BOSTON — The newest chapter within the Karen Read saga strikes to the state’s highest court docket, the place her attorneys Wednesday are hoping to persuade judges that a number of costs associated to the demise of her Boston police officer boyfriend needs to be dropped.
Read is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe together with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022. Read’s attorneys argue she is being framed and that different legislation enforcement officers are liable for O’Keefe’s demise. A choose declared a mistrial in June after discovering jurors couldn’t attain an settlement. A retrial on the identical costs is ready to start in January, although each side requested Monday for it to be delayed till April. 1.
The protection is predicted to reiterate arguments made in briefs to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that making an attempt Read once more on costs of second-degree homicide and leaving the scene can be unconstitutional double jeopardy.
Defense attorneys stated 5 jurors got here ahead after her mistrial to say that they have been deadlocked solely on a manslaughter depend and had agreed that she wasn’t responsible on the opposite counts. But they hadn’t informed the choose.
The protection additionally argues that affidavits from the jurors “mirror a transparent and unambiguous resolution that Ms. Read is just not responsible” and assist their request for a evidentiary listening to on whether or not the jurors discovered her not responsible on the 2 costs.
Read’s protection attorneys cited a ruling within the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, during which a federal appeals court docket earlier this yr ordered the choose who oversaw his trial to research the protection’s claims of juror bias and decide whether or not his demise sentence ought to stand.
“Under the Commonwealth’s logic, no defendant claiming that the jury acquitted her however didn’t announce that verdict can be entitled to additional inquiry, irrespective of how clear and well-supported her declare,” in keeping with the protection transient.
The protection additionally arguing that the choose abruptly introduced the mistrial in court docket with out first asking every juror to substantiate their conclusions about every depend.
“There is not any indication that the court docket gave any consideration to options, most notably inquiry relating to partial verdicts,” in keeping with the protection transient. “And counsel was not given a full alternative to be heard. The court docket by no means requested for counsel’s views, and even talked about the phrase mistrial.”
In August, a choose dominated Read might be retried on these costs. “Where there was no verdict introduced in open court docket right here, retrial of the defendant doesn’t violate the precept of double jeopardy,” the choose, Beverly Cannone, stated in her ruling.
In its transient to the court docket, prosecutors wrote that there’s no foundation for dismissing the costs of second-degree homicide and leaving the scene of the accident.
They famous within the transient that the jury stated 3 times that it was deadlocked earlier than a mistrial was declared. Prosecutors stated the “defendant was afforded a significant alternative to be heard on any purported different.”
“The defendant was not acquitted of any cost as a result of the jury didn’t return, announce, and affirm any open and public verdicts of acquittal,” they wrote. “That requirement is just not a mere formalism, ministerial act, or empty technicality. It is a basic safeguard that ensures no juror’s place is mistaken, misrepresented, or coerced by different jurors.”
Prosecutors stated Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, and O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, had been ingesting closely earlier than she dropped him off at a celebration on the house of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston officer. They stated she hit him together with her SUV earlier than driving away. An post-mortem discovered O’Keefe had died of hypothermia and blunt drive trauma.
The protection portrayed Read because the sufferer, saying O’Keefe was really killed inside Albert’s house after which dragged exterior. They argued that investigators targeted on Read as a result of she was a “handy outsider” who saved them from having to think about legislation enforcement officers as suspects.