State Supreme Court Denies Karen Read Request to Dismiss Some Charges
On Tuesday February 18, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court refused a defense request to dismiss two charges against Karen Read, clearing the way for her retrial to begin in April.
Read’s first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury failed to be able to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the charges against her. However, after trial, some jurors stated that they had unanimously agreed Read was not guilty of the second-degree murder charge or leaving the scene of an accident and had hung only on the manslaughter charge.
Relying on these statements, Read’s defense lawyers argued that it would be a violation of double jeopardy to retry Read on the murder and leaving the scene charges, if in fact the first jury had acquitted her on those charges. The defense asked the state high court to order the presiding judge, Beverly Cannone, to interview all the jurors to determine whether they had acquitted Read on some charges.
The state high court denied that request. What counts, the court stressed, was the formal verdict slip the jury submitted at the time, which clearly stated they had not reached a unanimous verdict on any of the charges. Subsequent statements some of the jurors may have made to the press or to defense counsel does not alter the significance of what the jury officially declared to be their verdict at the time.