(HorizonPost.com) – The judge in the Karen Read murder trial last Monday declared a mistrial after the jury remained deadlocked after 27 hours of deliberation, prompting prosecutors to announce that they would retry the case.
After four full days of deliberation, jurors sent the judge a note on the fifth day informing her that they remained deadlocked.
Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial and scheduled a hearing for July 22 to decide the next step in the case that has divided the community of Dedham, Massachusetts since Read’s arrest in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
Following the judge’s decision, the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that it planned to retry the case.
In their note to Judge Cannone, the jurors said that despite their “rigorous efforts” they were at an “impasse,” with the members of the jury “starkly divided” on the evidence.
At issue for the jury was the question of whether the evidence presented at the trial surpassed the burden of proof to establish the “elements of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” Some jurors thought that there was sufficient evidence while others did not.
The jurors told the judge that continued deliberations “would be futile” and would only force them “to compromise these deeply held beliefs.”
Judge Cannone told the jurors that she would not “do that to you folks.” She discharged their services and declared a mistrial.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson told reporters following the proceedings that a deadlocked jury was what happened when prosecutors “bring false charges against an innocent person.”
Jackson accused the district attorney’s office of bringing “the weight of the state” down on his client “based on spurious charges” and “compromised witnesses and investigators.”
Read was accused of striking O’Keefe with her vehicle after leaving a party at a home in Canton before driving away leaving him to die in a snowstorm. She was charged with multiple counts, including second-degree murder.
The defense argued that O’Keefe had been killed inside the Canton home and dragged outside.
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