Crime

Federal judge denies Karen Read’s ‘double jeopardy’ request

Read's lawyers had argued that she was actually acquitted on two of the counts against her, citing post-trial statements from jurors. A federal judge disagreed this week.

Karen Read and defense attorney David Yanetti in Norfolk Superior Court. Greg Derr / The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool

March 14, 2025

2 minutes to read

A federal judge denied Karen Read’s attempt to have her state murder charge thrown out on double jeopardy grounds Thursday.

The decision comes after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Read’s appeal last month. Read’s lawyers said afterward that they would take their case to federal court.

So the appeal ended up before U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, who filed a 28-page memorandum this week that denied Read’s appeal.

Prosecutors allege that Read backed her SUV into John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer and her boyfriend, after a night of heavy drinking in January 2022. They say she left him to die outside another officer’s home in Canton. Read’s lawyers have alleged a law enforcement coverup, suggesting that O’Keefe actually entered the home and was beaten, attacked by the family’s dog, and ultimately left outside.

Read’s first trial ended with a hung jury last July. She is due to stand trial again in April.

But after the mistrial, Read’s lawyers heard from jurors who said that the jury had all firmly agreed that Read was not guilty of two of the three charges against her, including the charge of second-degree murder.

Read’s team filed a motion to dismiss those charges, arguing that double jeopardy prohibits prosecutors from retrying Read on those counts. Judge Beverly Cannone, who oversaw the case, denied the motion. That led to the SJC ruling and finally the ruling from Saylor this week.

Attorneys representing Read said that a retrial should not take place on the two charges, arguing that Cannone improperly declared a mistrial. They also argued that jurors actually acquitted Read of the two counts.

The post-trial statements from the jurors “do not actually indicate when the relevant votes were taken, or whether they actually reflect a final, conclusive verdict of acquittal by all twelve jurors,” Saylor wrote.

“In short, any jury vote here was not final,” he wrote. “It was not an ‘actual return, receipt, and recording of a verdict in open court,’ as required under Massachusetts law … there is no other basis, in fact or law, to conclude that it is a ‘ruling’ capable of terminating jeopardy. Accordingly, and as a matter of federal constitutional law, petitioner was not actually acquitted of any of the relevant offenses.”

Read’s lawyers had pushed for a post-trial hearing to confirm jurors’ reports. Saylor wrote that this would be “unlawful and certainly ill-advised”

Read Saylor’s full memorandum below:

Read Federal Order by Ross Cristantiello on Scribd