“After careful consideration, this Court concludes that because the defendant was not acquitted of any charges and defense counsel consented to the Court’s declaration of a mistrial, double jeopardy is not implicated by retrial of the defendant,” Judge Beverly Cannone wrote in her 21-page ruling.
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The judge overseeing the Karen Read case has denied her motion to dismiss two of the charges against her, allowing prosecutors to bring all three charges, including second-degree murder, at the retrial in the closely watched case.
Judge Beverly Cannone issued the ruling Friday, two weeks to the day after holding a hearing where she heard arguments from the defense team and prosecutors about dropping the charges.
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"After careful consideration, this Court concludes that because the defendant was not acquitted of any charges and defense counsel consented to the Court's declaration of a mistrial, double jeopardy is not implicated by retrial of the defendant," Cannone wrote in her 21-page ruling. "The motion is therefore DENIED."
Read's next murder trial is set to begin in January. Cannone has previously said she expected her ruling on Read's motion to dismiss to be appealed.
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Read the Karen Read motion to dismiss denial ruling:
Read's defense had said in moving to dismiss the pair of charges, including second-degree murder and leaving the scene of personal injury, that five jurors have come forward — three directly to them — and confirmed the jury was only unable to agree on the manslaughter charge. The defense argued that retrial on those two charges would violate double jeopardy protections because the jury had unanimously agreed to acquit Read on those charges.
DA's office, defense team respond to ruling
The Norfolk District Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting the Read case, released a statement Friday morning in response to Cannone's ruling.
"We believe that the judge’s decision is consistent with almost 200 years of case law," the statement said. "We are moving forward to trying this case January 27."
Read's defense team also released a statement, saying “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the cornerstones of today’s rulings and fully intend a vigorous appeal to assert and uphold Ms Read’s rights founded on the foundation of the federal constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause."
NBC10 Boston is reaching out to Read's lawyers for comment on Friday's ruling.
Read is accused of ramming into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV and leaving him for dead in a snowstorm outside a Canton home in January 2022, though her team has maintained that she was framed. Her two-month trial ended when jurors declared they were hopelessly deadlocked and a judge declared a mistrial on the fifth day of deliberations.
Her defense team filed the motion to dismiss a week after the mistrial was declared, leaving unresolved a case that has divided the community of Canton and attracted attention far beyond Massachusetts.
After the mistrial, Read's lawyers alleged that one juror said, "no one thought she hit him on purpose or even thought she hit him on purpose." 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 attorney Marty Weinberg had asked Cannone to consider summoning the jurors back to court for more questions.
But the judge said the jurors didn't 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 in court 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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
