BOSTON (WHDH) - Karen Read’s defense team is challenging a federal court’s decision not to dismiss the charges against her, coming just weeks before her retrial is set to begin.
Read claims her constitutional rights have been violated under “double jeopardy” — bring prosecuted twice for the same crime. However, several courts disagree.
Read filed paperwork Friday with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, hoping that panel will overrule the federal judge’s decision released Thursday.
The chief judge of the U.S. District Court denied Read’s efforts to get two charges dismissed or to force a Superior Court judge in Dedham to call the jurors back and question them about whether they did, in fact, come to unannounced verdicts.
Read claims four jurors — and a fifth indirectly — from the first trial told the defense that the jury decided Read was not guilty of second-degree murder and another charge.
However, this was never discussed on the verdict form or verbally, and Judge Beverly Cannone did not poll the jury before dismissing them and declaring a mistrial last summer.
Federal Judge F. Dennis Saylor noted Cannone is not required to do so, and also noted she received three notes from the jury saying they were hopelessly deadlocked. Also, Saylor said the defense never asked that the jury be polled.
Saylor declined to overrule a decision by the Supreme Judicial Court, which said Cannone did not abuse her discretion when she declared a mistrial.
Read is due to go on trial for a second time on April 1 in connection with the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe.
Cannone is slated to hold a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday.
(Copyright (c) 2025 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)