The Judge Has Sent the Jury in the Karen Read Trial Back to Deliberate for a Second Time

The highly publicized murder trial of Karen Read — who was accused of killing her Boston police officer boyfriend — caught the attention of the masses as soon as it began on April 16, 2024.

Read, who worked as an adjunct professor at Bentley College, claimed that she dropped off her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, at a friend's house on the evening of Jan. 28, 2022. When he didn't return by the next morning, she drove back to the friend's house — only to find O'Keefe's body lying dead in the snow.

Police eventually charged Read with second-degree murder in addition to a manslaughter charge and leaving the scene of an injury/death. Her defense claimed that law enforcement framed her, and that O'Keefe had been beaten inside the house and dragged outside. But prosecutors said Read hit O'Keefe with her car and left him to die.

A little after noon on day four of deliberations (June 28, 2024), the jury sent out a note to the judge saying they were, to put it bluntly, stuck. They wrote that "despite their exhaustive review of the evidence and our diligent consideration of all disputed evidence, we are unable to reach a unanimous verdict."

The Commonwealth disagreed with this, stating the jury did spend sufficient time discussing the case.

Read's lawyers sided with the jury and focused on the word "exhaustive."

"They are communicating to the court that they've exhausted all manner of compromise, all manner of persuasion, and they're at an impasse," said David Yannetti. He pointed to the fact that they only asked one question and had already been working hard for nearly four full days.

At this point, they have all the information needed to make an informed decision.

Judge Beverly Cannone reminded the court that she ultimately decided. She disagreed with the amount of time the jury has spent looking at evidence as they only had one full day of deliberation, on June 26.

The jury was dismissed early on the other days. "We heard from 74 witnesses. There were 657 exhibits. There are very complex issues in this case. I'm not prepared to find that there have been due and thorough deliberations at this point."

She then told the jury they would resume after lunch.

On July 1 after deliberating for two hours, the jury once again sent a note to Judge Cannone stating they were still conflicted but it had nothing to do with the available evidence. They were divided by their "fundamental differences" as well as their "deeply held convictions." Once again Judge Cannon send them back in to deliberate, stating that a new jury would be pulled from the same pool of people and would be no more equipped to come to a decision.

NBC Boston reported that Read's lawyers argued with Judge Cannone on the morning of Weds., June 26, that there may be some confusion with the form that the jury (who were not present at the time) received. Defense attorney Alan Jackson was concerned about there not being a box to check off "not guilty" on the jurors' slip.

Judge Cannone reiterated that if the "guilty" box isn't checked, the verdict reads as "not guilty." "That is not how it should be, and it's over our strong objection," Jackson said. "They need to see that there is a not guilty option."

The judge disagreed. The jury then sent out a note with a request.

The jury wanted to see the state police Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) report. The SERT was sent to the crime scene in order to collect evidence. The main source of contention in this endeavor was surrounding pieces of Read's taillight, which were located several days later.

Read's lawyer asserts that law enforcement planted them to make Read look guilty. Authorities claim that the reason why it took more time to find them was because the snow had to melt first. This proved to be irrelevant as there was no SERT report for the jury to see.

It was never entered into evidence. Perhaps if it was, the jury would have a unanimous decision by now.