The Karen Read defense team suffered an expected blow on Friday as Judge Beverley Cannone ruled against motions to dismiss accused murderer Karen Read of second-degree murder charges and charges of leaving the scene of an accident after knowingly injuring someone.
Read is on trial for allegedly striking her then boyfriend Boston police officer John O’Keefe with her SUV after an argument when she was dropping O’Keefe at a friend’s afterparty after a night of bar hopping.
The defense for Read claims that O’Keefe was murdered at the party by homeowner Brian Albert, nephew Colin Albert and friend Brian Higgins and then deposited on Albert’s front lawn as part of a massive conspiracy to blame Read for the murder.
Read’s first trial for the murder ended in July with a hung jury after a little over 24 hours of deliberations. Her defense team had pushed for a mistrial early in the deliberations as a note was sent indicating that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked and then bragged afterwards that they successfully defended Read from the charges by the Commonwealth.
Both actions were noted in Judge Cannone’s decision, rejecting the defense’s new claim that they were not allowed to object to the mistrial and that they had new evidence that the jury unanimously acquitted Read of two of the three counts, but never put those verdicts forward as they were “confused” by jury instructions.
Read’s defense team has been leading a public campaign to declare that Read was found “innocent beyond a reasonable doubt” even though the jury was hung and never came forward with a verdict in the case.
Hampering the defense’s long shot efforts was the fact that none of the jurors, including one who was recently interviewed by Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney, would provide affidavits to back their statements.
The prosecution countered the motions by stating that the judicial system is based on actual verdicts by juries, not allegations of jury votes from the deliberation room, and that the defense had multiple opportunities to join the prosecution in objecting to the mistrial.
Prosecutor Adam Lally had fought valiantly against the mistrial as he felt that twenty-four hours, after eight weeks of testimony, was simply not enough time for the jury to review the evidence, let alone come up with a verdict. He was overruled and the Judge declared a mistrial without objection from the defense.
Read is expected to appeal the decision to the Massachusetts State Supreme Court.
Her second trial for the murder of John O’Keefe is expected to start in late January 2025.
