As the Karen Read deliberations stretch into their fourth day, more people are wondering if the case could end in a hung jury, and if so, how long it could be before the judge steps in and a mistrial is declared?
Prosecutors say Read struck Jo…
Massachusetts
How long before a mistrial could be declared in the Karen Read trial?
Anxiety, worry increasing as verdict watch drags on in Karen Read trial
With the jury in the Karen Read murder trial set to enter its fourth day of deliberations on Friday, anxiety is starting to set in among those involved with the case and even Read’s supporters.
Read is charged with second-degree mur…
Urgent care eyed to ease emergency department crowding
State officials and major health care industry groups have agreed to a 90-day approach to address severe emergency department capacity challenges by redirecting certain patients in eastern Massachusetts to urgent care providers.
The Executive …
Jurors in Karen Read murder trial entering 4th day of deliberations
There’s still now verdict in the Karen Read murder trial.
Read is charged with second-degree murder in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John 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.
Watch the Karen Read trial live on nbcboston.com, NECN, NBC Boston streaming platforms (including Roku, Peacock and Samsung TV) and NBC10 Boston’s YouTube page. Every night of the trial at 7 p.m., come back for analysis and more.
Email questions to canton.confidential@nbcuni.com.
The jury convenes again Friday for their fourth day of deliberations — clearly taking their time to reveal all the evidence in the case before making their decision.
Any attorney will tell you no one truly knows what’s going on in a jury room. So, while many legal analysts thought we’d have a verdict by now, others say it’s not surprising the jury is going into its fourth day of deliberations.
They say there could be a multitude of factors — from a holdout for guilty or not guilty, to a group of jurors just wanting to make sure they’ve examined all the evidence and not missed anything that could sway their decision either way.
After all, this is a second-degree murder case, and juries tend to take their responsibility very seriously. Add to that, the fact that getting 12 people to come to a unanimous decision on anything can be difficult.
Criminal defense attorney Peter Elikann says after more than 70 witnesses and nine weeks of testimony, these jurors have a lot to sift through to reach a verdict.
“Keep in mind, we’ve all been talking about this case, gossiping. The jury has never been able to talk about this at all. They’re forbidden to chat about this case, and this is the very first time they’re sitting in a room, the 12 of them, and going over the evidence, and chatting. They must just be ready to explode with all this pent in them for the last nine weeks,” said Elikann.
Looking at other high-profile cases in Massachusetts, they’ve varied in length of deliberations.
For example, in the Aaron Hernandez trials, he was found guilty of killing Odin Lloyd after about 36 hours of deliberations. But he was found not guilty of killing Safiro Furtado and Daniel de Abreu in roughly the same amount of time.
Emmanuel Lopes was found guilty of killing a police officer and a bystander after a week of deliberations, and that happened after his first trial ended with a hung jury.
And Adam Montgomery, who was convicted of killing his daughter Harmony, was found guilty in just eight hours.
Suffolk University Law School professor Chris Dearborn says it’s hard to know what’s going on it that jury room, and even harder to determine whether that signals a guilty or not guilty verdict.
“One possibility is they’re just really taking this seriously. They were together for six weeks. They heard a lot of evidence. They want to get it right. And I think that’s a good sign for the system when they do that,” said Dearborn. “It’s also possible that they’re caught up on one kind of piece of evidence. There may be one or two holdouts from whatever the majority position is, and they’re trying to work all that through.”
Deliberations are scheduled to resume around 9 a.m. Friday.
Dry and mild end to workweek before humidity, storms return this weekend
Nice dry, fresh start Friday. Full sun with highs in the upper 70s make this a top 10 summer day. There will be a gentle sea breeze along the coast in the afternoon.
I’m still liking the look of most of the weekend. Saturday sees the clo…
