Less than a week after a judge declared a mistrial in the Karen Read murder case, her lawyers are now pushing for some of the charges against her to be dismissed.
With the Karen Read murder case heading back to court at some point, the defense is looking to dismiss some of the charges against her.
Read's lawyers argue the jury did unanimously agree that she was not guilty of two of three charges, despite the judge declaring the high-profile case a mistrial.
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The two charges Read's defense are contesting are second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in death. They claim they were contacted by three jurors who said the entire jury all agreed Read was not guilty of those two charges during deliberations.
If the prosecution goes through with re-trying this case, which they say they intend on doing, the court has to dismiss those charges because it would be against the constitution to prosecute someone twice for the same crime.
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It should be noted that they are not contesting the motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence charge.
"The question is why then wasn't the form completed at all, because there were spaces, certainly for the second-degree murder charge for them to have checked off not guilty, but that wasn't done on the form returned to the court," said legal analyst Michael Coyne.
Meanwhile, the names of jurors in the trial are officially protected due to safety concerns.
"It could mean harm of harassment, intimidation, threats," explained Robert Cordy, former associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
The names will be withheld from the public for at least 10 days.
As it relates to the motion to dismiss the charges, NBC10 Boston contacted the Norfolk District Attorney's Office who say they anticipate filing a response and look forward to picking a new trial date on July 22.
