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By Jenna Sundel
News Reporter
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A Massachusetts judge denied a motion on Friday to dismiss two of the charges against Karen Read, who is accused of murdering her boyfriend, ahead of her January retrial.
Read is accused of hitting her boyfriend John O'Keefe, who worked as a Boston police officer for 16 years, with her car and leaving him to die in 2022. She is charged with second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death.
Read's first trial began on April 16. The judge declared a mistrial on July 1 after the jury stated it was deadlocked on the fifth day of deliberations.
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Defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the murder and leaving the scene charges. At a hearing on August 9, the defense claimed that several jurors said they were only deadlocked on the manslaughter charge.
"We can't just accept a fiction that the jury was at an impasse on all three counts," defense attorney Martin Weinberg said at the hearing.
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Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone said the jury never presented an official verdict on any of the counts.
"Where there was no verdict announced in open court here, retrial of the defendant does not violate the principle of double jeopardy," Cannone wrote.
She also claimed that defense lawyers had "consented" to the court's mistrial ruling.
"Although the Court did not specifically ask defense counsel if they had any objection to the declaration of a mistrial, counsel had multiple opportunities to voice an objection if they in fact had one," Cannone said.
Cannone called the defense's new stance "a remarkable turnaround."
"Defense counsel now argues that the result they twice advocated for was 'sudden' and 'unexpected,'" Cannone wrote.
At the hearing, Read's legal team had argued it was unconstitutional to try her again on the charges where the jury had allegedly reached a verdict.
"Order a hearing, judge. Don't make Ms. Read be the first person in the history of the commonwealth to face re-prosecution for murder at the same prosecutor's office that tried to once and failed to persuade the jury she was guilty," Weinberg said.
Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Adam Lally had also mentioned the lack of an official verdict on any charges in his argument against the motion.
"In the final note that was submitted to the court, they refer to the charges in plurality," Lally said.
Read's retrial is scheduled to begin on January 27.
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