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Jury deliberations are coming up in Karen Read’s murder trial. These are the possible outcomes.
With Karen Read’s trial coming to a close, jurors will soon be tasked with determining the matter of Read’s guilt or innocence. There are a few ways the trial could conclude.
They’ve sat through weeks of witness testimony, pored over the evidence, and listened in as prosecutors and defense attorneys spun two vastly different tales. But jurors in the Karen Read trial have yet to answer the question of the hour: Is Read guilty of murder?
The 44-year-old Mansfield woman’s case has become a singular obsession in Greater Boston and beyond, captivating audiences and generating strong opinions on both sides.
Read is accused of drunkenly and intentionally backing her SUV into Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, in January 2022. Prosecutors allege she struck O’Keefe while dropping him off at a house party in Canton following a night of drinking. However, Read’s lawyers say she was framed in a widespread coverup, painting her as a “convenient outsider” upon whom witnesses and law enforcement could lay the blame.
More on Karen Read:
Read has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter while driving under the influence, and leaving the scene of a collision causing injury and death.
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The prosecution rested its case Friday, and the presiding judge for the trial, Judge Beverly Cannone, said jurors are expected to begin their deliberations sometime this week. Here’s what to know about the potential outcomes.
‘Guilty’ or ‘not guilty’
First, any conviction or acquittal must be unanimous.
For each criminal charge, the jury could find Read “guilty” or “not guilty.” If Read is acquitted, she can’t be tried again for the same crime — otherwise known as double jeopardy. If she’s found guilty, the next step would be sentencing.
According to the state’s model jury instructions, a defendant may be found guilty of a charge only if all 12 deliberating jurors agree that prosecutors proved that charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
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“A charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt if, after you have compared and considered all of the evidence, you have in your minds an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, that the charge is true,” the instructions explain. Moral certainty, per the state’s definition, is “the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs.”
Once jury deliberations get underway in Read’s trial, alternate jurors will likely remain in a separate room. However, they may be tapped to participate if one of the 12 deliberating jurors is excused for reasons such as a personal emergency or sickness, according to the model jury instructions.
“If this happens, the deliberating jury will have to restart its discussions from the beginning,” the instructions note.
There are also some cases where a judge might take jurors out of the equation altogether. Defense attorney Alan Jackson pushed for one such directed verdict Friday, arguing that no “reasonable or rational” jury could reach a unanimous “guilty” verdict. He urged Cannone to intervene and issue an acquittal.
However, the judge ultimately shot down Jackson’s request.
Can the jury deliver a split verdict?
While jurors might deliver the same verdict for all three charges, another possibility is a split verdict — also known as a “compromise verdict” — wherein jurors acquit on some charges but convict on others.
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In Read’s case, that might mean she is found not guilty of murder but convicted of motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision. (Here’s a rundown of what prosecutors have to prove in order to convict Read of second-degree murder.)
If Karen Read is found guilty, could she appeal?
In the event she’s found guilty of any charges, Read could appeal the verdict.
“The defense has done a great job of making robust objections and engaging in terrific cross-examinations,” said Daniel Medwed, a criminal law professor at Northeastern University. “That should ‘preserve’ many viable issues for appeal. The success rate on appeal, however, is low in general.”
Indeed, the court system’s website notes that only a minority of appeals actually succeed.
“An appeal is not a new trial,” the website explains. “If your appeal is successful, the appellate court may grant you a new trial, send the case back to the trial court for a hearing or, in unusual circumstances, dismiss your case.”
On the other hand, double jeopardy means there’s essentially no appeals process for prosecutors when a defendant is acquitted.
What if the jury can’t reach a unanimous decision?
Given how polarizing Read’s case has been, the jury is likely in for some extensive debate.
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“This case tends to generate strong feelings, and it’s quite possible the jury has strongly divergent opinions too,” Medwed noted in an email interview. “That said, it’s impossible to know what the dynamic of the jury is like and how the conversations will proceed behind closed doors.”
If jurors wind up deadlocked without a unanimous verdict — otherwise known as a hung jury — the judge may declare a mistrial and prosecutors could retry the case later on with a new jury. A judge could also declare a mistrial for a handful of other reasons, including prosecutorial misconduct or the loss of too many jurors, per Lawyers.com.
Notably, Cannone declared a mistrial last year after jurors deadlocked in the case of Emanuel Lopes, who was on trial for killing Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna and bystander Vera Adams in 2018. Jurors again struggled to reach a unanimous verdict during Lopes’s second trial earlier this year, and Cannone ordered the jury to keep deliberating. Lopes was ultimately found guilty.
“A hung jury is pretty rare,” said Rosanna Cavallaro, a professor of criminal law and evidence at Suffolk University Law School.
“If they have questions, if they have concerns, they bring them to the judge, they get new instructions, or they get to review evidence that they think is something that’s worth looking at again more closely,” Cavallaro explained. “And in the instance where there’s truly a hung jury, even then, the judge does everything they can to nudge the jury forward.”
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She added: “Judges understand that a lot of resources have already been poured into this, and that’s not something you just walk away [from] and say, ‘Oh well, let’s try again.’ So I think that’s a long way down the road.”
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