A Jury Wouldn’t Convict Karen Read. Now She Wants Her Charges Dismissed
Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman who was accused of murdering her late boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe in 2022, is asking Massachusetts’ Supreme Court to dismiss her charges, the Associated Press reports. The news comes after Read’s case garnered national attention and ended with a mistrial after jurors couldn’t come to a decision.
Read was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of personal injury and death. She pleaded not guilty. O’Keefe’s body was discovered in the snow after Read dropped him off at a party on Jan. 29, 2022. Surveillance footage showed she had several drinks while at the bar, and she admitted in a frantic early morning call to O’Keefe’s niece that she remembered very little about the previous night and that O’Keefe had not come home. After returning to the home where the party was to begin a search, Read and two other women found O’Keefe’s body and called first responders. According to testimony from officers, Read said, “I hit him” repeatedly while crying to EMT, but her defense argued that she asked the statement as a question, saying, “Did I hit him?”
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The prosecution painted Read as an alcoholic girlfriend who ran from the scene of the crime. To the defense, she was a flawed girlfriend framed by members of the Boston Police Department. The result was a jury unable to come to a decision. On July 1, 2024, the 12-person jury informed the trial judge, Judge Beverly Cannone, that they were deadlocked. “Despite our commitment to the duty entrusted to us, we find ourselves deeply divided by fundamental differences in our opinions and state of mind,” a note sent to the judge read. “The divergence in our views are not rooted in a lack of understanding or effort but deeply held convictions that each of us carry, ultimately leading to a point where consensus is unattainable.” Their decision remained firm even after they were asked to deliberate a second time.
Because of the mistrial, another trial was scheduled to begin on April 1, 2025. But Read’s attorneys are arguing that a new trial would violate the double jeopardy clause, which prevents defendants in America from being prosecuted twice for the same crime. “Today’s appeal goes to the core issues regarding double jeopardy protection that safeguard defendants, in this case Ms. Read, from the risk of reprosecution for the very same offenses for which a prior jury was discharged,” Martin Weinberg, Read’s attorney, told the court Wednesday, per the AP.
Much of the debate for whether Read will be retried revolves around the jury’s conclusions. According to Weinberg, at least two members of the jury told him they were only deadlocked on one of the charges. According to this conversation, which Weinberg said was not communicated to the judge, the jury agreed unanimously that she was not guilty of second-degree murder or leaving the scene of a crime.
Read’s attorneys are now asking for a hearing, where the jurors can state on the record whether they had agreed on all the charges but one. But both the state’s legal team and the Massachusetts Judicial Court seemingly remain skeptical on whether the request is legally sound. Read was already denied a dismissal in a lower court in August, after Cannone ruled that being retried after a mistrial didn’t go against double jeopardy rules.
Since her arrest, Read’s case has become a staple for dissection and commentary among TikTok’s true crime community. During her trial, Read became a fixation on the app, garnering thousands of videos with millions of views over the last week. Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has yet to make a decision in the case.
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