Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
The Supreme Court denied Karen Read’s request to pause her retrial. What comes next?
The nation's highest court could decide later this month whether to take up Read's double jeopardy claims.
A single justice of the U.S. Supreme Court declined to pause Karen Read’s second murder trial as the court decides whether to take up her double jeopardy appeal.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denied the request Wednesday without explanation, allowing jury selection for Read’s retrial to continue unimpeded. Fifteen jurors had been seated by day’s end Wednesday, with court officials aiming for a total of 16.
Meanwhile, Read’s Supreme Court appeal has been marked “distributed for conference” on April 25 — the date justices could decide whether to take up the case.
Advertisement:
Read, 45, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the January 2022 death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.
More on Karen Read:
Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial in the case July 1 after jurors in Read’s first murder trial reported an impasse. However, Read’s lawyers said they soon heard from jurors that the jury had actually reached unanimous “not guilty” conclusions on two of her charges. Cannone, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, and the two lower federal courts have already rejected the defense team’s bid to get the second-degree murder and leaving-the-scene charges tossed.
Advertisement:
Read escalated her appeal to the nation’s highest court last week, filing a petition for a writ of certiorari. There’s little guarantee the Supreme Court will actually take up the case, as the court receives approximately 7,000 to 8,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each term and only grants and hears oral arguments in about 80 cases, according to its website.
One of the first hurdles: Piquing the justices’ interest. As the University of Michigan Law Library explains, a case is put on the “discuss” list if a justice decides to talk about a particular case in conference. If no justices choose to discuss the case, it is put on the “dead” list and automatically denied certiorari.
According to one estimate from Counsel Press, only a fraction of the petitions distributed for a given conference are actually discussed during that conference “and few, if any, of those discussed, are granted.” Per the Supreme Court’s website, the disposition of a petition discussed at a particular conference is typically announced the following Monday morning.
Four of the nine justices must agree to take up a case.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com