A Massachusetts judge has rejected a request to drop murder charges against Karen Read following a mistrial last month in the high-profile case, after her defense attorneys said four jurors reported that the jury had found her not guilty of the offense.
Read was charged with killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022. Prosecutors allege she hit O’Keefe with her car and left him to die in the middle of a snowstorm after the two got into an argument earlier that day.
Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial on July 1 after the jury said it had failed to reach unanimous consensus on the fifth day of deliberations. The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said it plans to retry the case.
Read was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. She had pleaded not guilty.
Read’s attorneys asked the judge to drop the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident at the retrial. They argued in court papers that retrying her on those charges would violate double jeopardy protections because, based on the subsequent statements of all four jurors, the jury had unanimously decided to acquit Read of the charges.
Karen Read looks on at jurors during her trial at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts, on July 1, 2024.
Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool, FILE
In his decision released Friday, Cannone concluded that double jeopardy was not an issue “because the defendant was not acquitted of any charges and defense counsel consented to the court’s declaration of a mistrial.”
Cannone acknowledged the jurors’ statements cited in defense documents, but said any agreement among jurors on the charges “cannot be considered an acquittal for purposes of double jeopardy.” Because no verdict was announced in court, Read was not acquitted of any charges, the judge said.
Prosecutors had asked the judge not to dismiss both counts, arguing in court papers that the defense’s motion “lacked merit or legal basis” and calling the defense’s claims that the jury had reached a unanimous decision to acquit on both counts “unfounded and sensational.”
Read has vigorously denied the allegations, and his lawyers have said a fellow officer was involved in O’Keefe’s death and collaborated with others to cover up the case.
The new trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 27, 2025, “to ensure that we have sufficient time,” Cannone said at a hearing last month.
“I assume whatever I decide to do on the motion to dismiss will be appealed,” Cannone said at the time.
