Judge Issues Ruling on Karen Read Murder Case After July Mistrial
A judge has ruled that Karen Read will be retried for the alleged murder of her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, and for leaving the crime scene. Read is accused of striking O’Keefe with her SUV during a snowstorm in January 2022 and leaving him to die. Following a mistrial in July due to a deadlocked jury, the judge determined a retrial could proceed, set to begin on January 27th.
The prosecution argues that Read had been drinking with O’Keefe prior to the incident and allegedly hit him before fleeing the scene. An autopsy indicated that O’Keefe died from hypothermia and blunt force trauma. Conversely, the defense claims O’Keefe was killed inside a colleague’s home and that investigators focused on Read as a “convenient outsider,” possibly to avoid implicating fellow law enforcement.
After the mistrial, defense attorneys presented claims that jurors had expressed a belief in Read’s innocence regarding the main charges. However, the judge maintained that there was no official verdict announced in court, allowing for a retrial without violating double jeopardy principles. The prosecution dismissed the jurors’ post-trial comments as speculative and lacking in legal backing.
A judge ruled that Karen Read can be retried for murder and leaving the crime scene in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, dismissing arguments that jurors told lawyers after the mistrial that they had unanimously agreed she was not guilty on the two charges.
Read, 44, is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him for dead in a January 2022 snowstorm. Her two-month trial ended in July when jurors declared they were hopelessly deadlocked and a judge declared a mistrial on the fifth day of deliberations.
Judge Beverly Cannone’s decision, released on Friday, means the case can move forward to a new trial set to begin January 27th.
Prosecutors said Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, and O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, had been drinking heavily before she dropped him off at a party at the home of Brian Albert, a fellow Boston officer. They said she hit him with her SUV before driving away. An autopsy found O’Keefe died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
The defense portrayed Read as the victim, saying O’Keefe was actually killed inside Albert’s home and then dragged outside. They argued that investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to consider law enforcement officers as suspects.
After the mistrial, Read’s lawyers presented evidence that four jurors had said they were actually deadlocked only on a third count of manslaughter, and that inside the jury room, they had unanimously agreed that Read was innocent of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. One juror told them that “no one thought she hit him on purpose or even thought she hit him on purpose,” her lawyers argued.
The defense also said the judge abruptly announced the mistrial in court without first asking each juror to confirm their conclusions about each count. Read’s attorney Marty Weinberg had asked Cannone to consider summoning the jurors back to court for more questions.
But the judge said the jurors did not tell the court during their deliberations that they had reached a 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 said in her ruling.
Prosecutors had urged the judge to dismiss what they called an “unsubstantiated but sensational post-trial claim” based on “hearsay, conjecture and legally inappropriate reliance as to the substance of jury deliberations.”
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally argued that the jury never indicated they had reached a verdict on any of the charges, were given clear instructions on how to reach a verdict, and that the defense had ample opportunity to object to a mistrial declaration.
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