Jurors were ready to acquit him of murder before mistrial

The jury, “deeply divided” over Karen Read’s guilt in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, was hopelessly deadlocked only on a charge of involuntary manslaughter and was unanimously poised to acquit her of murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident before a judge declared a mistrial in the case, her attorneys said in a court filing Monday.

Read’s attorneys, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, are seeking to have the latter two counts dismissed. They argue that retrying Read on those counts would violate the protection against double jeopardy, a constitutional provision that prohibits a person from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.

The attorneys said in their motion to dismiss that Jackson was contacted last Tuesday, a day after the mistrial was declared, by a juror who told him the jury had unanimously agreed that Read was not guilty of second-degree murder or leaving the scene of the crime.

Yannetti said in his own affidavit that he heard much the same thing from two people in contact with two other jurors. He said one of those informants provided screenshots of a conversation with a juror in which they wrote, “I thought the prosecution didn’t make a case. No one thought she hit him on purpose.”

Read, 44, was arrested in February 2022, a month after John O’Keefe was killed. Prosecutors alleged she hit him with her SUV and left him for dead in the snow outside another officer’s home. During closing arguments, a prosecutor emphasized what Read said in the minutes after his body was found the next morning: “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”

At trial, his lawyers cast the facts in a different light, portraying O’Keefe’s killing as a concerted cover-up by fellow officers, who they said beat him to death after a gathering at the suburban home. Authorities have denied any conspiracy in the case.

Judge Beverly J. Cannone declared a mistrial after receiving several notes from jurors indicating they were deadlocked during the five days of deliberations. One, delivered to her Monday morning, said the jury had “fundamental differences of opinion” and that “consensus was impossible to achieve.”

The final score was handed to Cannone Monday afternoon. “Our views on the evidence are very divergent,” the jury wrote. “This deep division is not due to a lack of effort or diligence, but rather to a sincere adherence to our individual principles and moral convictions.”

Cannone said she had “never seen a memo like this” before. But before declaring a mistrial, she did not ask the jury any follow-up questions, including about the counts on which they were deadlocked, according to Jackson and Yannetti.

“Had the Court asked this question, it is clear that verdicts of NOT GUILTY would have been entered on Counts 1 and 3,” they wrote. “Ms. Read was denied her right to receive these verdicts in her favor.”

The lawyers added in their filing that they were also denied the right to speak before the trial was declared a mistrial.

The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said shortly after the mistrial was declared that it intended to retry Read. A spokesperson told Boston radio station WFXT on Monday that prosecutors were “reviewing the motion in anticipation of filing a response.”

A status hearing on the case is scheduled for July 22.