After Massachusetts' highest court denied Karen Read's request to have two of the charges dropped in her closely watched murder trial, she's filed an appeal in federal court, opening a new front in the legal saga.
"Ms. Read is currently facing an April 1, 2025 retrial in Norfolk County Superior Court, after a prior mistrial in July 2024. This Petition contends that such retrial will violate Ms. Read’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protections against Double Jeopardy," Tuesday's filing in Massachusetts' U.S. district court reads.
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The motion was filed the same day that Read and her lawyers were back in Norfolk Superior Court for a hearing on motions ahead of her retrial.
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The defense has said that several jurors in the first trial revealed to them that the jury was in agreement that Read was not guilty on the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death. But last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against them, upholding a lower court's decision to deny their motion to dismiss.
"Can posttrial accounts of jurors' private deliberations that are inconsistent with their public communications in court render the declaration of a mistrial improper, or constitute an acquittal, where the jury did not announce or record a verdict in open court? We conclude that they cannot," the decision read.
Read is accused of ramming into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022. Read’s attorneys argue she is being framed and that other law enforcement officers are responsible for O’Keefe’s death. Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial in June after finding jurors couldn’t reach an agreement.
