The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket didn’t return accused assassin Karen Learn’s trial staff the opinion they needed, and dominated that the truth is she might be tried once more on prices associated to the drunken, late night time crash that prosecutors say took the lifetime of her former boyfriend and Boston cop, John O’Keefe.
“Can posttrial accounts of jurors’ private deliberations that are inconsistent with their public communications in court render the declaration of a mistrial improper, or constitute an acquittal, where the jury did not announce or record a verdict in open court? We conclude that they cannot,” SJC Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote within the opinion of that courtroom filed this morning.
Learn, 44, is charged with second-degree homicide (Depend 1), manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle below the affect (Depend 2) and leaving the scene of an accident inflicting demise (Depend 3) within the demise of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of about two years on the time, on Jan. 29, 2022.
An eight-week trial held final summer season resulted in mistrial after the jurors, as Justice Georges summarizes within the SJC opinion, “deliberated for five days, sending progressively insistent notes to the judge about their inability to reach a unanimous verdict.” Based mostly on the third be aware, Choose Beverly J. Cannone declared a mistrial.
Her attorneys say that a number of jurors reached out after the mistrial to say that they have been solely held on Depend 2, which is the OUI manslaughter cost, and have been able to acquit on the opposite prices. They are saying that no different juror has disputed this declare and that to proceed to attempt her on these prices could be double jeopardy.
The SJC didn’t purchase that argument.
“The jury clearly stated during deliberations that they had not reached a unanimous verdict on any of the charges and could not do so. Only after being discharged did some individual jurors communicate a different supposed outcome, contradicting their prior notes,” Georges wrote. “Such posttrial disclosures cannot retroactively alter the trial’s outcome — either to acquit or to convict. Accordingly, we affirm the trial judge’s denial of the motion to dismiss and the defendant’s request for a posttrial juror inquiry.”
It is a growing story.
Earlier protection
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket will problem its ruling this morning in Karen Learn’s attraction asking that her homicide cost be dropped on the idea of a double jeopardy declare.
“Today’s opinions: Read v. Commonwealth (SJC 13663); Gannett v. Board of Bar Overseers (SJC 13449); Commonwealth v. Maraj (AC 23-P-1142), available after 10 a.m.,” the quick tweet from Workplace of the Reporter of Choices of the SJC introduced this morning.
Learn, 44, of Mansfield, faces prices of second-degree homicide, manslaughter whereas working a motorized vehicle below the affect, and leaving the scene of an accident leading to demise. A trial final yr resulted in mistrial and she or he is scheduled for a second trial on April 1.
Prosecutors say that she struck O’Keefe, a Boston Police officer who she had dated for roughly two years, along with her Lexus SUV after an evening of heavy ingesting and left him to freeze and die on a Canton entrance yard within the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
Learn’s protection attorneys have countered all through the case that Learn has been framed by corrupt and incompetent native and state cops and prosecutors working with the proprietor of the house whose garden O’Keefe was discovered. Protection attorneys say that O’Keefe made it into the house that night time and was crushed to demise inside.
Her attorneys say that a number of jurors reached out after the mistrial to say that they have been solely held on Depend 2, which is the OUI manslaughter cost, and have been able to acquit on the opposite prices. They are saying that no different juror has disputed this declare and that to proceed to attempt her on these prices could be double jeopardy.
“The very day after the trial court declared a mistrial, counsel for Ms. Read began receiving unsolicited communications from five of the twelve deliberating jurors … indicating, unequivocally and unconditionally, that the jury had a firm and unwavering 12–0 agreement that Ms. Read is not guilty of two of the three charges against her, including the charge of murder in the second degree,” legal professional Martin Weinberg wrote in a 55-page argument to the SJC.
Weinberg had argued the identical factor to Norfolk Superior Court docket Choose Beverly Cannone, who proceeded over Learn’s trial earlier this yr, utilizing affidavits from Learn’s trial attorneys detailing the juror disclosures. Cannone was not moved and a month in the past denied the movement to drop the second-degree homicide and leaving the scene of an accident inflicting demise prices in Learn’s new trial.
It is a growing story.
Initially Revealed:
