Karen Read’s defense pushes for charges to be dropped in murder case

BOSTON — Lawyers for Karen Read filed a petition with the state’s highest court Thursday to support earlier arguments that two charges in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend should be dismissed.

Their brief came in response to a petition prosecutors filed with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court earlier this month opposing the dismissal of second-degree murder charges and abandonment of the scene (leaving only the involuntary manslaughter charge).

Read is accused of hitting John O’Keefe with his SUV in January 2022 and leaving him for dead in a snowstorm. Read’s attorneys argue that he was framed and that other law enforcement agencies were responsible for O’Keefe’s death. A judge declared a mistrial in June after finding that jurors could not reach an agreement. A retrial on the same charges is scheduled to begin in January.

The defense brief argues that retriing Read on a second-degree murder charge and leaving the scene would be unconstitutional double jeopardy.

Defense attorneys said five jurors came forward after the mistrial and agreed that they were deadlocked only on the involuntary manslaughter charge and that he was not guilty on the other counts. But they didn’t tell the judge.

The defense also argues that the jurors’ statements “reflect a clear and unequivocal verdict that Ms. Read is not guilty” and supports its request for an evidentiary hearing on whether the jurors found her not guilty on the two charges.

Read’s defense attorneys cited a ruling in the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; In that case, the federal appeals court earlier this year ordered the judge overseeing the case to investigate defense allegations that the juror was biased and decide whether the death penalty applies.

“Under the Commonwealth’s logic, no defendant who claimed that the jury acquitted him announced that the verdict would be subject to further investigation, no matter how clear and well-supported his claim was,” according to the defense brief.

The defense also argued that the judge suddenly announced the mistrial in court without first asking each juror to confirm his conclusions on each count.

“There is no indication that the court considered alternatives, particularly the inquiry into partial verdicts,” according to the defense brief. “And the counsel was not given a full opportunity to be heard. The court never asked for counsel’s opinion or even mentioned the word mistrial.”

In August, a judge ruled that Read could be retried on those charges. In her decision, Judge Beverly Cannone said, “Where a verdict is not pronounced in open court, a retrial of the defendant does not violate the principle of double jeopardy.”

Prosecutors wrote in their brief to the court that there was no basis for dismissing the second-degree murder charge and abandoning the scene of the accident.

In the summary, they noted that the jury said three times it was deadlocked before a mistrial was declared. Prosecutors said the “defendant was given a meaningful opportunity to be heard about any alleged alternatives.”

“The defendant was not acquitted of any charges because the jury did not return, announce, or confirm any clear and public verdict of acquittal,” they wrote. “This requirement is not a mere formality, a ministerial decision or an empty technicality. “This is a fundamental safeguard to ensure that no juror’s position will be mistaken, misrepresented, or challenged by other jurors.”

Prosecutors said Read, a former assistant professor at Bentley College, and O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, drank heavily before dropping him off at the home of Boston police officer Brian Albert. . They said he hit her with his SUV before driving away. An autopsy revealed O’Keefe died from hypothermia and blunt force trauma.

The defense cited Read as the victim and said O’Keefe was actually killed in Albert’s home and then dragged outside. They argued that investigators focused on Read because he was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to treat law enforcement officers as suspects.