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Karen Read murder trial: Here’s where jury selection stands
Court officials have said they’re aiming for a total of 16 jurors, including four alternates.
3:40 p.m. update: No additional jurors were selected Monday, according to reports from WBZ and Boston 25 News. The number of seated jurors remains at 10.
The tremendous publicity surrounding Karen Read’s murder case didn’t stop attorneys and court officials from seating 10 jurors last week.
Read appeared to be in high spirits Friday as she left Norfolk Superior Court following the first week of jury selection for her highly anticipated retrial in the 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
“I trust they will do the right thing and be objective,” she said of the jurors chosen to decide her fate.
More on Karen Read:
Court officials have said they’re aiming for a total of 16 jurors, including four alternates. The jury box was more than halfway filled by the end of last week, the jurors comprising five men and five women.
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Jury selection resumed Monday morning; once a full jury is seated, Read’s retrial is expected to span about six to eight weeks.
“I hope we can find jurors who are just reasonable and look at the science, look at the evidence, … and then make an informed decision,” her father, William, told reporters Friday, adding that his daughter has a “good way of reading people.”
Read has taken on an active role in jury selection, often huddling with her lawyers and listening in as they question prospective jurors at sidebar. There were 72 potential jurors in Friday’s pool, 66 of whom said they had already seen, heard, or talked about the contentious case. Forty-three indicated they had already formed an opinion.
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Speaking outside the courthouse following the day’s proceedings, William Read fielded a question about the possibility of a prospective juror putting on a false show of impartiality in hopes of making it onto the jury.
“I can’t worry about that,” he said. “I don’t get much sleep as it is.”
Karen Read, 45, has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Prosecutors allege she deliberately backed her SUV into O’Keefe in a drunken rage while dropping him off at a fellow Boston police officer’s home in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022. However, Read’s lawyers contend she was framed, and that O’Keefe was beaten inside the home and tossed out into the snow.
Read filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court last week, restating her claim that jurors in her first trial unanimously — but informally — agreed to acquit her on two of her charges before Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial. The state’s trial court and Supreme Judicial Court previously rejected Read’s appeal, as did the lower federal courts.
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“I have no idea how this process works, but I trust in [appellate attorney] Marty Weinberg,” Read said Friday. “So I feel good about anything Marty does.”
William Read also touched on the double jeopardy appeal, telling reporters, “We do what we can to get her free; we leave no stone unturned.”
Seeing his daughter stand trial for murder a second time, he said, is “hell.”
“We’ve lost three years of our lives,” William Read added.
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