Jurors in the Karen Read murder trial sent a note to Judge Beverly Cannone on Friday saying they had been unable to reach a unanimous verdict. The judge ultimately sent them back to continue deliberating, but what happens if they remain deadlocked?
Morjieta Derisier, criminal defense attorney with Baystate Law Group, said on NBC10 Boston’s “Canton Confidential” Friday that there are a number of scenarios in play.
“If you’re at an impasse with a hung jury, that means they’re really not sure,” she said. “That’s not a win for the prosecution. That’s a win for the defense team, because they at least have some people who believe [Read] is not guilty in some respects.”
“Then the coin is back in the prosecution’s hand as to whether or not they’re going to retry, and it’s not always a guarantee. They may not, so at that point it’d be a win for the defense because you’re not sure if they’re gonna retry.”
At the same time, Derisier said if the judge pushes the jury too hard to reach a decision, that could become an issue upon appeal.
“If jurors feel like they’re being pushed too much, now you have an issue upon appeal, which will unravel a lot of this,” she said.
Tuey-Rodriguez instructions
If the jury comes back to the judge a second time and again says they can’t reach a unanimous verdict, Derisier said Cannone could still send them back to continue their deliberations. But at that point, she’d probably give them some instruction.
“She can send the back again. I think official Tuey-Rodriguez instructions will be read to them. When you listen to those instructions it pretty much tells them they’re the best people to make this decision. It gives them some encouragement or it’s supposed to that they’re the ones who should decide this case. After that, it really becomes the question if she keeps sending them back.”
“It’s a really long instruction,” she added. “The key phrase is that the jury sitting now is the best group to decide the case because they’ve heard all the evidence, they’ve heard all the facts.”
Would prosecutors seek to retry Karen Read?
And if Read is found not guilty, would there be further investigation into who is guilty of killing John O’Keefe, her Boston police officer boyfriend?
“The prosecution still has a duty to find justice for the O’Keefe family,” Derisier said. “They may very well retry Karen Read. They may drop some of the major charges, the second degree murder, maybe just go for the manslaughter charges or involuntary manslaughter at that point.”
“The investigation is hard, because there are so many inconsistencies,” she added. “It would be very hard to go back and find new evidence. They have the evidence they already have, and I don’t think at this point there’s any other further investigation they can do outside of what they already have.”
“Of course there could be new evidence that’s introduced,” said Sue O’Connell, NBC10 Boston commentator and analyst. “There could be somebody, if something happened and they know and they didn’t share it that could come forward, and that could impact the O’Keefe family getting the answers they deserve and justice in some form being served for John O’Keefe. But I can’t predict the future and I can’t predict if that would happen and when it would happen.”
Read is charged with second-degree murder in the January 2022 death of O’Keefe. She’s accused of dropping him off at another officer’s house party in Canton, Massachusetts, after a night of drinking, and then hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm.
Her defense team argues she was framed, and that the evidence shows O’Keefe was beaten up by someone else inside the house, bitten by a dog and left outside.
Jurors were set to resume their deliberations in the case on Monday morning.
