"To continue to deliberate would be futile," the foreman of the jury in the Karen Read murder case said in a note to the judge on Monday. Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial after five days of jury deliberations, NBC Boston reports. The jury foreman said that different factions in the "starkly divided" group had very strongly held positions and that it would be impossible to reach consensus, according to the note sent to the judge. "The deep division is not due to a lack of effort or diligence, but rather a sincere adherence to our individual principles and moral convictions," the note said, per CBS News.
During a trial that lasted nine weeks, with testimony from 74 witnesses, prosecutors said Read killed her boyfriend John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer, by hitting him with her vehicle outside a party at the home of another officer in January 2022. Defense lawyers argued that O'Keefe was killed in a fight at the officer's home and that Read was framed. Prosecutors said they intend to retry the case, the AP reports. Read, whose supporters gathered outside the Dedham, Massachusetts, courthouse on Monday, is due back in court in three weeks for a discussion of next steps in the case.
Experts say that if prosecutors make good on the promise to retry Read, 44, it could be months before a new trial begins. "If this case has to be retried, we're going back to the same pool of people, the same Norfolk County jury pool and we're again going to have to try to find a subset of people that really know nothing about this case," says legal analyst Jennifer Roman, per CBS. "It's going to be extraordinarily difficult." (More murder trial stories.)
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