case say that the trial judge did not err in declaring a mistrial and that “there was no meaningful alternative” to that decision.
The arguments by prosecutors with the Norfolk DA’s office came in response to Read’s SJC appeal seeking to dismiss the murder charge against her.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, was indicted June 9, 2022, on charges of second-degree murder, OUI manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident causing the death of John O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer and her boyfriend, on Jan. 29, 2022.
After a nine-week trial and nearly 24 hours of deliberation, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly J. Cannone on July 1 declared a mistrial and scheduled a new trial to start in January. Her action followed several notes from the jury stating that they were at an impasse.
Roughly a week after that mistrial, Read’s attorneys filed a motion to have the murder and leaving the scene of an accident causing death — Counts 1 and 3 — be dropped, claiming that a number of jurors came forward to say that the jury had been ready to acquit Read on those charges and were only hung on Count 2: OUI manslaughter.
The argued that this was effectively an acquittal on those charges and thus Read should not have to reface those charges in a new trial.
Read trial prosecutor Adam Lally also disclosed in a filing that jurors had contacted him with similar information but that he responded by saying that although the Commonwealth, as the new SJC filing paraphrases, “would welcome the opportunity to discuss the evidence or its case, it was ethically prohibited from inquiring into the substance of the jury’s deliberations and could not promise confidentiality, as it might be required to disclose any such communications to the defendant or the court.”
Cannone denied Read’s motion to dismiss the charges on Aug. 22, with a concluding thought that “where there was no acquittal on any of the charges in the defendant’s first trial, there is no risk of subjecting the defendant to double jeopardy by retrial on all the charges.”
Read’s lawyers then appealed straight to Massachusetts’ highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court. The appeal case has been quite active, with even the ACLU jumping in earlier this week with their own filing supporting Read’s arguments.
In the prosecution’s new 53-page response brief, they argue that the case should go back to the Superior Court and that Cannone’s denial of the petition to dismiss be upheld.
The brief makes an exhaustive reckoning of the juror notes, Cannone’s decision and Read’s subsequent efforts to have the two charges dismissed and points straight to the situation leading up to Cannone’s mistrial declaration to conclude that she “soundly exercised her discretion in declaring a mistrial on the ground of manifest necessity.”
“The jury gave no indication it had reached a unanimous verdict on any charge, and the defendant argued at the time against finding any such unanimity. There was no viable alternative to a mistrial, but even so, the defendant was afforded a meaningful opportunity to be heard on any purported alternative,” the brief states.
The brief makes the argument that Read was not acquitted of any charge because the jury did not return such a verdict.
“That requirement is not a mere formalism, ministerial act, or empty technicality,” the brief states. “It is a fundamental safeguard that ensures no juror’s position is mistaken, misrepresented, or coerced by other jurors.”
This is a developing story.
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